My Life in Bahrain - The Good, The Bad

The Good

1. Money is good

The Bad

1. Inconsiderate colleagues that smoke inside their room in the site office. Yes, they're smoking inside, but somehow the smoke still manages to go out the door and slowly infiltrate the whole office.

2. Working hours suck. Now in the middle of summer, we're basically forced to work from 4.30 am in the wee hours in the morning to right smack in the afternoon at 12.30 pm. Finishing work at noon is all fine with me, but getting up at 3.00 in the morning is never easy. I am not really a morning person, and getting up this early and asking me to work this early makes me hate mornings more.

3. Transports. We got a Hyundai Galloper. It is probably a 1997 or 1999 model. Its basically a tin can on 4 oversized wheels. 'Nuff said.

4. It's sand everywhere. Sand storms are quite common here, in this desert island. The worst sand storms here is way worse than any hazy our Bolehland can conjure up with.

5. The heat. I am now enduring the mid Summer temperature in a desert island. Now, the hottest temperature that i have to endure thus far is probably about 48 degC. Sun Tan lotion, is a must, the higher SPF number, the better.

6. Food. I am Chinese, so it is only natural for me to like Chinese food. Unfortunately here in Bahrain, Chinese food is scarce. Yes we can go out to dine in a nice Chinese or Oriental restaurant but it is far from where i stay at the moment and they don't serve pork. Luckily we can buy pork at cold stores here.

7. Lack of leisure activities. Here the only leisure activity that i can afford is to go to the gym. Luckily our Villa compound do have a gym and this is the place i often found myself going to. Most of the time, i just spend half an hour or so sweating out during weekdays and on Friday.

8. Missing home. I miss my Father, I miss my mother and I miss my sister. I do also very much miss my 3 little puppies (theoretically they're no longer puppies, but it is what i like to remember them to be, little cute puppies). They say absence make the heart grow fonder. That is true, but still it does not cure the feeling of missing my family, missing spending the time with them, especially knowing that they're not getting any younger soon.

9. Lonely. I was lonely before i accepted this job and came to Bahrain. I was lonely then and I am still lonely. My definition of lonely is 'without girl friend'. I can safely say that 90% of the guys my age have had at least the experience of having a girl friend in their life. For me, i can safely say that I had none so far. Perhaps it is from my lack of trying. It is from my lack of understanding the opposite sex. I keep telling myself, that I am still young, and when the time comes, i will find the right person, that i am very patient to be where i am. But i begin to realize, that i am only missing out on the joy of life, the joy of having a partner and soul mate to accompany myself during the good of times and also the bad of times. I know that i am missing on this part of life, that life has to offer, that my life has to offer, and this thought is weighing on my mind. Every time. So, i give myself 2 choices. First, is to go all out and find myself a girl friend in the shortest possible time. Second, to forget finding a girlfriend, to forget going all out, and only to let fate play its hand. I chose the 2nd option.

10. H1N1. Although this is a Muslim country, people still manage to get H1N1. Amazing, but it's true.

11. Bookstores. The book stores here is painfully small compared to the ones we have in Malaysia. Every book stores that i went in Bahrain is about one tenth the size of MPH in Mid Valley Mega Mall. This translate to one tenth the amount and varieties of books that you can find. This perhaps also means that the people in Bahrain read 1 tenth of Malaysians. Considering that Malaysians already have rather poor reading records compared to countries like Singapore, it is amazing the people here read at all.

12. No Astro. Yes we have 1000 channels to choose from. But i can't understand Arabic, and watching ESPN or Live Soccer on Astro is beginning to really sound like paradise.