Monday, March 31, 2008

The day For which I am in Australia - DreamWorld - 7th Heaven

DreamWorld was spectacular! I entered this place at 10:30am and the next time I saw my watch it was already 4:30pm(nearing closing time of DreamWorld :( ) I took only one ride of each of the Rides in this much time. There were so many rides out here, that you get confused of thinking which one to try first!!!!

To enjoy this place to the fullest, you should be here with some ADVENTUROUS buddy! You will have fun that you will never forget! Though I was alone, but there was no time to feel loneliness, coz you have no time to think, coz the rides make you so happy, so out of the world experience, that u would like to come here again and again!!!!

The 'Gaint Drop' was the scariest of all! You can think of going for a ride for second time on any of the machines here, though they may look scary and they might be scary, but for Gaint Drop, you will think atleast thrice for taking a second ride!!!! The machine takes you to a height of some half a kilometer above the ground and then u stay there watching the birds view and waiting for the drop, and the time when you are least expecting it, you will be dropped and by the time you reach down u get so scared that you will cry out with your loudest possible! The journey of 5 to 10 seconds, when you are falling freely from that height u will experience the hell - ufcourse in a good way! ;)

The second scariest was the Claw. This gives you the same experience as Gaint Drop but the height is less. The good points in the ride were that, it gives you a view where you actually see down while falling, and this rising and falling happens every minute. So you are prepared for the next rise and for the next fall. And believe me you will enjoy this ride the most. I wasted my time more here, coz I had this ride two times. :)

And then the list of scary rides moves on from 'Tower of terror' to 'Cyclone' and so on...... Cyclone is the same ride which Aamir khan had in DCH. Actually, this roller coaster was in Sydney near Harbour Bridge, but then they shifted it to the DreamWorld. Ufcourse the ride was mind blowing!

The only Frustrating part of all these rides is that you got to stand in a queue for atleast 15min. Anyways, this was not the case with the water rides, they were too big. There was one interesting ride which was called 'FlowRide'. Here the flow of water was in opposite direction and you had to slide through it. And by the time you reach down, it pushes you back with a force that you again reach back top!

Not to forget, There was a small Austalian Wild life park and Farm Lands etc. The Farm lands were to show the kind of lifestyle Australian Farmers live. In the park, I saw a huge crocodile, bengal tigers, kangaroos, bears, snakes etc. The place was to have fun with the family, so just skimmed through it! And spent my time on those adventurous machines. For lunch, I used to take some junk food or burger and eat it while I am in a queue, so saving every single moment of my visit. :)

The day passed of with great fun! At 4:30pm, I went into the IMAX for rest and saw the movie 'Space Invasion'. Even this experience was beyond my expectations. Here I actually felt that I am seeing earth from above the satellite. The view of earth and the satellite was so magnificient that it blows off your mind. The view from there actually makes you feel, how big the earth is, and how small we are! You get to see the biggest dynasty of GOD! You ponder, how GOD must be ruling it, how is he able to listen to us, how is he able to solve the problems!

Anyways, had to rush out, coz the last bus was at 5:50pm and I had to be at the bus stop atleast 10min before that. By the time I reached back room, every part of my body was crying out with pain. I fell on the bed like a dead man!

Friday, March 28, 2008

HoneyMoon Period is over

After completing my work at IAG, and also completing with the customization issues for AMP I had no work. When I asked Mark for the next good thing in which I will be involved into, he was confused but said that I would staying in Sydney for 2 weeks more.

As I was going to stay for two more weeks, I filled my refrigerators with a full stock of beer, wine, eggs, milk etc, But the very next day I got a call from Martin that I need to be in Brisbane in another 3 days. Though it was sad coz there were lot of things in refrigerator which cant be finished in 3 days, but I was excited for the Brisbane trip. I stayed in Sydney for 20 days.
The new Client Queensland Governement had a pretty good office. It was large enough that it took me two days to actually memorize the route from security to the IT department. Anyways, the very first shock I got regarding the work I am supposed to do was that of Environment. It was again Clustered environment with Websphere, and this time I had to create the setup from Scratch. The more frustrating thing is that the environment which I am going to make will also need to be configured for LDAP. Now the icing on cake, I had to replicate this envirnment for UAT, DEV and Production environment as well.

Apart from the environment setup, I also had to write scripts which will extract data from there legacy LMS system to SABA. The very first day they gave me the details of Dev machine on which I had to make the setup and also schema Diagram of there Legacy system. I could imagine that the tough days has just begun, while the honeymoon period of Sydney is over!!! :(

Bird Watching

Must say, the kind of body language and the kind of dressing sense that I have seen in Sydney cant be imagined with Indian girls. And surely it is gonna take more 100years for our Indian girls to get that bold and to adapt that attitude.

But a chinky girl will spoil your mood. Every third girl passing-by is a chinky here.

In just two weeks of my stay in Sydney, I had to cover all the bids flying by, so I leave office at around 5pm and go straight to harbour bridge. I have observed that more good looking Australian girls can be seen near Imax theater, rather than the Opera House. Almost 1000 girls pass-by daily, when I am sitting near the Darling Harbour, out of which 80% come with their boyfreinds, 10% are fat, 9% fly in there own world and 1% who are good looking and alone doesnt see me! :(

Anyways, Daily routine of gym-office-harbour-room is no more thrilling for me, now waiting for the day when I will reach Brisbane. All my hopes are on Brisbane now!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Day 11 - Back to Pavillion

My First client, IAG squeezed me for every doubt they had, and drilled me for every issue they had! After those harsh days, I am back to Sydney office. Until I raise any alarm, I can sit here quietly with no work and enjoying my paid holidays at sydney! ;)

Day 10 - Third day Onsite

Gosh, Clients work veery differntly. They ask the same question but from different angles. And we get confused if we are answering correctly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyways, Last day went with solving all their queries and performance tunning of server.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Day 9 in Sydney - second day at onsite

After much head brreaking sessions and research and trouble shooting, I was finally able to resolve the notification issue!!!!!!!!

Wasnt left much for the day so came to SABA office, downloaded Black and white and went straight to room afterwards.

Day 7 and 8 - First Weekend in Sydney

When I opened my eyes, it was 11am!!!!! This ruined my pans of going to beach. Even it was very sunny day. So I planned to wash all my clothes on saturday and have this beach plan executed on sunday!

Washed all my clothes, pressed them, cooked food and had a nap. By the time I got up, it was 5pm. I planned to go to Opera house, instead of wasting my time inside the room. So got ready fast, went down, and took a cab strainght to Opera house.

Opera House, was good. Harbour bridge was big enough. Restaurants, parks, surroundings, boat ride etc were good enough. The thing frustrated me was that I took atleast 7 photographs on request for couples. Seeing me walking alone, many requested me to take their photograph, while they pose!!!!!!!!!!!! !#$#@$!#$!$

Anyways, after reaching the saturation point of frustration, took a cab and returned to room agian. Cooked some food, ate it and went back to bed!!!!!

While going to sleep, I already made up my mind that I will not go to beach tomorrow to become photographer!! :(

Anyways, On sunday I went for swimming, then to sauna bath for some time. Roamed around city for sometime, got some beer.

Day 6 in Sydney - First Onsite day

Today, Martin took me to IAG. My first Onsite day and My first Onsite Client.

IAG has 13000 employees, so ufcourse the architecture was clustered in Websphere. The first issue I got was to resolve Notification server thing in that Clustered thingie.

Gosh!!!!!! Horible!!!! I never touched Websphere, on top of that it was a clustered Environment. The day passed off, just in understanding the architecture and in understanding Websphere.

After 6pm, I went straight to SABA office, to try hard get the laptop issue resolved. Somehow, I was able to figure a utility which resets administrator password to null. This research and reseting took a long time, and it was almost 9pm in the office. On my way back to room, it started raining heavily. Gosh! rains in Sydney cant be predicted!!!!!!!

I was very excited about the weekend, as I had lots of plan for it. So went early to bed, to getup early!!!!!

Day 5 in Sydney

Prady came to office today!!!!!! He is a cool guy! The problem is, he shifted to sydney with his family, so I cant expect him to take me to pubs or sydney!!!!

Anyways, as usual, the day went on with me hitting my head on my laptop to reset it. The only option left with me was to throw this laptop in a bin, and ask for a new one. But I was warned by prady that this will make me waiting for atleast 15 days, and still might not get a new one!

After coming back to room, I got a call from prady, he gave me number of his friends in Sydney. I met them on Sydney Harbour. These guys were kids from MBA college in their final sem. They were good enough to show me the streets of Sydney. They took me to Indian restaurants, central station, Indian stores etc. These kids(!!!!!! Am I growing old! :) ) were passing comments among each other for every girl that were passing us, just like we used to do in our college days. Fuuny incident is, that one boy told us that the girl walking is surely a french. He said, he could make out through the height and the physique. But later when the girl turned, she looked chinese. And then all sorts of nasty comments flowed!!!!!!

Had a great time roaming around the sydney street with them. Not to forget, the Chicken-biryani that I had was good. Though not as good as of Hyderabadi biryani, but still eatable! ;)

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Day4 in Sydney

I finally got one laptop, though was not as good as it was expected, but I had no choice. The whole day, I was downloading songs, chatting with friends.

Afternoon, I went out with one of my colleague for lunch. I had Chicken-kebab. Though, it was not as good as what we get in INDIA, but had australian taste! (Now dont ask me what an australian taste is, once you reach some foreign counry you will feel a kind of taste in every meal.)

After finishing with the office work, I went straight to room, left my bag there, sat for 5 minutes and then again went out to explore city more. I also went to IMAX theater and watched 'Beowulf'. That was the time when I realized that even Animation movies gets scary, if seen on a 3D screen! Sound effect and 3D made that ordinary movie look more interesting. It was an awesome experience.

After the movie, went home and cooked food! I must say that now I have atleast learnt how to make rice, with appropriate amount of water and appropriate amount of heating. I also learnt how to boil milk. And last but not the least, I have learnt how to wash dishes!!! :)

The important change that I have observed in these four days, is that I have started keeping the room clean. I take 10min out daily to clean the room. The only thing which makes this possible for me to do is music. I play loud music, and do all the work!!!!!!!

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Day3 in Sydney

Well, the day passed off with me working on some work given by my manager.

Later reached home to watch INDIA winning the series in cricket.

Cooked some food, then roamed around city, got some beer, then went to sleep!

:( You can call this as the boring day!

Monday, March 3, 2008

Day2 in Sydney

Gotup early in the morning to reach office early! And much to my surprise, I found only one guy sitting in a 3-roomed flat, which he called it as an office! !@#!@#!@#$!@#!@#!@

Anyways, I tried calling my managers and no one responded, so shot a mail and went back to room! :)

Again had a nap and ate some rice and dal(MTR product), which I brought from INDIA.

After 6pm, I went to Darling Harbour and was roaming around watching birds getting cozy with their bf in some corner!

For night, I tried preparing egg-curry! And after eating it, I felt that instead of aspiring to work in movies, I should think of becoming a cook! hahahahaha Seriously, speaking the curry was good in taste!

Watched a movie on the laptop, which I got in the office and then went to sleep!!!!!!

Sydney Day1

After a lot of Grilling, I was able to get out of Sydney Airport. Took a taxi and went straight to my room in Meriton Apartments. Meriton Apartments is a 70 storied building (approx.) with 10 floors underground! Mine is at 43rd floor. Room was just like the room were Aamir khan stayed in DCH. Had every facility from kitchen, dishwasher, washin machine, internet to gym and swimmimg pool in the Apartment. From balcony, I could view the whole city.

Took a nap, and then went out in the city for Bird-watching! ;) Kent Street which is the center of the city, had lots of theaters, pubs, discs, malls etc. I went into Woolworths for shopping and returned to room.

Watched a movie and went to sleep!

hahahahaha

Now, dont tell me that the day went boring, I had fun roaming around the city discovering traffic sense, mono-rail etc. Must say, stay in sydney is awesome experience!

Halt of 5 hours in Singapore

Singapore Airline ki Air-hostess ek dum Pariyan thi!!! Kash hamare domestic air flights mein bhi aisi Air-hostess hoti!!!

And to say about Singapore Airport, it had 3 terminals. And to travel from one terminal to another there were sky-trains. The Airport was too big.

Not wasting even a single moment I roamed around the airport for atleast 4 hours! Items from Electronic to ;) were too costly!!!!!!! And I didnt had time to waste standing in the queue of custom-free section. Anyways, timepassed off quickly on the airport.