A month of travel, party and hard work

This month my cousin from Austria is visiting me so it is a great occasion to go out every night for a drink or a party, to travel around Asia and to enjoy life, just like a tourist would do. We have been to Zouk (considered the third best club in the world), to have fun at the Karaoke bar, to New Asia bar (on the 71st floor) to Insomnia (whit the hot Asian girl singing). This weekend we go to Kuala Lumpur, next weekend to Tioman Island for scuba diving, after that probably to Borneo Island to climb up to 4000 m. So as you can see there is a lot of fun. Yupeeeeeeeee :):):)

But there is hard work as well. We just launched the global brand campaign and we are sponsoring Mission Impossible III as well, so lot of action regarding this. My colleague is taking maternity leave, so I am taking over a big chunk of her work. This means extra hours, late night conference calls (as there are different time zones we need to connect). But it is soooo exciting. I learn a lot every day and it is a lot of fun and challenge in it. I like it :):):)

It is good that I can channel my thoughts and energy in these and I can move my life in a new and exciting direction. So I am rather optimistic these days and I am living my life to the maximum :) (ok, maybe the Red Bull I just drunk makes me feel so high)

Song of the day: Bonanza Banzai – Dörömbölnek a vágyak

I am the rainbow :)

Most of the people have the impression that Singapore is boring, however that is by far not true. There is always something happening and something interesting to see or to participate in. Of course if you stay at home, then you might have the impression that life is boring. So if you are a bit proactive, then you will have a lot of fun.

This weekend was exciting as well for me. I went to this Holi celebration. Holi is an Indian festival and as one might expect it has few stories related to it which you can read if you click here.

Of course for culturally insensitive and ignorant bastards is enough to remember that people on this day consume a special drink called 'thandai' or 'bhang' which actually contains small amounts of marijuana (not in Singapore though). Besides this people get together to dance and to put some nice colours on each other's face and say Happy Holi. Of course at the end you are like a rainbow with paint everywhere. It becomes a huge dancing and colour fighting bonanza. Let's call it a primitive version of the paintball :):):)

It was a lot of fun just walking around in the crowd putting paint on everybody, or people who you have never met putting paint on you. And of course from kids to parents everybody participates. And in the meantime you dance to these Indian songs in the crowd :) It is so random that you might think it is a hippy festival rather then a religious one :) It was very liberating feeling to participate in this and be random :) I imagined also putting paint on my dear Indian friends from AI :):):) Haha :)

Anyway, I think the pictures speak for themselves....

(Song of the day: Guns N' Roses - Estranged)

The silence of the church...

I have been today to St Andrews's Cathedral here in Singapore. It is a very nice church. Compared to Europe's cathedrals, it is not that big and it is quite hot inside, in Europe you would find quite low temperatures in those huge cathedrals. This one is a very simple cathedral but very beautiful.

I haven't been in a Christian church for almost 6 and a half months, so it's been a while, but I just felt the need to sit in the church, enjoy the silence and pray. It is interesting to have the same feeling and the same comfort in every church, whether it is in Romania, Netherlands, Germany, Singapore, etc. And I felt the same now again, the serenity of the place, the protection of God. It is just a good source of positive energy, a place where you find the confidence that everything will be all right. A place where you get back the balance of your soul.

I don't practice religion on a daily basis and my lifestyle is quite non-religious, let's put it that way, but I am always overwhelmed by a very warm feeling when I go to church. I can't explain it.

But now I am balanced and I have found a bit of peace again in these stressful and demanding times. Maybe I should go more often to the church....

(Song of the day: Moby - New Dawn Fades)

The 26th day

Last year if somebody would have told me that I will celebrate my next birthday in Singapore, I would have said that I don’t even know where it is. And here I am now. Last year I celebrated in Rotterdam, this year in Singapore, who knows where I will be next year :).

I am not writing about this event because I am proud that I am getting older. I am writing about it, because it was full with emotions and experiences, let’s say so. It was not a regular birthday.

I started my birthday celebration in a very cool place in Singapore with few days before THE DAY. The two agencies (creative and media) and my team got together in a nice place (with a Jacuzzi in the middle of The Balcony :):) ) and we got a nice drinking session. Was very interesting, with rounds of shots, with the Happy Birthday song (with some Chinese version as well :):) ). My boss put me to have a speech as well :):):) It was just a nice and lovely atmosphere and a bit like a family. Here I just want to mention as well that all these people are really cool and therefore can’t see that much of a difference between working with them and working in AIESEC. :):):) I am lucky :)

One of the sweetest things was that Friday night exactly at midnight I got a message from my grandparents, greeting me. I was very impressed that they just managed to do that, I mean my grandfather is 92 years old. And it was written very nicely with Hungarian characters. I was very moved by this…. I mean they bought a mobile phone like a year ago....

Saturday, on THAT DAY, I just cooked some Hungarian food and some friends came over for lunch :) And for some drinks :):):) for a lot of drinks :):):) We had quite a heavy drinking session, both in terms of quantity and quality (ah, the 300S$ cognac is strong :):):) ). And of course we went after that to a club to dance. Some danced to remember some danced to forget. :):):) And I was waiting for that phone call which I never got after all…. Very interesting night I would say. Full of mixed emotions and events. Yeah, it was nice to have my “trainee family" with that day and just receive the nice greetings and have a drink with them.

Sunday was a recovery, so not much happened. But the celebration was not over… I went Monday with Melissa to watch Crash. Nice movie :):):) And Tuesday I got the postcard as well from my parents, a bit late, but they have greeted me on Saturday anyway. But my mother sent me a letter as well. I talk with her very often and I know what’s happening at home. But it is always a mother son conversation. But in this letter she actually writes her feelings about her life and about how she experiences some things, like me sending to her money and her illness. It is like a letter to a friend, to a very good friend. I never saw her communicating to me in this way. She was not the one trying to give us power and treat us like their sons this time, but wanting to get energy and relief by telling how she feels. Is this a sign that she considers me an adult? :) I was very moved by this letter, I read several times, OK, I admit, I had some tears in my eyes as well…..

And just like in the case of big celebrations, we had an after party as well. We got together yesterday for a final drink and had some nice discussions about the hot topics of Singapore, and not only ….. :):):) Well, these discussions are not good to publish on a blog in SIngapore, hehe :):):)

So yeah… a lot of things happened in few days and a lot of emotions and I am looking forward to this weekend to just chill and relax and digest all these things.

Complex vs Simple

I wrote about quite a few movies on my blog, soon it will become a movie review blog :). Well, it is quite cheap entertainment here in Singapore. And especially when it was a love movie, I always said that wow, this could be my life, or that the topic is so familiar.

Looking back in time and to the present as well, I realize that my love life was quite hectic and strange and it could be a much better movie then those in Hollywood or Bollywood. It is more complex, it is more beautiful, it is more dramatic, it hurts much more. I mean for some people “Closer” (the movie) was wow, what a complex thing, and I felt bored at a certain point… It was not extraordinary compared to what I have been through.

Why is so complex? I don’t know. Maybe because it is not a linear thing, like in a movie. Maybe because I am blurry. Maybe because life is more complex like a movie. And movies can’t capture the subtle things which may seem small, but have a big impact. Those kind of subtle things described so well by Kundera in one of his books….

Who am I with now? Who do I love now? Well, this is a question I hear quite often from the people here in Asia (especially from girls), wondering how a tall, European good looking (at least according to them) guy is alone or not hanging out with all the Asian girls.

So this is a kind of a “corporate statement” style of confession to bring light a bit in the complexity of my soul. Unfortunately I am not together with anybody “officially”, but I am in love.

I am in love with Ioana, my ex-girlfriend. Will I be together with her again? Don’t know. When I will brake down the complexity of life in simple things, then probably I will find out. And then I will issue another “corporate statement”:). Would I want to be with her? Yes.

Probably I will be very unpopular from now on writing these (can send the link to all those Singaporean girls hitting on me :) ), some will be disappointed and angry. But it is a good thing to make things simple.

(Song of the day, not related to this entry: U2 – Crumbs from your table)