will i am's delayed diary

The meetings continued for another two days. More meals at Burger King and Chinese Dragon Cafe. So close to the famous Ministry of Crab, but pigs would fly before my bosses would treat us to a meal there. On the second last day, my CEO arrived and we had a lunch meeting with him at the posh Cinnamon Grand Hotel along Galle Road. The 5-star hotel is popular among tourists and business travelers, and is connected to the Crescat Boulevard Mall. For the same reasons, it was the target of suicide bombers during the Easter attack of 2019. My CEO asked my GM to decide on a lunch venue, and he seriously considered the Crescat Mall food court. In my mind, I was slapping my forehead repeatedly. Thank goodness my CEO vetoed that idea and we headed to Chutneys , an Indian restaurant in the hotel. On the way there, we passed by a posh wedding banquet held at a large dais beside the lobby. Huge gap between the rich and the poor. The thali set that I chose was delicious. During our last ...

Since no breakfast was provided, we had to find our own. The nearest option was Burger King. The man behind the counter was another example Sri Lanka's excellent service standard. Orders were piling up, but he couldn't properly help the kitchen staff. Even picking up the bacon from the fryer was obviously a challenge for him. By the time my order was done, he just blankly stared at it. A simple breakfast bun with scrambled eggs. From the hotel, we took either Uber or PickMe to our reseller's office. Since the managers will just wait to be ushered into the ride, I had to settle all the bookings. Thank goodness for the hunky surfer dude at the lobby who kept my mood up. Noticed that the Suzuki WagonR is the most popular choice among ride-hailing drivers. A small, squarish vehicle that can can't seat more than three passengers. In order to fill up the proposal, we were holed up in the conference room the whole day with another partner from France. A truly draining ex...

The last time I was in Colombo was during the third quarter of 2017. A quickie. That initiative ended as quickly as it started. And in 2019, I find myself back there for a government RFP and a to build a relationship with a Sri Lankan reseller. Followed a bunch of new colleagues who joined us in 2019. They were no strangers to Sri Lanka as they had a project there a few years back. Flew there with Sri Lankan Airlines where the air crew greet everyone with "ayubowan", which is a greeting of long life. I got a seat near the emergency exit with super leg room. Bandaranaike International Airport was a little different from what I remembered as the renovations had been completed. First order of business was to get a local SIM card at the arrival hall. Then we wasted some time trying to secure an airport transfer because they couldn't get us a big enough van. Our lodging was at Fairway Colombo, a small business hotel located at a narrow street behind the Dutch Hospit...

On my last day at Colombo, I finally had the chance to have a leisurely breakfast at the hotel. My bosses were having a breakfast meeting with my client's senior management, so I was excused. Tried the Sri Lankan hoppers ( apam ), and milk rice ( kiribath ). Outside the restaurant was a nice pool with swans, ducks, and koi swimming around. Later in the morning, we met another two project counterparts for more fact-finding. Had a quick lunch at Taste of Asia -- local mixed rice. A very peculiar short grain variety of rice was used. The spices used were really alien to me. Our afternoon was spent at the client office again. Tried to retrieve whatever documentation they promised to give us. We waited and waited and waited, but didn't get much. The main contractor met us up for dinner again. We had wine and finger foods at the Colombo Hilton executive lounge. My CEO gave him a summary of all that he had gathered. I sat at the next table, just enjoying the chicken skewers an...

I slept like a baby throughout the night. Threw off the luxurious linens and freshened up. Breakfast was served at GRAZE Kitchen , their all-day dining restaurant. Lovely as the spread was, I didn't get to enjoy much of it on the first day. At the restaurant, we met the main contractor of the project and my client's CTO. They were there to socialize and get my CEO up to speed on the baseline of the project, and customer sentiments. That was just the pre-meeting. At 9:30 AM, our client drove us to their headquarters just ten minutes away from the hotel. Not that it was far, it was just the traffic. To formalize things, the CTO kicked things off by introducing us to his project team, who over the course of the day, aired their grievances. Our role was neutral, as we were supposed to listen to all sides of the story. During the lengthy meeting, they plied us with passion fruit juice, an interesting choice. Our client treated us to a quick lunch at Goodies , Cinnamon Lakesi...

Work has been taking me places these days. Brunei has not even closed a chapter, and I'm now told to buy a ticket to Colombo! I wasn't aware that Malaysians need a visa to visit Sri Lanka, but thankfully there's no need to visit the embassy as they an e-visa channel. My flight was on Sunday night, 10:00 PM. I was quite surprised that the flight had it's fair share of Chinese passengers. Mostly were from China, but there were some Hong Kees too. Beside me were a PRC couple. The guy kept nudging into my hands although I let him have the arm rest, and his girlfriend really loved to lecture him. Probably because of them I could not sleep on the flight although I was so tired. Ended up watching "Colossal" to pass the time. Truly a quirky movie. Although we flew for nearly four hours, we arrived in Colombo at 11:00 PM, a 2.5 hour time difference. Bandaranike Airport looked pretty retro. While the immigration officer processed my arrival, half of his attention w...