Thomas K's Most Excellent Business Trip

So Intel sent me on a business trip to Malaysia the week of August 6th, and I immediately got inundated with requests for photos as word got out. I’ve decided to try a blog since Shutterfly lets you write only half of a poorly constructed sentence for each picture and has probably done more to spread illiteracy than our public education system. I want to finish my poorly constructed sentences.

I’d like to preface this blog with a bit of a disclaimer:

1. This is my first blog. I have seen blogs written only by CEOs and intellectuals, at neither of which do I have any experience being, so this may require a bit of stamina on your part.

2. I’m not so fly with a camera. Be prepared to see a lot of unnecessary flash, over-and under-exposure, blurr, truncated heads and pictures of my thumb.

3. This was a business trip, so the majority of my time was spent working, or sitting about in meetings anyway, which is what I do. So there aren’t a lot of photos of touristy things, but hey, you get what you pay for. All I know is that my wife wanted me to take pictures of the food.

To get to Malaysia from Portland, you can expect to burn up about a day of your life. First, you take a 10-hour leg from Portland to Tokyo. Then, there’s a 6-hour leg from Tokyo to Singapore, followed by a 1-hour trip to Penang. Now, if you’re smart, you’ll have booked a room in advance at the Singapore Transit Hotel since you’ll probably get stuck there overnight; me, I get lucky. For the trip, I highly recommend taking a few power bars and fat-free water – avoid water that isn’t fat-free, that stuff’ll go straight to your hips.



Who takes pictures of airports? Having come all the way from Portland to Singapore without snapping a photo of anything, I could feel the mounting pressure of moral obligation to put my camera to use. So here are some photos of the Singapore airport – which comes equipped with a movie theatre, free Xbox gaming, free internet kiosks, and enough shopping to keep your woman busy for weeks.

This first photo is of the transfer desk, where you’re supposed to get your boarding pass for your remaining leg to Penang. I say “supposed to” since the nice lady at the info desk told me to go straight to the gate, which I did obediently without going to the transfer desk first. Given that I showed up late at the gate, this resulted in quite the excitement when they informed me that all the seats were filled. I attempted to sleep on the chairs here on my return trip, which didn’t work so well given that I lack certain snake-like qualities.



This next one is of the customs area, and the third is the endless corridor down the T1 terminal. These were taken at about 1AM, so the place was deserted. Thank God too, because it’s pretty mortifying taking pictures of an airport.




One of the first things you notice upon arrival in Penang as the plane touches down are the little houses pressed right up to the fence lining the perimeter of the Penang airport. Space is at a premium and apparently the zoning laws don’t prohibit this sort of thing. I don’t have pictures of these since I opted against blasting the two people between me and the window with my trusty flash camera.

Kew Ang, a test process QRE from Penang, met me at the exit after I got through customs. On our way to his car, I had a near-death experience as a Malaysian motorist attempted to run me over. Malaysians aren’t in the habit of slowing down for pedestrians - after all, it’s nothing a good car wash won’t fix. Kew lives in one of the houses next to the airport and enjoys relaxing to the delicate sound of thunder as 747 doubledecker jets touch down and take off. The fine-looking man in the photograph below is Kew.



Although exhausted from hours crimped into an airplane seat with my knees pressed to my nostrils and listening to the sounds of crying children, action films and mastication of the elderly gentleman behind me, I had no problems staying awake during the white-knuckled fuel-injected adrenaline rush which is highway driving in Penang. Torn between English and American influences, the Malaysians are still deciding on which side of the road to drive. Many other western concepts such as stop lights, turn signals, oncoming traffic and curbs are really rather dull and have little relevance here. Being easily amused, I snapped several photos of the local highway stock car action, but stillframes don’t really do justice. Note on the billboard off to the right that refreshing Penang Delight is now served in a can.



In Malaysia, you’re not cool if you don’t own a scooter. The intersections are particularly exciting; scooterists percolate like drip coffee to the front of every red light. When the light turns, it’s off to the races. Note the sign that reads ‘90’ in the middle right of the image below; this is the duration of the light (not the speed limit, not that you can tell the difference), and it counts down the seconds to the next cycle - during which time half of Penang will attempt to cross the intersection while the other waits impatiently at the opposing light. As the count nears zero, you observe an unsettling look in the eyes of Malaysian drivers which combines a brobdingnagian sense of urgency with paramount daring.



Why not? Nothing like a little scooter-on-truck action to get your blood pumping in the morning. Note the highly efficient use of freeway space. Two wheels and a death wish.



Some well-intentioned soul out there continues to be ignored by the population. The sign below basically says: “Don’t weave in and out of the cars if you fear for your life.” Linear driving is for weenies.



Here’s a glimpse of a hit-and-run. Apparently the rate of death-by-fiery car crash is pretty low in Malaysia, reportedly because it’s not possible to go that fast (although there was a scooter that blew by us doing about 80 mph one night, followed shortly by a large explosion). That said, both Kew (and Muthu below) sustained scooter injuries upon which they promptly decided to purchase a car. Not sure what happened to Muthu, but Kew hit a forklift.

One would think police would be all over this sort of driving as a good means of income. Kew tells me that the police are somewhat understaffed, however, and moreover the police department has a little problem with money sticking to palms. In order to combat graft, the Malaysian police departments have established a program wherein police officers wear a pin that says “I don’t take bribes”. Somebody’s mom gets the Distinguished Service Award of the month for that idea.



The next few pictures are of the Equatorial hotel where I stayed. Lest one get the wrong impression, Malaysian architecture on the whole is pretty modest. The creators of the Equatorial, in contrast, were inspired by western influence: If you’ve got it, flaunt it! Flaunt it, baby!

This is the entrance of the Equatorial at night, as seen from my balcony. These are authentic Malaysian Glowing Yellow Trees. Off to the right and outside the frame of this picture is a little white house. It is notable solely due to the fact that at 3AM on Friday morning a congregation of poodles assembled to bark noisily for three consecutive hours, thus making it five-for-five nights of interrupted sleep.



A view of the Equatorial’s entryway from the inside. This trip took place close to independence day so there were a lot of flags about.



A shot of the open-air lobby. The wall to the far right is the one behind which we gathered to surreptitiously eat duryan, which the Equatorial has banned from the premises. More on this later.



Some wandering areas within the Equatorial. This is just to the right of the open-air lobby photo.



The Equatorial fishpond is down below the wandering area. A hotel’s not a hotel unless it’s got fish. Also saves having to buy a vending machine.



A fountain in the Equatorial between the walking area and the entryway.



A big honking chandelier for all you domestic bling lovers out there. I’m going to talk to Leah about getting a replica for our dining room.



A view of the nearby golf course and the Penang skyline off in the distance as viewed from my balcony. The sky is perpetually hazy since Indonesia is burning down their forests to clear area for farmland. Like a good neighbor, Indonesia is there.



The Equatorial tennis court. Kind of a pain if you hit your ball over the fence. Personally I think they should put one of the 18 golf holes up here, because they can.



You know, if you just went to Penang yourself, you wouldn’t have to deal with looking at pictures taken by some idiot who clearly doesn’t know how to work a camera. Here we have a picture of a Penang sunrise a la the Second Coming of Christ.



Here’s the same sunrise, subject to less apocalyptic interpretations:



And finally, one last picture of Penang as coming from the mainland.



A model of the condos being built nearby. These are high-end living in Penang; Kew tells me a condo like this can run you ~$100k. For comparison purposes, immediately below is a shoot of an economy apartment which I was barely fast enough to capture; the economy apartments look like a low rectangular box flipped on end.




Here’s a picture of the bridge to the mainland and accompanying sunrise on the way to Intel Kulim.



Party people, put your windshield wipers in the air. This is about the only testament I have to the heat in Malaysia. It’s not as hot as Arizona in summer (and why Arizonans aren’t clever enough to use this trick to prevent their windshield wipers from evaporating I’m not sure), but it’s a lot more humid. Feels like the midwest in summer.



And here’s Intel Kulim. This is where I spent 95% of my time and is the reason why all you have to look at are lousy pictures of scooters, hotels and my half-eaten meals. I attempted to get some neat pictures of our factory floor, but that’s when security broke my legs and took away my camera.



Speaking of half-eaten meals, time to change the subject. This is what happens when you marry a dietitian (which is spelled with a ‘t’, not a ‘c’ for the spelling bee champions among you): food is of the utmost interest and must be photographed. So here we have my first authentic Malaysian meal … at the Intel café. It’s basically chicken-fried rice sunny-side up and is consistent with what one would come to expect from the Intel café. Intel cafeteria food around the world is v. exciting. Eat your heart out, baby.

Incidentally, I thought the blinding FLASH! of my camera as I snapped this photo was a nice way to introduce myself to Intel Malaysia.



This meal was better. From left-to-right we have Kathy La Ra, Muthu Gurusamy and Kurt Peterson. Kurt is our fearless motorcycle-racing program manager from Australia; Muthu, a native of Malaysia, is our integrator and was one of our key hosts during our stay; Kathy does test ops and was astute enough to observe that all the natives know you’re a tourist from the start – but when you break out your camera, that’s when they know you’re a dorky tourist.

Let’s play Where’s Waldo for a minute: can anybody tell what’s missing from this picture? You’ll note that none of us have knives; instead, the ubiquitous spoon does the work of both. Western Europe invented the spork; the spife is the Malaysian claim to fame.



The icy fruity concoction below is an ice kacang – this is a popular Malaysian desert, and as shown here is actually about half the size it was before it melted. To make an ice kacang you mix fruit, ice cream, syrup and ice shavings, and place the mixture on top of every vegetable conceivable of which you may have surplus in your cupboard. Mine had corn and kidney beans in the bottom. You will find yourself obliged to eat a good portion of the ice kacang as well, even if you’re full from dinner: if you don’t, it overflows and creates a nice standing pool on your table as it melts.



Mumbai House is one of the exceptions to the no-knife rule. Raj Singh and Muthu Gurusamy took us to this classy Indian restaurant where we enjoyed authentic Indian food and karaoke renditions of pop classics. In yet more stunning flash photography from yours truly, we have from left to right: Pat Stover, Brenda Vanderkin, Kurt Peterson, Raj Singh, Fred Barbee, Muthu Gurusamy, and ¾ of Kathy La Ra.



Raj was a popular regular around Mumbai House and he scored us a backstage tour of the kitchen. The usual suspects are in the photo below; to the far right is Ajay, the Mumbai House owner.



And this is how you make Nan: stick a piece of unleavened bread in a 300C stone oven. Cook until hot to the touch.



Here we have Pat Stover of ATTD program management fame featured in the flesh at our banana leaf dinner, in which a banana leaf serves as your tablecloth, plate and napkin.



In the struggle of man versus wild, this fish lost big time. All that’s left of him was his tail, which resurfaced here at our banana leaf dinner. Why can’t we all just get along?


Ever wonder where they get banana leaves for banana leaf dinners? Believe it or not, from banana trees. Below is a shot of a photogenic banana tree with a nice wad of woody green bananas.



Two words about the next picture: anaphylactic shock. You might think at first glance that the object I’m holding is one of those squishy bath back-scrubbies. It’s not. This, dear reader, is a duryan. A duryan is a Malaysian comestible (the fact that I don’t simply call it a “fruit” is intentional for reasons other than to massage my already distended ego) that has a rock-hard shell a little more than a half foot in diameter which is covered with sharp spikes, and it stinks to high heaven. The unopened duryan would make for a fine accessory at the end of a flail.



Optimism has been described as the notion that just because a rose smells wonderful, it will also make great-tasting soup. Upon catching a whiff of a duryan, it is difficult to determine exactly what human sentiment established that the duryan is fit for human consumption.

Table presence doesn’t appear to have been the driving factor either, as evidenced below. The innards of a duryan are off-yellow and the membrane slides over the enclosed seed like the skin on an old man’s bones. The flavor is, um, interesting. Muthu described the duryan to me as ‘it smells like hell but tastes like heaven’. This assessment is spot-on with regards the odor, but the taste actually has powerful overtones of purgatory. The duryan flesh is a stale banana-ish paste and is easily squished using one’s tongue against the roof of the mouth. The half-eaten duryan in the picture was Kurt Peterson’s; I think we may have finally found his limits. I hold the record for stomaching two, which in hindsight suggests I’m more of a sucker than anything else.

My only regret with the duryan experience is that I described it as having banana-like qualities to a reluctant Kathy La Ra, who then informed me that she loathes bananas. Key learning: if you want to convince a female to eat something, describe it as having the taste and consistency of strawberries.

Incidentally, I discovered afterwards that duryan is in some circles called “poopfruit”. There’s a reason for that, you know. Don’t expect to see another one of these around anytime soon, unless somebody steals my idea to make scratch-and-sniff puzzles for blind kids.



For lunch on Thursday we headed off to the jungle for a nice lunch on the water.



This place was pretty cool. The surrounding water is used to farm fish, which are caught and served fresh. After cooking anyway. We tossed some fish snax over the side and observed the reaction below. This was the first time I’ve ever seen fish perform an act that could be described as climbing. Stick a finger in the water and lose a digit.



Here’s the crew after a fine meal of boiled catfish, frog legs, spicy boar stew, and breaded mystery fish. The new faces in the middle are Han Kok Fang, Wee Loon Chia and Pei Nee Cheng.



Thursday evening was our teambuilding dinner at a Malaysian restaurant that specializes in fondue-esque meals. Below we have much of the Malaysian contingent with whom we have the pleasure of working during our TPC activities.



This is our dinner being cooked. I had charred clams since they never opened and I learned afterwards that these aren’t supposed to – instead you have to pry them open with your fingers, or just eat them whole.



And here we have Fred Barbee, Lord of the Ice Kacangs.



An after-lunch picture of our final meal together at Full Wealth Restaurant, which was partially inspired by the fact that people eventually came to prompt me to take pictures of all food once my fixation for food-photography was established. From left to right: Tai Haw Foong, and extremely satisfied Chze Tat Lau, and Kew Ang.

I left my computer at Full Wealth Restaurant, incidentally. Not only did my dear colleagues not mention anything about it, but they also let me discover this fact on my own once we returned to the Intel site 20 minutes later, and then led me to believe I’d have to file a police report, so on and so forth, all on the day I was flying out. CT Lau then informed me that he “had connections” and would make a few phone calls – and lo and behold two minutes later Kew shows up with my laptop. And my colleagues wonder why we STTD QREs are such a pain in the butt.



And here is the mighty bus which carted us about. This bus was posh. The driver daily cranked music for us the likes of Beyonce, Britney Spears, the Back-Street Boys, Celine Dion, and other artists you’re too embarrassed to admit you go home and listen to. If I had to guess, I'd say the literal translation of ‘Bas Pekerja’ is ‘Perky Bus’.



These following few photos of Batu Ferringi were taken by Greg Underhill after I left. Just goes to show that the party keeps on kickin’ long after I’m gone.


It’s a bird … it’s a plane … it’s … it’s … it’s Brenda Vanderkin!! This is pretty impressive for someone who refuses to eat fried fish cheeks. Look for her in the next Flying Wallenda act.



This is Greg Underhill and his pet horse. Those of you inclined to packing light should bear in mind that you never know when you’ll need a horse in Malaysia. He looks a little big for an overhead compartment so I think Greg had to check him at the gate.



A horse is a horse of course of course and nobody talks to a horse of course. Unless you’re Fred Barbee, in which case you may not be above trying.



One last dinner at Batu Ferringi with mostly familiar faces. On the right we have a couple members of the Intel Headstart program.



This is the night market at Batu Ferringi. This was recommended to me as an ideal shopping locale for authentic Malaysian keepsakes, but unfortunately my schedule didn’t allow it. I’m assuming the stand below is one where you get to haggle with the hawkers for goodies. Next time I’m in Malaysia I’m going to buy Leah about 10000 knickknacks because no home is complete until you break the Guinness Book of World Records for the World’s Largest Knickknack Collection.




The next photos were donated by Kathy La Ra who, unlike me, is actually smart: she had an extra day so she went and visited a Malaysian temple where she snapped some photos with her handy-dandy disposable digital camera. If it weren’t for the following pics, this could legitimately rank as one of the worst blogs ever.

These first five pictures are of the Kek Lok Si temple. It’s difficult to comment on these pictures since I wasn’t there, but ignorance never stopped me before. In this first picture we have some smoking pots with trees in the background.

On second thought, maybe I’ll just be quiet now.




This one sort of reminds me of my house. In the distant sense that mine has a roof too.



And some pics of the surrounding area and a gazebo.




These last two are of the Sleeping Buddha temple. Here we have Kathy and her giant pet dragon-snake.



Last of the classy temple photos. Go in peace, my son.



Here are a few opportunistic pictures of the surrounding areas about the Narita/Tokyo airport as the plane banked on our descent. Those of you who have problems missing the forest for the trees should have no issues whatsoever with these images. Thank the pilot for turning because, if he never did, all I’d have for you would be nice shots of wing.








Finally, back at home, the wife revels in her stash of Malaysian goodies. She attempted to hide on the escalator just so she could see me first. And I have no idea where she gets these shirts, but I love it.



There you have it: you’re finally done. As the saying goes for Hollywood movies, all the real heroes are out there in the audience… so this Bud’s for you.