About living in a picture

(Rawa island impression...wooden chair, coconuts and ferns...I should just have just stayed there)

WHAT THE... IS GOING ON?

Long time ago in a galaxy far far away there was a blog to be written. It seems like eternity when I last managed to continuously write for a few consecutive weeks. Too many things have been happening simultaneously and successfully kept me away from doing anything but writing emails or blog entries. Mainly, I started to realize that a graduation thesis does not write itself, especially when you are situated in an exciting area like South East-Asia and that it indeed involves plenty of work (I might not be the first one to have this grand and unique realization, nevertheless the treatise haunts me now). Some visa hassles that I will not detail any further needed attention to be resolved, which took away much time and increased my heartbeat. Additionally (and unpreventable of course) the weekends were busy with lots of really exciting trips that I have not yet come down to talk about. Stay tuned for more in the upcoming days :-)

(Where are we? Located at the East Coast of West Malaysia, Rawa island is a tiny piece of land)

TURN THE AIRCON ON!

I am just now writing this from Munich, where I am for Business for a few days. Chrissi was so incredibly kind to let me stay in her flat. Thanks a lot, IOU! Maybe the evenings this week do give me time (what a gentle wish) to process all the photos and experiences. Munich is in deep autumn now...streets are filled with colorful leafs, the air is wonderfully fresh and cold (like somebody switched on the AirCon outside...how great would that be in Singapore? ah..few more years down the road the Asian buzybees will find a solution for the heat. unfortunately, one cannot order the temperature down). And it is a great pleasure to finally get into a pullover and a jacket again and not to transpire heavily after only a 300m quick walk. Naturally, Caucasians are suddenly everywhere (I miss the Asian faces) and I was devastated to find out that I arrived on a Sunday when ALL shops are closed. One cannot even get some bread...

(Rawa island on a Saturday morning...never been to a model island like this, Mom you would have loved it ;-)

RALA? RAVA?

Well, I will shortly go back to a few highlights of the last months. Rawa was certainly one..my new friend and Qimonda-colleague Herbie and me went there for just the typical intern-weekend (means Friday afternoon to Sunday). It is a tiny island located somewhere between the city of Mersing and the bigger island of Tioman. Strangely enough, 99% of Singaporeans would not know Rawa and were questioning my sanity when I told about the upcoming trip then ('Rara? Rala? huh? are you SURE you know where you're going?'). I was close to thinking that it was an 'intern-only' island to be inhabited by semi-poor Germans, Dutch and Englishmen only. Luckily, I was proved otherwise. However, our resort was mainly occupied with a large Singaporean (female, but not our style) Tai Chi common interest group, some couples and elderly people. Yes, very exciting. We had a lot of -fun- with them playing bingo.

(peacocks were everywhere...exercising roof-hopping, giving short screams and running around the beach area. beautiful, colorful creatures...)

The island could only be reached via a ferry and was so small that the accessible beach could be walked from one end to the other in less then 5 minutes. Two hotels (Safari and Club Rawa) exercise perfect price discrimination in that they jointly offer rooms from one end of the price spectrum to the other (although it's still not cheap in Club Rawa, which was supposed to be the budget place). So what to do here? Drink the beer and wine that we had brought with us (too expensive on the island; staff was pretty angry at us after two days of continuously requesting ice cubes ;-)), trying out all the different hammocks that were available; becoming wanna-be experts at pool billiard and of course letting the white sand play with the skin while practicing the sport of extreme idling on the beach.

Some more pictures can be accessed via the the Rawa-Foto-badge on the right side pane. Not an exciting trip, but a fantastic chillout place that could have been taken from the catalogue.

Bummer that this small, very romantic island could hardly offer us any female company to clink the glasses while sunset. It is definitely a place to remember and should be revisited with the romantic partner of choice (sorry Herbie, but it did not quite work out with us ;-))

Maik

(me at Mersing harbor while waiting for the ferry to Rawa)