The world is in a bad shape

Looking back at the happenings for this year.. 2008 does not look too good. Natural disasters, rising oil and food price and the political situation at home and abroad are all not looking too good.

The cyclone that hit Mynamar and the earthquake that hit China killed so many people. Lost of lives, lost of shelter, lost of love ones disease are all the suffering that are endured by the people there. Then other people around the world have to chip in to assist the victims to recover.

Oil price has sky rocketed to USD122 per barrel. Why? I cannot give a definate answer but one of the reason is the devaluation of the US dollar which was caused by the mortgage sub-prime that hit the Americans. I do not feel that there is actually a shortage of oil. The same bag of 10kg of fragent rice that I bought last month which cost me RM36.00 now cost RM50.00. Even the rice at the chicken rice plate has became less since I came back from Shanghai. The price of food stuff has also sky rocket.

Political situation in Malaysia has been interesting after the General Elections in March. Looks like there will be some changes within this year but whetehr the changes are good would be left to be seem.

Looks like it will be challenging 2008!!

Finally I am HOME!!

I managed to touch down at KLIA at 8.50 p.m. on 8 May 2008 , after being away for 26 days (since 13 April 2008). Luckily, the project went very smooth with not hitches. My team and I managed to "get out" before the actual scheduled return date by 4 days. Every one of us were eager to come home. Wifes are waiting, daughters are waiting, boyfriends are waiting and family are waiting for our return.

It was raining on the morning of 8 May and the rain did not stopped even till 11.50 a.m. when we decided to take the cab to the airport. The flight was at 3.50 p.m. but flying Business Class, we can enjoy the executive lounge where we can dine and sit comfortability from the people who are traveling on Economy class. Unless the last time I was in Shanghai, we have to check into the new Terminal 2 of Pudong Airport. I was surprised when I landed at Pudong on 13 April where I could not see many people around. I only realized that I touched down at Terminal 2. Similarly, flying back to KL also require us to check in at Terminal 2.

The plane took off as scheduled and we managed to land on time.

Reaching home, I am like Santa Claus (as described by my daughter, Carrie) opening up my bags (yes, from 2 bags going to Shanghai, I returned with 5 bags) bringing out all the stuff that I have bought for the family. You can see the details of the stuff that I bought from Carrie's blog.

I have been busy today sorting out my things like getting my Tag Heuer serviced (the battery is going to die), went for a hair cut and went to the aquarium shop to get some stuff for the fishes. After that, most of time is spend in front of the PC sorting our my photos. You can see photos at http://www. flickr.com/photos/kokkuen.