My first haircut in Egypt!

I have been very relunctant to get my hair trimmed by Egyptian barber, after experiencing the way they fix our apartment. Especially after they fixed the clothes hanger upside down.

My last hair cut was done 5 months ago. It grew longer and longer but I still failed to persuade myself to pay the local barber a visit.

I had trouble comb my long hair to my liking (to look like Jing Cheng Wu), the weather is getting hotter and my wife is nagging almost everyday about my hair. She said I looked like a woman from behind, I thought she was referring to my butt...hehe.

Today, I felt that I might be lucky to get a good haircut (man's gutsy sense), and hence I went to the nearby Ryan Hair Salon. The salon is for man only and the barber is a man also. Female don't cut hair for man here, so no beautiful mei mei lor.

First look at the interior of the salon and it doesn't look like the Malay/Indian barber shop at all! Happy lah!

My barber is Mustafa, speak a little English and I asked him to guess my nationality.

Japan, Thailand, Taiwan(wow!), China, America (hmm...why? I don't look like ang moh leh).....all wrong! Lucky, he is quite good at cutting hair.

I showed him my photo of my short hair, and I told him :"Same Same like Beckham!". hehe...

My sample photo for hair cut

Very heng today, the barber replicated my hair cut quite successfully.

My new hair cut!

Overall, it was a very satisfying visit. Hair wash + hair cut cost me 40LE. As long as they don't mess up my hair, I am happy to pay.

Before I leave the salon, the barber point at my hair on the floor and said :"Your hair many, like what I cut in 1 month!"

Hehe...what a well spent 40LE.

-VINcE

New Family Member!!! Pipi

Super 欠扁 look

My hubby adopted this cat to the family, so he can keep me company. I''d named him Pipi because he is very naughty and like to hide and bite people not like QQ. So I call him Pipi, chinese call 玩皮, english name Rascal.

I''m very innocent!!

We are thinking to send him away, because he is very notti, keep running away from us and bite us. He rather play with the curtains than play with us. He will only look for us when he is hungry.

Go away, I dun like to see you!!!

Ready for action to play the curtains or telephone wires.

Korea Food In Egypt

Well my hubby deiced to reward me for begin so hardworking to mop the whole house. And FYI the I mopped the house 4 times and the floor was so dusty with fine desert sand blown into the house when ever we opened the windows. Well just have to mop it every 3 days. Beside mopping the house, I rearrange the house furniture to make it look more spacious. Honesty I dun like all the furniture in the house too European style. We plan to move to another house with better house layout next year. There is 3 bedrooms but only one bathroom.

Ok back to the Korea Food, it surprise me again, they serve authentic Korea food and most importantly, they serve PORK!!!!!!! Muhahaha So there is PORK, yeah!!!! HOLD on, where is the pork from?? Well it is specially air flown from Korea, according to the Lady boss. She is Egyptian and she know how to speck and write Korean. And her hubby is a Korean. So they serve very authentic Korea food and they employed a Korean to be their chef. So the food should be good, but it is not really so great, the Bugogi is jus so-so... the meat are all very tough. Disappointed.

Japanese food in egypt

It is my 3rd day in this strange country. Today my Hubby bring to to the Maadi Grand Mall. Yes it is older looking than the City star shopping mall, but it have very nice looking heels and bags there. Hubby bought a pair heels for me which I like very much. After shopping there, we come across a Japanese restaurant. I suddenly have an urge to eat sashimi... though I know the fish might not be very fresh, but I'm willing to try.

The restaurant name and menu, we are able to take this home and call them for home delivery.

If you are dinning in the restaurant you need to spend at least 25LE per person.

I like the Al fresco dinning style of the restaurant.

Me ordering the food.

Hubby looking so relax and handsome!!!

Hubby and Me. I feel so happy to see him again.

My fav photo for the day. Taken by Hubby..

Finally the food is here!!! And to my surprise the fish taste good and it is not smoked salmon. Better than I excepted.

The teriyaki eel handroll taste very good. Overall the food taste good and it is abit expensive total it cost us 120LE. Well seafood in Cairo is expensive.

City Star

Yesterday, we went to City Star, the mega shopping mall at Nasr City.

I bought a hand phone and subscribed a new phone line for bb.

After, we had our dinner at the Rain Forest Restaurant. bb was very impressed with the service of one of the waiter.

Indeed it was a pretty good trip, we also managed to get the phone line without much hassle.

BB at Rain Forest Restaurant, very happy and pretty :)

The monkey at the Rain Forest, keep staring at us while we were having our meal.

noob?

bb,
Am I a noob when come to computer networking?

I went to TEdata with Hesham to collect the router but si beh tulan the guy said the name of my ADSL account is under Isabella (company admin who helped to apply for the line). I must ask her to collect personally.

Then why the hell you guys sent me an email to ask me to collect it? What a mess up country.

At first Hesham was lorlorlam in Arabic with the TEdata staff, I knew something is going to screw up already. So I proceed to talk to the guy and asked him how if I buy the router myself, just give me the network account and password.

Surprisingly, he agreed to it. I am not sure what is the logic behind this. You refused to let me collect the router (even though I brought the email print out there), but you let me have the account details? Hmmm...better not to think too much!

This might not be a very good decision. Anyway, I proceed to collect the account details.

I went to buy the router but couldn't find any splitter at the main pc shops. So I asked around and finally got one near our apartment for 5LE.

I went home happily thinking that finally we can have our own Internet connection at home.

Well, the fact is that I bought the wrong router (no build it ADSL modem), and also I need an extra phone line. So I went out to get them. Then I tried to connect to the network with many trial and errors but failed. There's no instruction or any manual given by TEdata at all, and this is the first time I try to hook up the network consisting of phone + splitter + modem + router.

I suspect this might not due to my noobness, there's something wrong with the voice line (phone line), because there's no dial tone at all. I can call the number but the phone doesn't ring. It has been like this since few weeks ago, but I do not suspect anything as I thought this is normal after the splitting/activation of ADSL.

Oh well, very frustrating. I think if I can survive here for another 2 years, I will be pretty much immunised to any amount of nonsense.

While I am writing this, the cleaner who is supposed to clean our house for one last time before you arrive just broke our marble lining of the kitchen table. Arrhhh!!!! I checked the situation and can't really blame him because the way the marble attached to the table is not very firm. But still, I cannot stand the way they work, I have been using this marble top for 4 months and nothing happens. He must have rested his whole body weight on it, and yes, he is twice as fat compared to me.

I called the contractor again, so today I will be expecting 3 contractors late evening. 1 from the telecoms and another 2 from maintenance (remember? They always come in pair!).

I just try to make everything sui sui before you come, but those people has totally made it worst lor. I sad sad also now...... :p

Hopefully they can do a better job this evening. INSAH-ALLAH!

-VINcE

Update: Today is almost a history, and none of the contractor turn out! I think there's a good business opportunity to setup a service company (especially building maintenance and telecommunication). Give proper customer service training to your front line employee, make sure all your employees are competent and provide on time delivery of service. I think many customers woud not mind paying a premium to exhange for excellent and hassle free service.
A training centre would be another altenative.

Today bb sad sad like rocky :(

Finally, after 2 months and persistence follow up on this week, ISP TEdata told me the ADSL is ready. They only "split"the phone line to voice and data. I need to setup the rest. WTF, getting so used to all in one service in Singapore already.

I went to buy router. But I can't find a splitter for phone and ADSL so scrap the plan. Tomorrow I am going to ask Hesham to fix it. Probably will rent the hardware from the ISP, and get them to setup everything.

Contractor also came to change out the light bulbs, but did not install the filter. I am going to made more pesky call every single day hor!

As usual, the worker kuku as hell and came in pair again. They counted the light bulbs but missed out one. They went to buy light bulbs but came back forgot to fix 2 of them. While they were scratching their head wondering why they still have 2 extra fucking bulbs, I have to offer my consultation service to them again. I was sitting at the couch and just wait for something to happen. No choice, they never ceased to amaze me.

Wouldn't it be less blood boiling if I fix it myself? The reasons why I don't:
-I don't have a ladder and I don't feel like buying one
-No need to buy the bulbs myself
-I don't want to mess with the already very mess up electrical system...safety first!
-I am lazy

Oh yeah, they fixed a super big light bulb at the bathroom...much bigger than the original one. Damn.

-VINcE
ps: bb if you read this, please remember to bring your receipt for Visa....can claim. Bring fish oil also.
pps: Please don't feel too sad. When you sad sad, you are very forgetful and you will trip and fall down easily. Later you forget to board the plane how?

Medical Checkup

I went to medical check up today. The whole process was a breeze, my colleague told me I was lucky.

I am not sure whether it's the techique or the needle is too big, my blood drain out and stain my clothes. :( But I am ok, I have no blood phobia.

Today I am going to get the contractor over to fix some lights and install water filter at our apartment.

Countdown to Eve's arrival. Happy ^^!

-VINcE

Update on nabeh II : My colleague told me the guy has paid the fine. Now only he realised that he has to pay the fine plus no body want to buy his car!? His maths failed big time! Bugger, now you want to sell to me again? USD4000 is what I am going to pay (I am very relunctant to buy even at this price, because I hate to deal with person with no integrity, but Eve said should consider...eventhough the color is so shitty)

Update on potential buy

I came back from viewing another car. It's an Isuzu SUV V6 3.5L engine. Not a very common SUV brand around Asia region but their trucks are not rare.

I had a short test drive and.....so weird! This is a left handed driving car and I am so used to right handed driving already. The acceralator and brake paddle are in the same location but now I have to use my right hand to do gear shifting. This made my legs confused abit on the paddle stepping choice. Don't laugh.

The wiper and signal level switched side also. I was trying to turn on the signal lights but instead I turned on the wiper. Lucky no body see me :p.

It looks welly maintained internally and externally, even te engine compartment looks surprisingly clean. The only thing that's not very new is the front tyres. Richard (the aussie seller who has lived here for 6 years and moving to Qatar) told me you can get a second hand tyre at 100LE. My old Aprillia bike tyre was 400++LE for a new one, so what the heck, small problem.

It has a nice automatic sun-roof, milage is good:40k for an 6 years old car. Heh, my Vios has 50k milage in 1.5 years.

Dear, I think you will like this car more than the previous one. Maybe you can get your licence here and drive me around ok! :)

-VINcE

Update: The nabeh guy just called, changed his mind now? Nabeh, Chinese guy can be bastard sometime also ok, I didn't even bother to answer! *evil laugh*

Car

I am not a real car fanatic. I am not able to explain the mechanics in details like those horse power shit or 6 pistons engine vs whatever else. I am a engineer but I am not into engines...maybe because I am a Leo?

I won't get my hands dirty doing all those mods on the car also.

My only mod attempt with a vehicle was on my retired Aprilia RS125 Racer . This Italian bike was considered as a bad boy or high end Ah Beng racing bike back in its glory days. It was made famous by Valentino Rossi. He is a multiple times world champion riding the Aprilia in 125cc and 250cc. I can still remember the huge admiration I have on the stack up twin exhaust of the 250cc.

So, what I did to my RS125? I jack up the back seat with a modified single suspension, bored up the fuel intake in the engine block, remove the filter in the air box, removed the original and installed a racer's Arrow exhaust pipe. The result was a devilish and loud silver cat.

My old bike at workshop...few months prior to selling it away. COE expiring soon back then, probably should have extent for another 10years. Spent 10k on it.

My Aprilia left me many good memories and a few scary ones. I only have one minor accident riding it (with bruised wrist), when I banged into the vehicle at the cross junction. I do have a few close calls when I almost lose balance when I e-brake (the high suspension and hence gravity contributed partially to it).

My top speed with the bike is 150km/h, not ultra fast but I did it on Singapore Expressway. Heh, those were the crazy "young punk" days...and spending whole night polishing every metal part of the bike at void deck with AUTOSOL with my friends.

Although I am not a car fanatic but I do have my own preference. My taste for car is a reflection of my Aprilia : Badass looking, especially those big badass muscle car.

Look at these cars, they are not only visually intimidating but the engines also packs alot of punch. MUSCLES! I prefer these American cars over those more "posh" automobiles like the Subaru Impreza and Honda Integra.

A Ford Mustang...what a name for a badass car!

Dodge Charger, cool colours, lots of attitude.

Vintage Charger. What a beauty and nice shape! I want it!

SUV is always my type of car that I I think it represent my attitude towards life in a bold way. I am not a luxurious sedan fan and MPV gives me a good family man feels....yeah, I don't like to be labelled as a "good" family man....I prefer people to call me a good "wild" family man.

Okay, I know I drive a Vios now, but that's for economical reasons: Money not enough ah! Heck, I will be driving a V6 Ford Explorer soon in Egypt if everything go smooth. Pray hard and dun pray pray.

I always wanted a 7-seater SUV (I like BIG badass, remember?). In the current market, my favourite of all is Toyota Fortuner:

Drools.....A Fortuner, a nice facelift to Hylux truck

...and the Ultimate badass SUV: HUMMER. Not very practical unless it's for showing off:

Commercialised US military truck... HUMMER H2 SUV

Did I just tell you I am crazy over SUV? I even have a price list I made myself to keep track of the price and fuel consumption of various model available in Singapore now:

I just found out today that Daihatsu has launched a 7-seater Terios! At S$67,000 only! It is equipped with a 1.5liter engine, so it will not have as much power as desired for a SUV, but it is still pretty attractive for it's build and seating capacity. Anyway, who want a power car in the ever populated roads in Singapore? *Sour Grapes*

It is truely a very budgeted SUV with very affordable price. Pictures shown below are the Terios sister car, 7-Seater Toyota Rush. Pretty much everything is the same including the body and engine. However Toyota demands a higher price tag due to it's branding.

I hope they can upgrade the engine to 1.8liter....and definitely it's now on top of my SUV hunting list!

-VINcE