Ya want a piece of me?

What Transpired In Pakistan

Like DSA 2006 back in April, we were at another defence exhibition only this time in Karachi, Pakistan. My apprehension was soon laid to rest as the local organisers as well as the other foreign exhibitors who were great folks whose company I enjoyed. Whenever we got together, there usually was loud chuckling and sometimes there were incredible belly laughs, which I believe began for the first time when we tried to figure out what the acronym “CIP” actually was. Nope, ain’t tellin’. There were Barry and Martin from Australia, John from England, Bernard from the Czech Republic and sometimes we were joined by Jean-François from France, who was our neighbour in the exhibition booth next to us. All of us were ably and excellently cared for by our Pakistani attachés (so to speak) Shah, Shamir and Arsalan. I was chained to the booth most of the time because the […]

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Dust is ever-present and ubiquitous around here

Karachi is Sunny but Cool

Today Hikam and I took a drive around town with a tour guide / taxicab driver. The idea was that we’d tell him what we needed to buy on a souvenir hunt and he’ll know the best places to take us. Although we tried very hard, we couldn’t find a T-shirt that reads My Friend Went To Karachi and All He Got For Me Was This Lousy T-shirt. In fact very little T-shirts were sold at the souvenir stores. They mostly have leather and fur goods, onyx-carved trinkets, ornate metal-ware and beautiful cloth for traditional wear. Like Malaysia, there are lots of motorcycles on the streets but wearing helmets are voluntary. Other unlikely vehicles found on the streets of Karachi is this human-powered banana-carrying cart and the donkey cart. We missed an opportunity to take a photo of a cart carrying metal drums (stacked at least 10 feet tall) drawn […]

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Out of the airport

So There We We Were At Jinnah International

Hikam and I arrived at about 2025 local time via the Pakistan International Airlines flight. It was enjoyable. I think I slept four out of the six hours airborne. The inflight movie was Pirates of the Carribeans – Dead Man’s Chest. Luckily the hotel transport people were waiting for our arrival. One less thing to worry about. It’s now almost 1000 local time in the morning, and we’ve had some breakfast. Access to Wireless LAN in only in the lobby on the ground floor and on the 6th and 7th floors. So, here I am in the lobby trying to get some information down the internet tubes.

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Hishgraphics H

Next Week I Fly To…

…Karachi, Pakistan. The journey will be nested between the coming two Saturdays. Since the company is small I have to run around getting stuff done in preparation for the trip. Between this and the course assignment – that had me on edge for weeks until I finally submitted it one week late – I had no time updating this here weblog. Heck, I didn’t even have time to come up with some artwork which I promised myself I’d come up with for recreation time. A stand-out moment during the running around would be last Friday when the Airline employee looked at me (when she realised I was booking the tickets for myself) and asked with a tinge of disbelief, “You’re the one going?” Hopefully by two weeks we’ll have some photos of Karachi here. (And hopefully we’ll have internet connection at the hotel there.)

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