A Long Day

I was really exhausted by the time I wrote this entry. I did a quick walk in the village near ny hotel after breakfast, hopped onto the bus to the Congress Hall. Managed to walk across town on the way to the Congress Centre and really had a feel of what Lugano was all about.

I then listened to a few lectures and then followed my colleagues to Fox Town retail outlet which I blogged about earlier.

I then turned back to the Congress Hall for anothed session before taking a late afternoon stroll into town. Did some more shopping before taking the tram up the hill to get to my bus stop before finally heading home.

Luckily we had planned for a quiet dinner back at the hotel. All of us as a group. We could then chill out, do the packing before heading to Milan tomorrow morning after breakfast.

Feeling sticky now after I was sure almost 10 km of walking. My legs were aching and I could do with a long hot shower. Shame that my room didn't come with a bath tub .. ..

Photos from the day walk can be seen here.

Upload Done

It took me a good week or so, but finally the photos from the recent Penang MSH meeting were up. It was just that I had a couple of calls right after the meeting last week, and finding time to sit down and go through the photos was a bit difficult. After the photos were done, then there was a small matter of uploading the the photos onto my server. And that would take bandwidth as each photos was about 1Mb in size. It didn't take that long with the fibre connection at the apartment, but finding time to do so at the apartment was another story.

Once the photos were ported up, then I had to embed than onto the website. And that took me another couple of hours. It wasn't long but finding the time to sit down and do them was the problem.

Anyhow, it was all done. I decided to capture the photos in RAW on the 7D, making colour management through Aperture, less tricky. I was actually pretty happy with the results.

Gurney Down

I was rather disappointed with the current state of Gurney Hotel, the venue for our recent Haematology Meeting. The place had certainly been run down compared to what it was back in 2010, the last time I was there. It needed proper maintenance, or to put in bluntly, it needed proper management. The current crop should hang their collective heads in shame.

In the past, the food was reasonably good, the state of the room were well above average, the jacuzzi in the main bathroom suite was in working order, and the internet actually was of broadband speed.

Now, the food was dreadful, the room was stuffy, and even the air conditioning was not working properly. I had four air-conditioning unit in my apartment, and only one remote was available. My room lacked proper lighting, I couldn't even get any work done. And the internet …… I was sure you could get faster speed in North Korea.

The other thing which actually irked me was the lift. The hotel had almost 30 floors, but with only 3 lifts for the patrons. The less I elaborate the better I thought …..

But the main reason why I was strong in my criticism was the fact that the hotel wasn't not able to cope with the 550 delegates - and 31 pharma booths - for the event, despite claiming that they could easily manage 750. Bold claims, but couldn't deliver ……..

Photos for Later

It had been a fruitful weekend in all honesty. The meeting in Penang was a success, an I get to meet my family up there in Penang as well. Though my time was rather occupied when I was there.

Then and the drive back to reality. The program did not finish until lunch. I hang around for a bit, finally leaving Gurney Hotel at around 2 pm.

I then drove straight to Sungai Petani to pick my Mum. We only started the journey proper at around 3.30.

The drive down was slower than expected although we still reached KL in good time. The traffic was rather heavy, this being a Sunday afternoon, and Anita joined me at my Mum's place shortly after.

I wanted to watch the Arsenal-United match but felt asleep halfway. Tired I guess. As for the photos? It would have to wait. I have taken Monday and Tuesday off anyhow, although I still had to go to the hospital to sort a couple of things out. I'll start going through the photos later on today.

Day Two

The second day o the meeting was running well. And the lectures I co-chaired just now was memorable, given by two very famous international lecturers. An expert in indolent lymphoma and another in myeloma. One from Germany, and another from Turin.

And the data and the works that they presented and did were definitely world class. And it was a pleasure to have had the honour to chair the symposium.

My talks however would be tomorrow morning. I managed to pass on another portion of my talk to another speaker, allowing me to enjoy listening to more lecture that morning.

We were just listening to the lunch symposium now before a short afternoon break. More talks this afternoon, and I planned to head over to Kepala Batas right free for dinner with my family in Sungai Petani.