Presentations and other stuff in Singapore!

I write this from the airport in Kuala Lumpur. I arrived here from Singapore today and will catch a flight to Shanghai in about 8 hours. I have no idea why I am here already. I didnt want to pay for a night at hostel, but now I have to suffer for that. The floor is haaaard. In Shanghai I will stay a month, learn mandarin and do other stuff. That will be a good transition between my trip and school back home.

Last week in Singapore was characterized by a lot of presentations for different companies, like Maersk, Google, Ericsson, AstraZeneca, Nordea, Statoil. It was hectic and great. I met a lot of interesting people.

Martin, my fresh-caught Swedish friend in Singapore, bought my bicycle for my emotional value. That was a great addition to the funds. Thanks a lot Martin. It saved me the hassle of shipping it home. He promised he will take care of her! It was a liiiittle sad to get rid of it.

Lunch at a local place with bankers from Nordea.

I asked myself: "If I could choose one company, whichever, that I could make my presentation for, which one would it be?". I thought Google. So after a lot of phone calls and hassle I managed to find an e-mail-address of someone working at the Google office in Singapore and we arranged a presentation. It was funny, there were people from the office in San Fransisco joining in on the video conference. Before the presentation we did a round the table, and everyone said their name and were they came from. I forgot about the guys in the video conference, which they reminded me of just when I had started my presentation: "Heeey, I think you forgot someone here". That was very funny.

OK, with the Google logo in the background.

Haha, the European Chamber of Commerce invited me to speak at a networking night at Singapore Cricket Club. I had no idea it was a fancy event so I arrived with t-shirt, shorts and shoes full of holes. They said "Excuse me, I dont think you are appropriately dressed". "Oh", I said. "But I am going to speak here. Can you please bring me the organizer down?". She came and they offered me to lend a pair of jeans and a jacket. I said "No... I am not gonna do this. If I will speak for 200 nicely dressed guests I dont want to look like an idiot :)" and went back to my hostel. But just after arriving I thought, "Ah, in my presentations I talk about the importance of getting out of the comfort zone. Then I have to practise it also". Haha, so I went back to the cricket club and said "Ok, I do it".

From IKEA I got vouchers to eat at their restaurant so I had Köttbullar (meatballs) and Lussekatt. Lussekatt was the only name given for that bun so when I ordered I said "One lussekatt please". Hehe, they didnt understand first - I must have had the wrong pronounciation :)

Yes, I was taken to a couple of fancy bars and had Guinness. I love Guinness.

It was a little sad to leave Singapore. The bus to Kuala Lumpur almost went the same way as I came on the bicycle. I miss the life on bicycle quite a lot. Anyway, now hopefully a great month in Shanghai awaits before arriving to Sweden in middle March. I dont know if Blogger and Blogspot is blocked in China. Probably. So I dont know how I will update my blog then. We'll see. Thanks for reading.

Viktor