Pics from Safari

Jet lag is setting in now, so this post will be quick. These are the highlights of the pics I took on safari in the Masai Mara last weekend with my new camera!


















Giraffe up close.














A pack of elephants.














We visited a Masai village and made this human MIT with our guide.


















Two cheetahs, a very rare sighting!














We found a fully grown male lion on the very first day. He was right outside of our vehicle's window which is how I got such a clear shot!














And just to prove I didn't pull these pics off of google, here is me with an elephant in the background!

Forum with the PM of Kenya

Just got back from Africa and there is a ton to blog about. But in the meantime, here is a news video clip of when we sat on a panel at the University of Nairobi. It was an intense session, but of course the one time they show me I am looking down at my fake watch!

flight to kenya!

My flight to Kenya is tonight! We leave out of Logan around 7:20PM and arrive in London tomorrow.

I had to start taking my anti-Malarial pills today and they make me feel like I have constant heartburn. Plus, I have to take these for a month after I get back!

Relax drank

Here is an interesting drink I got from the corner shop. I like the
tagline "slow your roll." I must admit though that I am scared to
drink this because it has melatonin in it!

CEO dinner

Tomorrow I will be having dinner with CEO of Dunkin' Brands Nigel Travis. This is part of the CEO class I am taking where CEO's from all industries come in and have dinner with some students and then speak to a group of 100 or so other students. I'm hoping he brings gooodies!

They tell us about their career paths and the tough decisions they've had to make. So far, being a CEO sounds really lonely, but hey, you don't get paid to make friends! Will blog more later.

Book Signed!

As many of you may remember, I posted a pic of the b-day present that John and April sent me last year: http://kr8z8.blogspot.com/2009/04/bday-present.html

To my surprise, the author who is an MIT professor in the Media Lab came to give a talk at Sloan on behalf of the Marketing Club and the Isreali Club. So I brought my book and went and got it signed! The talk was pretty cool discussing how peoples' behavior is quite counter intuitive to how you would think people would behave. One such example he gave was research he was doing that would be applied to outrageous Wall Street CEO bonuses, and how this could possibly hinder performance. Of course, none of the companies wanted to do any experiments or even studies with him because they rationalized that their CEO's were extra special and above these kinds of compensation studies.

But then he spoke about healthcare applications and how physician compensation must really change from the a reward per service model, which will only promote the most expensive procedures and treatments.

The inscription above reads "Dear Kim, Irrationally yours, Dan Ariely"

Cool stuff!

Access to Capital

As part of our study tour to East Africa, our class has started a blog to chronicle our experience for perspective students and other members of the MIT community. See our posts here:

http://atceastafrica.wordpress.com/

The world right under my nose

So I've had some time to play around with my new camera, and to my surprise the area I have been most impressed with is not how far away I can take pics, but rather how close I can capture shots! Reflecting on my Canon point and shoot, I really can't complain about the quality of landscape shots. However, my Canon could never truly focus on things like a ring on my finger or something close.

My Olympus Pen, however, is quite awesome at capturing close range images. Below are some examples.














Here is a test shot from my messy desk. However a bottle of water has never looked so crisp!















I even signed up for a beginner SLR class next week at the shop where I bought my camera.














Sorry if this is a gross shot to some, but in Bali I got some really tacky nail art on my nails and toes while sitting on the beach. Here is the last remnant of the nail art which I could never capture with my camera. (see the blurry image taken with my old camera below). You can click on each image to see the full file!













(taken with OLD camera)

Ironically I had to take this pic with the camera on my phone. I
especially liked the versatility available with this camera. However,
I feel the need to wear 60's tweed when wearing the camera around my
neck.

New toy!

Here is my awesome new camera that I got today: the Olympus pen e-p1.
I got to thinking that my canon point and shoot just won't cut it
while on safari in Africa. This retro cutie is actually a serious
camera in the dslr ranges. I'll post another pic so you can see the
removable lens.

Bali!

Here is a slightly obscured pic of our resort hotel.










Here is a pic of the sunset from the beach across the street just outside of the resort. We didn't spend a whole lot of time on the beach as it was a bit dirty and there were harassing vendors all over the place.









But I did manage to take in a surf lesson. However, judging from the pic above I didn't exactly take to it very well. The first time I stood up, I jumped off from fear. Thankfully, the camera guy caught me in mid action! You can also see the instructor in the back holding the board so I could stand (which was slightly annoying). His advice to me on my next try: "don't jump off the board." Duly noted.









Here, I look like I'm over thinking it which I probably am, but it's a serious looking shot. I think I made that instructor proud (promptly after which I took my board to shore and stopped). I think 2 hours in the sun and ocean was quite enough for me.













I even got a certificate!










Here is a shot of the Barong Dance we saw one morning on our tour (see post below). Yeah, being in the audience and seeing the whole show didn't make this scene make any more sense either. sorry.










And then for some reason all these dancers started going all "hari kari" on us. I couldn't stop laughing from not knowing what the heck was going on.










We saw the elephant caves on our tour. Inside is a shrine to Ganesha.

Bali!

Courtney and I booked a 10 hour day tour. For only $35 each, we got a car, driver, and tour guide for practically the whole day. We were exhausted afterward!










We had a buffet lunch overlooking a volcano and lake. Too bad it was cloudy while we ate.











Here is a spring temple we went to.










This is a rice terrace where farmers get allotted a certain amount of land and water to grow their rice. Apparently, it was just harvested.










One of the restaurants next to the beach had a great meal of 7 unpeeled prawns and potato wedges, all for $7!










Almost every night, we ate by the beach and watched the sun set on the west side of the island. Not shown here are the flies that terrorized us when we got our food. It was almost unbearable!



On our tour we saw a traditional "Barong Dance." The battle between good and evil in a song a dance! The best part was the band which together sounded like chaos, but if you focused on one instrument, it was quite beautiful.They put us in the VIP section up front after which people ran up and took our pictures and had their kids pose with us. It was scary!

Month in review

OK, so after 50 hours of travel (24 in air, 24 in layovers), I am back and feeling exhausted. I am also preemptively fighting what may be a cold from having Ethiopian babies coughing in my face during our 14 hour flight from Dubai to JFK. At any rate, school starts very soon and I am glad I had some down time in Bali. Here is a catch all post of other happenings in KL, then I'll post about Bali.










Above is some weird garden they put in the middle of Dubai International Airport. There's a waterfall and everything!










Starbucks in Arabic.










Our last night in KL, we went to a local hang out hawker stand. We ate stingray, "carrot cake", and noodles.










Getting ready for the Chinese New Year, Pavillion Mall put up pretty intense decorations.












This was taken on the last day on the job with our host company. WK on the right was our project manager.



Here is a video of the Fish Spa for the full experience!

coming home!

So I am on the first leg of my 48 hour journey home! Bali was great, but not without some mishaps (like the drunk Australian who stumbled up to our ground floor balcony and puked everywhere!). Needless to say, I am coming home soon. I'll be back around Saturday even though my body will feel like it is Sunday morning.

So we went from the Bali airport back to KL, KL to Dubai, Dubai to NYC, NYC to Boston (with about 20 hours in layovers in between!).

Will post more when I get back!

Bali Hai!

Made it safely to Bali and it's truly beautiful. There is very little internet, so I will not be posting until I get back to Boston. Our resort is nice, but the beach it is near is very dirty. To be honest, I think the beaches in Antigua are still unrivaled in my book.

However, the dollar goes SUPER far and I've had some of the best food here. Tomorrow we are going on a 12 hour tour and will see a lot. I've gotten a really bad sun burn, but staying out of the pools here are impossible! I'm having a lot of fun and am feeling super relaxed before going back to snowy snowy Boston to finish my last semester!

Weekend in Singapore

After work, Courtney and I packed up and went to the airport headed to Singapore for the weekend. We got to meet up with another Sloan team who flew in from Jakarta. Our hotel was kinda crappy, but it did the trick for the weekend. On the plus side, it was near a hawker stall for some awesome food.










After a Chinatown breakfast, we went to Little India to walk around. We all got some fresh coconut milk to cool off but the coconuts were luke warm...










After a night safari, we went to the Raffles Hotel, the birth place of the original Singapore Sling. They even had identical Virgin Singapore Slings so teetotalers like me can join in on the fun!













On the subway, I just had to take a picture of this sign. No durians on the train! Remember: this is the fruit that smells and tastes like dirty feet. Btw, I bought some durian hard candies to bring back so everyone can have a durian experience!










Sunday, we went to Clarke Quay, an expat area around the river and had Chillie and Pepper Crab. Here are the shells peeking out of the pot. so good!










After lunch we took a river boat cruise. Here is a pic of the "merlion," which I know very little about, but it looked pretty cool.

Weekend in KL

This was our last full weekend in KL before we go to Singapore for next weekend and then off to Bali after our last day with the company.













Here we are in front of the Batu Caves where 272 steps lead up to caves carved into the side of a limestone mountain. Every year devout Hindus come here and drag large objects around using hooks attached to the skin of their backs. Thankfully, it was not this week!













Starting from the bottom....










Monkeys were all over the stairs within reach throwing their banana peels all over the place. Not a good combination with tourists coming up and down.













We had a few "mocktails" at Sky Bar in the Trader Hotel. This 33rd floor bar has a great view of the neighboring Petronas Towers seen here.










Afterward, we went for a traditional Malaysian meal at Madam Kwan's Restaurant. This is Nasi Lemak, and it was delicious: coconut rice, curry chicken, a hard boiled egg, shrimp salad (shrimp floss), cucumber, etc. So good but I'm paying for it now!

TGIF!

Well we made it through one full work week with our sponsor company! It was intense so we headed straight to a "fish spa" where you dip your legs in water and tiny toothless minnows swarm you and eat the dead skin cells. They really had at it too! The initial shock was very ticklish, but then once you got used to it, it was actually quite calming.









This is a hard pic to see, but if you look closely you can see the minnows attached to my legs. After 30 minutes, they were as smooth as silk!










Then we headed to dinner and enjoyed a hookah in the middle eastern part of town. I look like I'm in my element.

Food is awesome in KL!

By far, the best experience in KL has been trying the local (and imported) food! Because we work long hours with our host company, really the only thing we get to be adventuresome with is trying new things.













There is a sidewalk roadside cafe next to our hotel that is open "24 jam" (24/7 in Malay). In the morning they have a breakfast special where you can get roti cenai (roti and lentil dip) and teh tarik (malaysian sweet tea with milk) all for ONE Malaysian ringit. That's 30 cents! I am in love with this place, but we can't go every day. It's so bad for you! We watched the guy throw butter and oil on the roti dough and press it with his hands.










During lunch the MIT team went to a near by food court (lots of food here is in a food court- go figure) and we were told we must eat a Malaysian delicacy called Durian. It's a spiky fruit that is like custard when you break it open and people eat it raw. So I bought a Malaysian dessert of chipped ice, some other stuff with a scoop of durian on it topped with sweet corn (they are crazy for that corn). The problem is that durian smells like rotting trash and tastes like dirty feet! So if you zoom in on this pic, you can see how gross this "dessert" looks like. The above pic captures one of the first few bites of this dessert and my colleague Courtney laughing at me for eating it!









Then last night we went to yet another mall (there are TONS of them here) and I got black sesame seed gelato. So wrong, but so right!










This was Thursday's lunch where one of the JobStreet employees took us out for a traditional Malaysian lunch. There were dumplings in broth, fried dumplings, something called rojak where they mix fruits with hoisin sauce and top it with crushed peanuts, chicken "in a paper bag" (marinated chicken wrapped in paper then fried", tofu stuffed with fish balls, chillis stuffed with fish balls, okra stuffed with fish balls... well you get the idea!

Life in KL

Made it safely to Kuala Lumpur with no major events on the flight here. Yesterday, we took the Hop on Hop off bus around KL and saw some pretty awesome sites! Today was our first day at work for the company we are helping and it was quite a long day. Looks like we'll be working until 7 every night, but that did not stop us from getting dim sum for dinner!










Here is our hotel room at the Prescott Inn literally right next to our workplace. We have about a 1 minute commute. Guess they are trying to keep us on a tight leash. It's not an especially nice place, but it's not bad for free.










Sunday we hopped off the bus at Chinatown. Awesome knockoffs galore! And then we ate lunch at some place surrounded by food stalls. I got some bbq pork on noodles. The drink is a soda drink called "Kickapoo Joy Juice," which I couldn't resist when seeing the name on the menu.










Here are the famous Petronas Towers to the right. At the base is a large shopping mall full of luxury brands and gardens. The tall building to the left is called the KL Tower, which has a revolving restaurant at the top. I'm sure we'll make it there at some point.











We did some grocery shopping and couldn't resist buying this candy. It's called Double Corn and it is actually soft chewy candy that is made to taste like sweet corn. It's actually good, though the first one tasted rather savory!