Outpost Learning Event and Kuala Lumpur

The Outpost Learning Event (LE) in Kuala Lumpur was really great.  I learned a lot about Outpost and had a wonderful time, too!  My fellow Outpost volunteer, Kay, went with me.  This blog is quite long as we did so much and I have a lot of pictures I want to share.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday afternoon. The hotel was beautiful and I had a fantastic view of the Pertronas Towers.  Here are a couple of photos taken from my hotel room window on the 24th floor.

The view was so beautiful at night.

That first evening Kay and I walked to the mall located at the base of the towers.  There were a ton of stores, but we spent most of our time walking around a supermarket in the mall.  Coming from Sakhalin where the choices are somewhat limited, a supermarket with some western products and a lot of things we weren't used to seeing was so much fun for us.

The LE started on Sunday at noon when we had to set up our stalls.  Each Outpost location had a stall that represented their country and the products and services offered to the Expats at that location.  I think there were at least 35 countries represented.  Some countries have more than one Outpost location.  We also had to develop a poster that describes our services.  It hung on the wall behind the stall.  We shared a table with the Moscow Outpost.  Here is Kay behind our table.  You can see the table pretty well in this picture. 

Here I am.  We had  a slide show of  Sakhalin Island and brought some souvenirs to give away, as did everyone else.

Once the booths were set up, the LE started off with a celebration of 15 years of Outpost and a kickoff of the new Outpost Handbook.  A lady who was instrumental in the start up of Outpost spoke about it's history.  The were other introductory type speakers and a speed networking coffee session where we were able to meet fellow Outpost volunteers from around the world.  It was so interesting to talk to people from Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, etc.  The girl from Egypt was evacuated when the demonstrations started there.  She heard all the gunfire, etc.  The family of the girl from Bahrain was evacuated while she was with us in KL.  The final speaker of the day was a very energetic girl who runs a website entitled Expatwomen.com.  She was very inspiring and had a lot of ideas and stories about how women with successful careers, who quit their jobs to follow their husbands, reinvented themselves. 

On Sunday evening there was a cocktail and hors d'oeuvres party at the Dutch Ambassador's home.

 
The food was fabulous and just kept coming:

The overall theme of the LE was communication.  How to communicate with your clients, how to communicate with your team and how to communicate with HR.  Monday was focused on communicating with your clients (or the Expats). We had a workshop on services we could provide to clients such as Career and Development workshops, welcoming services, etc.  There was a panel of clients who gave their opinions and suggestions and answered questions about Outpost, a session on written communication and other networking exercises.

 There were so many different nationalities represented there.  It got confusing as you couldn't associate someone's nationality with the country there were representing because everyone was an expat.  The Chinese girl was representing Holland and the Australian was representing Malaysia for example.  There were even a couple of guys there.  Here's a photo of the meeting room:

 
The conference center provided lunch every day.  It was a huge buffet including many kinds of hot dishes, sushi, salad, desserts, fruit, cheese, bread, etc..  Anything you could think of.  There was a coffee shop where you could get latte's all day long.  It was all so tempting.  I seriously gained 2 or 3 pounds that week.

On Monday evening we walked to a local Malaysian restaurant for dinner.  It was nice and relaxing.  Since the program was so full and some people wouldn't have any time for souvenir shopping, the organizers of the event arranged for some local artisans to set up their wares at the restaurant.

The third day of the LE (Tuesday) was focused on communicating with your team.  As focal point, my job is to manage and motivate the team of volunteers.  In Sakhalin we have a 10 member team.  There was a cultural awareness session including a role play about perceptions.  I played the selfish, demanding American women who thinks money can buy everything.  (Interesting how the world perceives Americans).  We learned about an online tool used to track clients and their arrivals, questions, etc.  It has a library system, too.  I want to start using this for our location. 

On Tuesday evening, we had a formal sit down dinner at an old governor's mansion turned into a hotel.

We had cocktails outside on the patio and there were traditional Malaysian dancers for our entertainment:

Dinner was really good.  During the dinner there was a slide show presentation on Malaysian history.

The final day of the LE was Wednesday and focused on communication with HR.  When I took on this focal point job, I didn't realize how much you really do have to work with HR.  We get our funding from HR, so there are budget proposals to prepare, status reports, monthly meetings and minutes, etc.  I seriously feel like I have a full time job again.  The final session of the day was a "Cracker Barrel" session where hot topics that had been submitted throughout the days of the meeting were discussed.  Final thank you's and presentations of gifts were made and it was over. 

Wednesday evening, we went shopping at a really huge mall and then to dinner at a local restaurant.  Shopping in KL is fantastic.  There is shopping mall after shopping mall and the prices are really good.  Too bad I didn't have room in my suitcase or I would have bought more.  Max was happy I didn't have any extra suitcase space or weight.  A lot of people left on Wednesday evening, but we stayed an extra day to do some sightseeing and shopping.  Not really any sightseeing as KL is just a huge, big modern city.  No problem, we really just wanted to shop anyway.

There was a really cool bar on the 36th floor of our hotel, called the Sky Bar.  By day it is a swimming pool.  By night it is a bar.  It was hard to get a good picture of it, but I think you can see how close the tables are to the edge of the pool.  On the one side there is only a small wooden deck to walk on.  There are windows along the top and you can see the reflection of the Pertronas Towers above me.

Thursday morning, Kay met a friend for coffee and I went to the supermarket.  I bought spices, Malaysian curries, vanilla extract, salted nuts for Max and Kraft Free Zesty Italian dressing - all things you cannot get here in Sakhalin.  We had to check out of our room at noon, so we packed and stored our luggage at the hotel.  Then Kay and I went shopping at some of the malls again.  It was so much fun.  We met some of the other ladies who stayed on at a local Malaysian restaurant for a final dinner before heading to the airport.  Our flight left at 11:30 Thursday night so our taxi came at 8:30.  The hotel was so nice and offered to let us shower before we left that evening.  They supplied soap, shampoo, everything.  We got back to Sakhalin on Friday around 1:00 p.m.   Great trip!  Now to put all the knowledge I gained into action!

Love to you all!
Karen

Sakhalin Island Outpost

I haven't had much time to blog lately due to my taking on the Sakhalin Island Outpost Focal Point job.  Since it has recently been consuming my life, I thought I would devote this blog to telling you what Outpost is all about.  It is a sort of long post and may be boring to some, but there are a few links you might find interesting.

Outpost is a Shell sponsored global network that provides information and services to Shell expatriates and their families all over the world.  There are over 60 Outpost offices in 35 countries around the world.  We provide information and help people find answers to questions relating to everyday life in their new or potential location (both pre-departure and during settling in).  We also provide information, advice and guidance to help partners meet their career and development needs. This includes providing information on employment, personal development, self-employment, voluntary work and educational opportunities.

Here is a link to the Shell Global Outpost Website.  Every green dot represents a Shell Expat/Outpost Office location.  If you click on the Sakhalin Island dot, you will see our location's information, including a link to our local website.  I'm not listed as the focal point yet as I have to sign a confidentiality agreement.  Red dots are locations where Shell expats are, but no Outpost Office exists.  Shell Global Outpost provides guidance, marketing information and consistency to all of the local Outpost organizations.

Here is the link to our local Sakhalin Island Outpost website.

Including myself, there are 10 Sakhalin Island Outpost volunteers.

Some of the services that our Outpost provides include:
- An Online Team who answer emails from people who are contemplating a move to Sakhalin or are actually moving here.  We provide them with an Inside Guide that includes information such as can I import my car, how do I bring my pet, what should I pack in my air shipment and my sea container shipment, banking information, airport information, description of the housing, school info, etc. - everything that a person might want to know about Sakhalin Island before they move here
- A Meet & Greet Team who welcomes each new family, answers their questions and takes them on a shopping trip.  A food package is placed in their house prior to their arrival, as people are tired, don't know where to shop and don't have a pass to get on and off the housing complex.  An information pack is provided including a welcome letter, information about setting up their internet, a map of the complex, a bus schedule, a phone list, and a very detailed Guidebook that lists places to shop, restaurants, services, recreation, etc.
- Wednesday Coffee Morning where spouses/partners of working expats get together to network and visit.  Every third Wed of the month prior to Coffee Morning we have a Newcomers Information Meeting.
- A Supermarket Shopping Tour and a Local Products Shopping Tour. (I'll have a separate blog about these tours.)
- Organizing cultural events, such as museum visits, tea ceremonies
- Outpost Library with books related to Expat Life, books on travel and career development
- Showing people around who come to Sakhalin on a familiarization visit
- Monthly Outpost newsletter
- A recently launched Outpost Sakhalin Facebook page.  We have an events calendar, polls, and a classified section....all new, so not being used that much yet.
 - Projects in work such as a Career and Development Guide and an Outdoor Guide (Guide to all of Sakhalin's wonderful outdoor activities).

The Focal Point (me as of March 1) has to keep up with all the above (and more), plus:
- Make sure all documents mentioned above are kept up to date
- Interface with the Shell Global Outpost
- Have monthly meetings with the local Sakhalin Energy HR representative and write a report of the meeting
- Hold monthly team meetings, write minutes, keep an action item list
- Keep track of all newcomers and their housing (harder than it seems) and notify the team of their arrival so they can arrange the welcome and food pack
- Keep track of expenses, do expense reports
- Motivate the team (plan team lunches/dinners, provide gift certificates annually to the team)
- Write an annual report to Global Outpost
- Project future activities and expenses and prepare an annual budget (next one due April 1, 2011 for 2012)
- Keep procedures up-to-date
- General office stuff (buy paper, toner, make business cards for team, keep internet account topped off, etc.)
- There is a lot more, but I'm sure you're bored by now

Here are a few pictures of our Outpost Office.  We don't actually spend a lot of time there and it's only officially open for 1.5 hours a week.  The Outpost Office is in a building called The Hub.  It is sort of a community center of the Zima Housing Compound where we live.  It has a restaurant, a pub with pool tables, a library, conference rooms and the Outpost office.  The Hub is going to be renovated starting this month and the Outpost Office will likely move to a different location in the building.  This is hopefully a good thing as we really want to redecorate the office to make it more inviting.  Of course this is more work for me as I have to figure out where to have coffee morning, what to do with the equipment, etc. 

For the past few weeks I've been meeting with the current Focal Point a lot, trying to learn as much I can as she left a few days ago for a month long holiday in Australia.  Thankfully, she's staying on the team as online member, but I'm on my own for the next month.  In some locations, the Focal Point is a paid position.  With as much work as I've been doing lately, I may look into this for our location.

Once every few years, Global Outpost holds a Global Learning Event.  This is a conference where representatives from all of the Outpost offices come together to learn about ways to provide better services for our clients, work with team members and our local HR.  This year the conference will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Maylasia, and it starts next week!!  I'm very excited to be going to this conference with another lady from our Outpost.  Max teases me and says that he has been here for a long time and actually works for Shell (succumbed to Sakhalin Energy) but hasn't been on a business trip (from Sakhalin) yet.  I've only been here a few months, don't even really work for Shell, and am already going on my first business trip.  I've also spent a lot of time the past few weeks preparing for the conference.  We've had to develop a large poster describing the ways we work with our clients, team and HR.  We also have a table at the conference to present our location so we've had to shop for decorations, etc.

I'm really excited to be the Focal Point of the Outpost team.  Even though it has been a lot of work, it's also been a lot of fun.  It's great to be able to meet and help so many people.  I'm really looking forward to the Kuala Lumpur Learning Event!  I'll definitely be sharing my adventure with you soon!

Love to you all!

Karen

Ice Skating Competition

I went to a really nice ice skating competition today.  A Russian friend, Lena, who recently learned to ice skate, invited us to come and watch her first competition.  She said it had always been her dream to ice skate, so six months ago she decided to go for it.  I don't know a lot of details, but I think she went to Moscow for a bit to learn to skate and then she's been taking lessons here in Sakhalin two or three times a week for the past few months.  The competition was at Gagarin Park, which is a huge city park, on a soccer field turned into an ice skating rink.  There were maybe 20 to 25 skaters in the competition.  It was a beautiful, sunny (and of course cold) day.

Here are the skaters warming up:

 

Here are a few pictures of Lena skating during her routine.

 

After each skater finished their routine, they would talk to the emcee's while waiting for their scores.  Lena had a jacket that she got while in Moscow that was signed by a famous Olympic skater, so they were asking her about it.

 

Here are her scores.  She did pretty good considering she just started skating recently.

Here is a group photo of all the friends from Zima who came to see her skate:

Lena is an absolutely lovely person.  She is always smiling and is so sweet.  I'm so glad I went to see her skate. 

Love to you all!

Karen

Soup Kitchen

Most Monday's I volunteer at a Soup Kitchen at the local Catholic Church.  The Soup Kitchen occurs on Monday/Wednesday/Friday and 4 volunteers are needed each day. People from Shell/Schlumberger volunteer on Monday and people from Exxon volunteer on Wednesday.  The nuns spend the day before each Soup Kitchen day preparing everything for the soup.  They live on the other side of town in a not so nice area.  They also spend their days working with children in the neighborhood who are from disadvantaged homes.  The sisters usually walk or take a taxi to the church in the summer and take a taxi in the winter.

We arrive at the church around 3:40 and immediately get to work.  Before we arrive the sisters have already set each place with a plate of bread and some type of pastry or roll.  Depending on the weather and time of year, we have between 70 and 90 people who come to eat.  We usually start out preparing for around 75.  Here is how the dining room looks when we arrive.

The dishes are stored in this cabinet.  The sisters bring the makings of the soup in the square containers you can see to the left of the cabinet.  They mix the soup together once thy arrive at the church.

One of us will begin by getting out and counting bowls, and one or two of us will count cups and begin filling them with tea.  We then put the cups of tea at each place setting at the table.  Below Jenny is getting cups for tea ready.

The room we mainly work in has a stove, refrigerator and counters but no sink.  The sink is in another room.  Three big pots of soup and a big pot of tea are prepared each day.  Here is Jason stirring the soup before we start putting it into bowls.  Oh, and there is no hot running water so we have to heat water in the silver and black pot you see in the bottom right of the picture and  then carry it into the room for washing dishes.

Here, Linda is putting soup into bowls:

We put the bowls of soup on every available counter and tabletop space:

 At about 4:00 the sisters open the side door to the dining room and the people start coming in.  They are extremely orderly and usually go to their same spots every time.  The sister says a prayer and at that point we serve the soup to the people.  Once the soup is served we give everyone a boiled egg.  If there is extra, we go back around and give anyone who wants more soup and tea and sometimes bread.

I'm amazed at how orderly and polite the people are, and how quick the whole process is.  The sisters, especially sister Margaret (below on the right) is quite stern and keeps everyone in line.  She will kick them out if they misbehave or are drunk.  I asked very nicely if I could take the photos of the people above and of the sisters.  I don't think they usually like it, but I said it was only for my family and friends and so they agreed. 

Once everyone finishes eating, they take their dishes to this table below, place trash in the can and leave through the side door you can see on the left in the picture.  The sisters will often give out jackets, socks, gloves, and hats that have been donated to the people.  Sometimes they even give them medicine and bandage them up. 

The sisters are very selfless people.  They come from other countries like Poland and Japan and speak English to each other.  They are allowed to return to their home country once every 10 years.  They write letters home once a month.  They don't go to restaurants or have cell phones.  They wash their clothes by hand.  The Soup Kitchen volunteers take turns taking the dish towels home to wash so that the sisters don't have to wash them by hand.

It's now time to cleanup.  One or two of us wash dishes, and one of us brings the dishes to and from the wash room, dries and puts them away.  Here is the little room used for washing dishes.  When Yuki (shown here below) washes dishes she likes to do it by herself.  She is super fast and can finish all the dishes by herself faster than two other people can do together.  We all love working when Yuki works.

One of us washes off the tables, the seats and backs of each chair and then mops the floor, usually along with one of the sisters.  The last couple of weeks I've been mopping.

The mop that I use is a wooden stick with a towel that is rinsed out and draped over it.  It works just fine.

Once all the dishes have been washed, dried and put back in the cabinet and the floors mopped, that's it.  We are ready to go.  We usually leave anywhere between 5:30 and 6:00.

The next 2 photos are of us leaving the church and the outside of the church.

Here's a photo taken from in front of the church.  In the distance is the ski slope that we go to.  Since I took this picture, we've gotten more snow.

I enjoy working at the Soup Kitchen and feel like I'm doing just a little bit to help others.

Love to you all!
Karen

Burns Night

We attended a Burns Night this past Saturday evening.  Anyone who has been in the Expat world for a while knows about Burns Night, as it's a popular Scottish tradition and is a fairly easy event to organize.  I didn't know anything about it so I went online to read about it.  You can read more about it here:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burns_supper

Burns Night celebrates the life and poetry of Robert Burns and usually occurs around his birthday, which is January 25.  The dinner follows a standard format and focuses on a main dish called haggis.

After a short happy hour in the bar, we moved to the dining room and once seated were welcomed by the host of the evening, Gregor.  Then a special blessing called The Selkirk Grace was said by the host's wife, Sheena.  It is short and you can read it via the above link.  When Gregor and Sheena, who are both Scottish, spoke with their heavy, exaggerated, Scottish accents, it was really hard to understand them and you wondered if they really were speaking English.  After the blessing, we had soup, salad and appetizers.

Upon completion of the first course, the haggis was brought in and paraded around by the chef.  Normally it is accompanied by a bagpipe player, but this is Sakhalin Island, and I would be very impressed if they would have been able to find a bagpipe player.  But there was bagpipe music.

The haggis was then presented to the host by the chef.  Supposedly, this was authentic haggis brought to Sakhalin by someone from Scotland.

What is haggis? Well, it is a traditional Scottish dish containing sheep's heart, liver and lungs, minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices and stock and cooked in the sheep's stomach lining for 3 hours.  Although I think these days, the haggis is cooked in the intestine casing instead of the stomach lining.  Sounds yummy!

At this point the host recites The Address to the Haggis (in a heavy Scottish accent).  (Click on the link to read the entire poem.)  At a certain point in the poem, the host took a large knife and sliced the haggis end to end.

Everyone was so excited because the poem was very dramatic and this is supposedly a highlight of the dinner.  At the end of the poem, a toast with Scottish whiskey was made to the haggis and we were then served our meal.  Haggis is usually served with mashed potatoes, but I think that something was lost in the translation as we had roasted potatoes instead.  Haggis was actually quite tasty.  I just didn't think too much about what I was actually eating.

Upon completion of the meal there were several traditional speeches.  One was about remembering Robert Burns and his life.  Then there was a toast to the lassies, which was actually a long speech about the differences between men and women, and more.  So interesting is this multicultural environment we live in.  The toast to the lassies was made by an Indian guy (who wears an earring) in a kilt.  He was hilarious.

The reply to his toast was also very funny.  Then a girl read one of Robert Burns' poems in Russian.  After all the speeches, the host thanked everyone and we sang Auld Lang Syne.  Who knew that Robert Burns wrote that song?.....I will never forget that now.  That was the conclusion of the dinner part.  Then there was traditional Scottish dancing.  Max and I tried a couple of the dances, but they were sort of tricky, like square dancing.

It was a fun evening and it's always interesting to learn about and experience traditions from other countries.

Love to you all!
Karen

Australia Day Party

One of the nice things about living in an Expat community is that we get to meet many people from other countries and learn about and experience their different cultures.

This past Saturday evening there was a really fantastic Australia Day Party at the Hub, which is the local community center .  Australia Day is similar to the Fourth of July in the US.  It is an official national day of Australia, celebrated on January 26 and commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788 and the proclamation at that time of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of New Holland.  (From Wikipedia)

The party was really well organized and one of the biggest events we've had since I've been here.  The guy who planned everything had banners made and had many Australian decorations that he or other Australians brought back with them when they were home during the holidays.

Folks were encouraged to dress in some type of Australian costume.  Max and I didn't have anything Australian or really even anything red, white and blue (their national colors), so we went as American tourists.  In this photo, we are standing in front of one of the many banners that were made for this party.

There was a lot of good food, dancing, a random drawing door prize, and a prize for the best costume.  We didn't win that one.  There was a questionnaire about Australia  and a prize for who got the most answers.  (Who knew ACDC was an Australian band?). We didn't win that one either.

I really didn't take that many pictures, but here are a few.  Not sure about the significance of the tree hat:

A good friend of Max's is a Malaysian guy who was dressed up like a Japanese tourist.  He really looked great:

It was a very fun party.  I think this party will become an annual event.  I'll have to think of something different to wear next year.

Love to you all,
Karen

Skiing and a Birthday Party

We went skiing for the first time this past weekend.  There is a really nice ski slope just 15 minutes from our house. The lift tickets are really cheap, too.  On Saturday, our friend Robin, who used to be a ski instructor, gave us basic lessons to get us started.  We bought lift tickets for 10 times up the mountain.  The gondola stops halfway up, which is where we got off, and then goes on up to the top. Ten times was crazy thinking as it took us a couple of hours just to go down one time.  We spent most of the time on our behinds and trying to get up, which is quite difficult.  We went down only once and then called it a day.  We were a little discouraged with our skiing as we thought we would do a little better than we did.  We went home to rest as we had a birthday party to go to that evening.

A young engineer that Max works with, Slava, turned 30 the previous week.  As is the Russian custom, he threw himself a birthday party.  It was at a really nice Ukrainian restaurant.  When we first arrived, a lady in a traditional Ukrainian costume met us with a welcoming drink and an appetizer.  Then we went into the actual dining area.  The food was really interesting and quite good.

The dish towards the top of this picture is fish mixed with rice and other things and laid out behind a real fish head.  It was very good.  There is some kind of raw fish and/or cheese in the foreground and a pitcher of a fruit drink.  There was a ton more food that I don't have pictures of.  The tablecloth and napkins are traditional Ukrainian.

You can see Max and I in this picture along with some of the others who came to the party.  There is another whole table of people not in this picture.  One interesting thing they had was Ukrainian moonshine.  In this picture you can see two decanters.  The green one is mint moonshine.  The red one is cherry moonshine.  There was a third one:  spicy moonshine.  They were sort of liked flavored vodka.

There was the normal toasts and speeches and giving of birthday gifts and cards.  There was also live music so everyone danced a lot:

One of the highlights was a surprise for Slava.  His wife, Svetlana, hired this saxophone player to play a couple of songs.  We'd heard her play before, last year, at a Thanksgiving dinner that we went to at an Italian restaurant.  She was really good.  Svetlana showed me her business card.  It said "Sexshow".  Maybe that's how she describes her outfit?

 

Here is a photo of Slava (the birthday guy) and his wife Svetlana.  They are an extremly nice young couple and we've become friends with them.

Here is a photo of the beautiful birthday cake.  It was very good but by the time we ate it, I was so full, I could barely take a few bites. 

After dinner we walked upstairs to see the rest of the restaurant.  There was another private party going on there, but the folks were very nice to let us see the room which was decorated with animal skins and (real) stuffed animals.  (Seems to be a common decorating theme in restaurants.)   Here is Max trying to "scare" me with a stuffed wolf.  There were also a lot of murals on the walls as you can sort of see in the background  of this picture and one of the previous pictures.  It was a really nice evening.

On Sunday, we decided that we were not going to let our pitiful skiing on Saturday get us down.  We were going right back out there and were going to give it another go. We are determined to become skiers.  I was pretty nervous that second day starting out.  After falling about four times, I sort of got it and was able to stay up most of the way down the slope.  After my last fall, this one man stopped and gave me some pointers which really helped.  Max did really well, too, maybe falling only once.  We just went down the one time on Sunday.  We plan to go back each weekend and maybe even some during the week in the evening.  The ski slope is lit up at night and a lot of people go during the week.  I think I'll take some lessons after I feel a little more confident about not falling down every few minutes.  Hopefully, I'll get some pictures of the ski slope soon.

We were so proud of our skiing (or at least proud of our not falling down) on Sunday, that we decided we needed to reward ourselves.  That afternoon we went into town to this British pub that caters to expats and has the best good ole fashioned cheeseburger and french fries around.  The pub is decorated in a sports theme with lots of flags, jersey's, etc.  There were a few guys hanging out there playing guitar and singing songs from Led Zeplin, the Eagles, etc.

 Max is enjoying himself singing along with the guys, having a beer and a cigar.  It was a nice weekend.

Love to you all,
Karen