Tag: taiwan

It has been one and a half weeks since I got to Taipei. It’s been a hectic time, with all the testing and bug fixing going on. But it has been much better than the last time we did the SIT and UAT here. Still, there are frustrations here and there, and that can be solved with some ranting. But all in all, work is proceeding quite smoothly and thank God for that.

Okay, enough about work……

Moving along, I noticed that this time round, I want to get out on weekends and go out of the hotel room. The last weekend, I went out to roam the streets a bit and did a bit of window shopping. And the best part, I did it all on public transport. Yeah, that means taking the subway. And this weekend, I intend to go up to the National Palace Museum to take in the sights. My parents went last year when they were around in Taipei and I’ve been wanting to go ever since. Now, this weekend, I’m getting my chance.

Oh yes! I discovered Cold Stone Creamery in Taipei!! And I’ve been there a few times. My favourite: Apple Pie A La Cold Stone. Not that I’ve tried all their creations, but that is what excites me most at the moment. Their ice-cream is fantastic to say the least. Hopefully, it comes to Singapore soon. But for sure I’ll be headed back there a few more times before heading back to Singapore.

I’m looking forward to getting back to Singapore. Miss the dear, miss church, miss ministry and miss my friends. Pray that the remaining time I have here in Taipei will be smooth going.

I’m going to stop here to retire. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

I’m back in Taiwan. This time for 3 weeks. Going to conduct the Systems Integration Tests (SIT) and User Acceptance Tests (UAT) during this trip. Pray that everything will go smoothly.

My flight to Taipei yesterday was 8 hours long! That’s right, 8 hours. Why? Typhoon! We were about an hour out from Taipei when I noticed on the moving map display that we have made a U-turn. After a while, the captain came on the PA and said that we were diverting to Hong Kong as the Taipei airport was closed. My first diversion ever in my flying "career". In any case, we landed at Hong Kong International Airport, parked at a remote stand and wasn’t allowed to de-plane.

Thank God that I upgraded this sector of my flight to business class. The entertainment system was left on and I watched movies to kill time. But I noticed that economy class people didn’t have any headsets. Oops, must have been collected earlier prior to landing.

After two hours of waiting, captain said we were good to go and we departed Hong Kong at 2000hrs. Surprisingly smooth approach to Taipei and we landed at 2130hrs.

Then the next wait began. After clearing customs and immigration, I was met by a very very long queue of people waiting for taxis. Apparently, all the taxis have left as they didn’t expect any flights coming in yesterday. To make things worse, all the flights diverted were coming in at the same time and the queue just grew and grew. I ended up waiting for about 1.5 hours. And mind you, at this time, I haven’t even eaten dinner.

Finally got into the hotel at about midnight. After checking in, went to 7-11 to get cup noodles to eat first. And after talking to Debbie, crashed. Thank God today has been declared a typhoon holiday. Got chance to rest.

Eventful day indeed. Like I said, thank God I was in business class for that flight. If not, I think I would have been a very irate passenger. Some consolations. I was able to peek out of the door of the plane to take in the view of the tarmac. And the cockpit door was open so I peeked in and caught a glimpse of the cockpit. Quite a consolation for plane nut like me.

Signing off now. Want to get ready to go out and grab lunch and maybe shop around a bit for some stuff. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

My apologies for the long silence at this blog. Yes, I’m back in Singapore after one final trip to Taipei. Well, at least final for a while. I don’t know when I’ll need to make a new trip up. But I just thank God that this phase is over and future trips will be short ones.

The past two weeks while I was in Taipei were quite hectic as well. There were days that were not so busy, and I was thankful for that. But most days, it was pretty much high gear action from the time I step into the office. Sometimes when that happens, I tend to get too stressed out and have panic attacks. But I think that situation is improving. Thanks to having God by my side, of course.

There are still leftover work to be done in relation to this project. New enhancements are to be made as well. Right now, the picture is blur to me. Will need to speak to boss first before that picture becomes in focus. At the moment, what matters is that I’m back in Singapore for longer than one week at a go. As a friend of mine put it, I was paying rental in Singapore just to store my things and not to live in the place.

Promise to update more now that I’m back and I expect to be less stressed out. Do keep coming back for more. Haha. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

My apologies for the lack of updates on my blog. It has been a very long trip to Taipei for me, although the duration is the same as any other trip. My first experience at being so bogged down with work that I can’t even begin to prioritize. Everything seems to be important and needed to be done yesterday. Hence, the lack of attention to my personal corner on the web.

Thank God that He has brought through the past 4 weeks, and especially the last two. Being here alone to handle everything wasn’t easy. It feels that I’ve been thrown into the deep end of the pool. So sink or swim? I chose to swim and I think I made it through pretty well, of course, with God’s help at every single step of the way.

You can’t begin to imagine how I dreaded the start of a new day. Contemplations of skipping work and reporting sick enter my mind every other day. But then I’m reminded of the need to finish the race properly. So I grit my teeth, ask God for his strength, and plough through the day. Was the entire experience tiring? You bet. Seen my nickname on MSN lately? A friend of mine has commented that a panda bear from Taiwan is making it’s way to Singapore.

But was the entire experience worth the lack of sleep and the stress? I think so. I’ve learnt how to handle people better. I’ve learnt how to cope with stress. I’ve learnt to manage my time and prioritize (this needs more work). I’ve learnt to lean on the strength of God. I hope that this experience has somehow stretched me and changed me for the better. Am I still tempted to just pack up and give up? Sure. Every single day, every single hour. And the constant temptation to just lose it all and blow up at everybody around me is definitely there.

Through it all, there are good experiences and bad experiences. The feeling of being left here to fight the war without any support is definitely very daunting. And as I come to the end of another long trip to Taipei, I pray that God will provide me a way to end this project up and go back to Singapore. To cut the long story short, although it has been a good experience, there have been sacrifices made for the experience. And perhaps to ask the person to continue to sacrifice is not being fair to the person.

Anyway, I’m off to catch my flight. Yes, I’m blogging from the Taoyuan International Airport again. It has become a ritual, hasn’t it? So until the next time, cheers…. :Þ

Pardon for the lack of updates. Although a short working week in Taiwan (due to the fact that 4 April is a holiday for Tomb Sweeping Day, a.k.a. qing ming), the week for me was very very long. Average working hours per day: 18 hours. Average sleeping hours per day: 5. Fantastic isn’t it? Well, I hope it will all send soon.

Even though I have been sleeping so little this week, I feel quite alert during the day. No headaches, no falling sick. Just thankful for God’s strength through the entire week. Oh yes, no lost tempers too. That’s something that I tend to do when I feel extremely tired and had not enough sleep. It’s amazing how God works huh? Really and extremely thankful.

Been ultra crappy the entire week, probably due to the lack of sleep. And I started seeing the crappy side of my colleagues. Surprised to see the lighter side of my PM. He can be quite the funny guy. I guess the slightly lighter mood in the midst of all the pressure helps to keep everybody going.

Slacked off today to rest and recharge. Went off to meet up with friends who are in Taipei for dinner. Aside from that, a little reading and talking with the dear is in order. In the past four days, only had one proper conversation with her. Feeling guilty, and just want to say to her “Thank You for understanding!!”.

Random post huh? Yeah, my brain was never fully powered up today. I’m off to get some sleep. Gotta get some work done tomorrow. Hope to find some motivation there. So until the next time, cheers… :Þ

Week one back at the battle zone has passed. This week, I’ve managed to set a new record. Latest stayed in the office. On Tuesday, I left the office at 3.15am. That’s definitely a first for me. Suffice it to say that the week has been extremely tiring. Worked whole day on Saturday too. Today, I decided that I would not do a single piece of work and just relax the day away. Hey, everybody needs some downtime too.

I watched service this morning. Woke up just in time to catch the start of the sermon. One heck of  a message. Spoke to the core of my being. And even though I’m 2000 kilometres away, I could feel the presence of God in my apartment. Pastor Tan spoke prophetically at the end of the sermon and I was blown away. He mentioned that some of us were called to serve full-time and have procrastinated at accepting that calling. At that, I just cried my heart out. Why? Because God opened that door for me more than once. Truth be told, He opened that door 3 times. I could just recall the time back in university when I said that I wanted to serve God full-time in the media department one day. There were a lot of reasons (read excuses) that I gave for not accepting the calling, the challenge. Will that opportunity ever present itself again? Would I, once again, waver at the opportunity? Question one, I leave to God, But more importantly, I must be ready for when the opportunity presents itself again.

My friends are in Taipei this week. I was supposed to follow them down to Taroko Gorge for the weekend to take in the magnificent views. Alas, that was not to be. Work came a-calling. A missed opportunity. But I really hope to be able to visit that place before I go back for good. I’ve always loved visiting places with a view, to take in the breathtaking views that God has created. That’s why one of my must-go destinations is New Zealand. Drive from the tip of the North Island to the tip of the South Island. Sounds like a good backpacking trip indeed. Now to plan and save up for it.

Anyhow, back to more relaxing and getting myself mentally and physically ready for the “war” tomorrow. Do keep me in your prayers. I forsee the next week and maybe the following week to be tough ones. I’ve come very close to throwing in the towel a few times, but yet each time God reminds me that it’s not about the race. It’s how we finish it. That’s just about the only thing that is keeping me going right now. Not to mention God’s never failing strength.

So until the next time, cheers… :Þ

Looks like I have to break a promise that I made during the last post. Yes, there are no pictures yet. I don’t know how I managed to get myself to be so busy the past two weeks. SIT (Systems Integration Test) is a killer and I’m burning my second weekend in a row to do work that I can’t do because of the SIT.

SIT is a very time consuming process of testing out almost every aspect of the system that has been developed. It doesn’t help to have a very “C” client who keeps on adding test cases by the day even as the tests are being conducted. In an ideal world, these test cases should have been reviewed and finalized even before the SIT phase began. But we don’t live in an ideal world. And so we have to face these kinds of situations in our daily lives.

I almost lost my cool with the client at the end of Friday. It was late, coming to 8pm. Hungry and tired, and since testing was winding down for the day, I was hoping to get out of the office by around 7pm to come home to rest. But that was not to be. The client came in, started looking through the test cases, and started typing on my computer the new test cases to be added in. Tried hard to convince her to get it done on her own time and then send it to us. We’ll be glad to add those test cases in. But she just kept on and on and on. Even my subtle actions of packing up didn’t deter her. Because of that I almost lost my cool with yet another person.

I really got to keep my patience in check. Half a day of waiting around doesn’t help the mood. God help me. And now that my PM is headed back to Singapore for a week, I just feel a nightmarish week coming on. Really need the strength of God to pull me through next week. Hopefully, I don’t have to burn another weekend next week finishing up work.

Going off to bed now. Another day of work awaits me tomorrow. I really hope that I’ll get the time to process the pictures from CNY. It’s getting way overdue for some airtime on this blog. So until the next time, cheers… :Þ

Yes, I’m back. But not for a post-CNY posting but just to rant. Still editing photos for the CNY post so I shall rant for now.

The past week has been crazy. First day back at work in Taipei I stayed till 8pm. A lot of small little things to clean up and working hard to clean those things up. Why clean up? Because this week, we start what we in the profession call SIT. That stands for Systems Integration Testing. One of the last few stages of the project before the project closes. So that’s good news, being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, there’s another tunnel at the end of this tunnel and it’s known as Phase 2. I shall rant about that when I get more details.

The whole of last week’s experiences made me wonder about why some people work the way they work. Why would someone want to make things difficult for himself, drag things out, and in the process also drag another party down together with him? Wouldn’t it be more beneficial for that person to cooperate and work to solve things ASAP? Well, that’s what I’ve been facing the whole of last week and to say it has been frustrating may be too little. And just because another project A is relying on project B doesn’t mean that project A has to do project B’s testing. But then again, this is the case and that’s another frustrating point. And the “best” part? Me getting “kan chiong” over their problem. Sigh…

What can I say? It’s all in a good learning experience huh? Meeting people, seeing the way they work, getting frustrated, learning how to work with them, getting over it and gleaning a lesson from the experience. And thanks be to God for the strength and perseverance.

Pray that this week will be better. Maybe I’ll get frustrated over other things but at least it’s a change in the things I get frustrated over. Haha. But whatever it is, the project is coming to an end. Well, at least this part of the project.

Enough ranting. Time for me to get back to work now. I promise to get the photos for the post-CNY post ready and hopefully, the next post will be about that. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ