Leaving On A Jetplane (part III)

OK as I've promised a few days ago, here's the story of Perth & Fremantle...

As I said in the previous post, during the APRICOT, if you haven't got any workshops for that day, it means you are free to do whatever you want. So, I took the liberty of having that kind of privilege to have a visit to Fremantle and Perth itself. Fremantle is about 30 km (I'm just guessing here!) from Perth and it's a very nice and peaceful town. But I made a mistake by went there after lunch time, so I have not enough time to have a proper visit at Fremantle. Mostly, just bought some souvenirs, took some photos, walking down the street... and that's it... :-(

Anyhow, enjoy the photos... :-)

It's AUD17 if you choose to go to Fremantle by a ferry. But it's not a Penang-like ferry. It's a big ferry and you will have a very pleasant journey to Framantle. But since I don't have enough time, I just took a bus. Not too bad, but the highway (they called it highway! Or is it freeway?) is not vey much like ours back here in Malaysia. I think ours is much better (is it why Malaysia is one of the countries which are among the highest in the number of accident?).

If you choose to use a bus, it will cost you AUD3.20. And if you're unlucky (or lucky, depends on your taste! :-D), you will stuck with schoold kids, who are on their way back from school. Well, being the usual kids, they are talking and yelling like no one is around them. It reminds me of someone who used to be exactly like that long time ago. No, I was talking about me myself....





*One of the mode of transportation to Fremantle*






As I've mentioned earlier, I choose bus over ferry, due to time limitation. So this is the bus station in Perth. Pretty much like KL Sentral, only smaller in size, and it only a bus station, unlike KL Sentral where it has LRT as well, KTM Komuter & ERL.







From the station, you have to go down to catch the bus. Different place requires you to go different platfom.

That banner is something to promote Australian to report any suspicious activities which might trigger terrorism.


*I see dead people*




That's a bus! But not the bus....










And after 45 minutes and AUD3.20 poorer, we have safely arrived at Fremantle....

The train station. Forgot to tell. Other than ferry and a bus, you could also choose a train. But not sure how long it will takes, how much it will cost you and whether or not the train is OK.

The bus station in Fremantle is right in front (or behind, or side-by-side, depends from which angle that you're looking from) the bus station. But I'm not sure where's the ferry station here in Fremantle...




I'm not sure what kind of building this is. But it's quite nice and clean. I think the temperature was quite high that day . It was a hot day indeed. Not sure about the average temperature here.








This is a church building. Or at least used to be a church. ..










Lagi mau tanya? Itu burung merpati la...










The bus station. That building is the train station that I mentioned just now...


It's time to get back to Perth. Not many photos was taken here, coz I couldn't find anything spectacular (of course there are other photos of Fremantle in my possession), plus at this very moment, I'm carrying with me souvenirs, which eventually put me into trouble at the airport during the return flight to KL (will post about it later)




Well, after a week in Perth, this day was actually a day (the only day) for me to walk around here and there. During other days, the schedule is pretty much like "wake up, breakfast, class/workshop/conference, dinner, tido"...

Office of General Counsel of Malaysia in Perth. Just in case you MAY have trouble here in Perth, make sure you know this place. Or at least know how to ask people the direction to get here... Of course, it wouldn't do much good if you're not Malaysian... ;-)







According to the signboard, this is a Government's House. Not sure if it's state's or federal's. Nothing fancy about it.









I think this is a local municipal's bulding...










One of the restaurants in Perth which served halal & malay food. Not too bad, but quite expensive.









The street mall at Perth. There's a souvenir, liquor, handphone, phone, books and etc etc shops around here. But strange... I couldn't find any Starbuck's and Coffee Bean's around here. I wonder why...










*grin*

Wicked.... :-D






Remember the ferry services that I mentioned just now? If you want to go there, look for this... errr... building... or... tower... or... thing....

Nevermind... just look for that. It's a unique kind of shape building, and there's no other building similar to this, so it's supposed to be an easy task to find it.

Yeah, it's quite a tall building, so you should be able to see it, especially if you're from the airport...



Perth from a distance... about 1km away...










OK I don't know what's the name of the equipment, but I was so tempting to called it a b***job....

It's true what?! I mean anyhow, that person has to 'blow' that 'thing'...


p/s : Didn't mean to offend any Australian. But nobody could give me the right answer... :-(





My dinner. I bought it from another halal restaurant (Insan's Cafe). Ada nasi putih, kepah goreng sambal & kacang & ikan bilis goreng. It's yummy & a bit cheaper than the previous restaurant.


*another Gatorade?*

Yeah, because I'm not a big fan of Red Bull... :-D




*Aiseh, bersambung le pulakkkk...*

Wireless-less Notebook

Hmmm....

How am I gonna start ek?

Hmmm....

Right now, my laptop is wireless-less. Why? Well... Actually, the wireless feature never available since the day I got this laptop. But only after 1 1/2 half years I've managed to contact the technician from the laptop company (not Intel!), so busy la... So that guy came, check here and there and dismantle my laptop but still wireless-less. Finally, he took the wireless card out (it's installed in the laptop) and will get back to me once he has checked the card.

Hmmm... Doesn't make any difference. Either way, I still couldn't use it. I've lost 12 productive days (yeah right!) during the APRICOT (check previous posts) coz I couldn't get connected to the civilized world (checking e mails, chatting, F1-ing etc). And to make it worse, they only have the facilities only for wireless network, not wired. So it means no available port for UTP cable. Can you imagine? Networkers in network-less mode!

Well... fingers crossed. After this, I hope it's going to be OK. Otherwise, I'll have to buy a wireless card on my own... :-(

And to certain someone out there, congratulations for the interview. It's going to be the first time for you to jump ship! As for me, unless the offer came from Vodafone, Cisco, McLarenF1 team, NTT, PCCW and kawasan2 yg sewaktu dengannya, I'll think about it(doesn't mean that I'm going to say NO! Just thinking about the offer). What does it mean? Well, it means, if, let's say, Ron Dennis (McLaren) asked me "Do you want to work with us?", I'll ask "Do you want me to go straight to the next F1 circuit or go to your HQ in Woking first?" :-D

*Cepat la woiii... Aku nak pakai wireless nih...!!!*

Gotta go now. Another customer is just waiting to kick our a** if we don't get the job done. Will post another rumblings and mumblings later... kot...




*the wireless-less notebook*















<--- Latest news -->

It's not my fault!!! It's confirmed that due to the circuit failure on the motherboard, that wireless feature is not available, and it's going to be like that FOREVER!!! FOREVER!!! *insert Spongebob's style of yelling FOREVER here*.

Of course, it means I have to apply for a new wireless card then....

Hehehehe, since I'm in a 'shopping' mode!, what model should I apply ek? Hmmm... after surfing here and there to check the suitable wireless card for me, I've decided that this will be my choice. Hopefully my company will say "Yes, you may kiss the bride.." Errrr... I mean, the USB Wireless Card....



This is Linksys WUSBF54G Wireless-G USB Network Adapter with Wi-Fi Finder.

"The Wireless-G USB Adapter with Wi-Fi Finder is a handy, pocket-sized device that combines an easy-to-use wireless network scanner with a USB-connected Wireless-G network adapter. Now you can scan for available wireless connectivity before turning on your computer. If the scanner does find a network, just plug it into your PC and get connected."



*huhuhuhu.. gembira rasanya di hati*

Well, kalau le company approve. Kalau tak, kena cari alternative lain le. Fingers crossed. Huhuhuhu... :-D

Leaving On A Jetplane (part II)

OK where were we? Oh, the APRICOT stuff....

The APRICOT itself is not actually like a UN General Meetings. Not even remotely similar! It has workshops (5 days crash course) on many issues like ISP Routing, BGP and IPv6, tutorial (one day or half day) about other things or new technologies like MetroEthernet, MPLS, BGP, Traffic Engineering etc etc. If you're lucky enough, you will find a day (or days) that you area of working totally no related to the topic of the day. And that's when you took your unrecorded annual leave and have a vacation of your own, FREE OF CHARGE...!!! :-D

Anyway, these are the photos from the conference. Enjoy....







The venue is called "Perth Convention Exhibition Centre". It's a conference centre cum exhibition center cum meeting centre cum whatever things that they may use whenever and whatever ways they wanted.







Of course, we have to register first. And it's good that we don't have any problem during registration.

There you go! APRICOT stands for Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies. Someone asked me yesterday, why, after all working with technological stuff and surrounded by networking geeks, the conference is called after some fruit?!

Well, that's the answer bebeh! APRICOT is initial indeed, not a fruit!












* I need Google Earth*










This poor old chap is a technician for this convention center. During the workshop, the projector suddenly go "Boom" and the grey smoke came out from that equipment. Quite a drama, since we thought it might explode with all the blazing fire and flame or anything like that!

So it means another 10 minutes break (yes, I said "another"). Therefore, some of us took the liberty to take picture of the process of changing the whatever things inside that projector. And no, I'm not taking the picture because he's cute! I'm a straight guy la kawan!

Instructor : Are you going to publish the photos?
Me : Oh yeah, definitely!







The equipment. All routers are 2500 series and switches are 1900 series. OK le tu. Bukannya nak support call centre! For the sake of learning je. That laptop on top of the routers are 1996 Pentium Pro (I think!) running on Linux! If it's running on Windows, half of the class time might probably be wasted because it will crash most of the time!











The final day of the workshop (not the whole event itself). Everybody is trying to be nice, and help to disassemble the equipment and cables. Actually, many of them (including me of course) just keep staring and hanging around coz there are enough people to do the task! And some are still surfing and chatting on the internet and totally ignoring other people!







Instructor : Say "CROCODILE!!!"

*apsal aku sengih semacam je?*














I think this one is the reception ceremony of APRICOT. We (me & my colleague) were totally excited bcoz we thought it's going to be a free dinner (morning tea, lunch and evening tea were provided by organizer, dinner is "go Dutch"). So we keep ourselves from eating any food, even junk food, so that we will have enough "space" to fill in with all the food. Well, we failed to ask whether they will provide any food or not!

Apparently, the only food that they served is sushi, and some choc cakes. And drinks. That's all!






Waiter : Red wine, white wine or beer sir?
Me : Errrr, lemonade please... *blush*

Tadaaaa, the wonderful world of small bar at the reception ceremony. And yes, it's free. Just ask whatever you want, whether it's white wine, red wine, blue wine, yellow wine. etc etc









Next post.... Fremantle, Australia and some other places...

Mental Note : Clear cache

Ladies and gentlemen, now I know that sometimes, in order for us to see the current post/settings of our blog., we have to "clear cache" first. Malu siottt... :-(

Moral Of The Story : If in doubt, do not hesitate to click the "Help" button... :-D

"Ooooo... Pakcik baru tau...!!!"

Leaving On A Jetplane (part I)

OK... I know I should post it long time ago, but the thing is, I'm just plain lazy.... That's it...


On 21th Feb 2006, marked my first time going outside of Malaysia (Singapore not included!). There's a thing called APRICOT which was held in Perth, Australia. So I was lucky enough to be among the employee who were sent by my company to go there. It's a hectic weeks before that bcoz I don't even have my passport. Yeah I know that they say you can get them for in 3 - 4 days, but due to some undisclosed information that I couldn't revealed, it takes me about 2 weeks. My passport was ready on 20th Feb, a day before the trip! Moral of the story : If you changed anything on your personal information, please let the respective government agencies knew, otherwise you'll be fucked up big time kow kow...

Enough about that, the trip itself was OK. But the usual me, I was getting bored after 2 hours flight (KL to Perth is about 5 hours, 16 months if you're walking from Madras, plus minus!) . The inflight movie, among others, are Bourne Identity, Anak Mami Kembali (i think!) (uweeekkk!!) and some others. The only thing that I hoped for (apart from being land safely) is to land quickly, coz I'm already starving!


Hehehehe, at least I've managed to get a window seat, but not very comfortable, coz that window is a bit further in front of me. But at least I have something to watch during the flight, of course, other than "Anak(l) Mami Kembali"




Perth International Airport. Yeap, that one is the plane. Notice the small plane back there on the left. Guess who's in town as well...


That is the official jet of our Prime Minister, Pak Lah. It's not small actually (of course it's small if you compare with Boeing 747!). That is Bombardier Global Express 5000, where you can have a non-stop flight from KL to London (or is it Paris?) . Don't ask how much is the cost. If you do, it means you can't afford it! Pak Lah buat apa kat Perth ek? Cari beruang koala?


"Pemegang Pasport Lain"? Ramai sangat ke orang Malaysia (kalau Indonesian, diorang panggil "passpor", betul ka?) datang Perth?



The hotel and the room. Not a huge one, but fits me quit nicely. The adult channel a.k.a porn is available for subscription, but it's not FOC. It will set you (or in this case, me) back around AUD14.95 per view! Thanks but no thanks. My Torrent & LimeWire is free, and I have enough of them in my laptop... Errrr, I mean, video clips of my favourite songs...



Here I am, having my dinner ( a huge kebab, which costs me around AUD11). But it's huge and delicious as well, plus there's a lot of stuff inside the kebab. But since it's a good dinner, who cares about what they put inside. The time is around 6:30 p.m and it's quite chill and windy. Too bad most of the shops closed at 6 p.m, otherwise it's a good chance for me to have a look around the area.


Dare to kebab?

*Bersambung selepas ini...*

Live To Tell

Hmmm...

Looks like another blog for me. I hope this one will survive longer than my previous blogs.... :-)