Istanbul Day 2

I was so bored on this bloody vessel that i decided to blog all my back lot.

The problem is.... There are too many back lots!!!

Let me start with the simplest of all format, picture blog!!! lol

Here is the hotel room, very crap hor! My existing cabin is at least three times larger!

View from the other side.

This is the pathetic showers...

View of the Aya Sofya from the rooftop restaurant.

View of the Bosphorus river on the other side.

"Zi Pai" #1

"Zi Pai" #2

My breakfast for the day! Will show u more of the restaurant later!

Off to the streets! Armed with my Canon 500D and 18-55mm kit lens.

The Aya Sofya is so close, hence my first stop.

But i didnt went in, coz i m not that kinda "history" person. Furthermore need to pay! I cheapo la. lol

Jus opposite the Aya Sofra is the Blue Mosque! Its really quite beautiful. Too bad the sky is gloomy all these day, else the picture would be better!

It was pretty hard to get people who know how to operate the DSLR on the streets man. But luckily there was the american boy that did me the favor. :) Thanks~

This is that kinda shot, when the person dun know wat a DSLR is... lol

I quite like this photo. Imagine with a ultra wide angle lens, this would be better!

If i am not wrong, its the blue tiles inside that gave the name of the mosque. Right?

Sigh, another guy who dun know how to use a DSLR... lol

After the boring mosque walk, i decided to stroll the coast.

Quite a nice view of the Blue Mosque i feel.

Quite a large stray dog seen in the park. Well behaved too.

Saw this cute boy playing with the cats. Lotsa them too!!!

Picked up my 55-200 when i saw some birds. :P

Bird #2

Cat too! Meow~

Caught a couple too. What a romantic view...

Lotsa people fishing also!

Tried them and hate them #1. lol I am no bread person...

Hate 'em #2! So sour!!!

Nvr try 'em = hate 'em? lol #3

#4 Super sweet. Its their dessert, selling almost everywhere! Called Baklavari if i am not wrong.

#5 Looks like home made cheese... Not my type. lol

Nuts~ So many shops selling nuts! I bought more the 100 bucks worth back! lol I must be nuts. lol

One intersting group playing interesting instruments. Not the violin la!

Animal market!

Turkey? Maybe already in someones tummy le. lol

Some many types of buds! I wonder if they really grows to what the picture shows...

Sweet corn shop.

Please dun try them... Hate #6. Probably the most hated! lol The boiled one much better!

Seems like people here like to feed the pigeons and scare them away. lol

But this girl is quite cute. :)

Evening le, and the view is simply great!

I actually wanted them to help me take a shot, ends up, this guy tot i wanna take a photo with him...

Luckily this other lady understands me...

Pop by this shop and found that the Turkish delight look great and the other desserts are nice too. Came back to buy from them at the last day. Man, they are not cheap!

Dinner was Burger King and it was a disappointing meal...

Jus look at the dry meat and the size of it! Crap...

Ok then, late liao! I actually took 2hrs to finish this!!!

Got to go sleep. Third day to be posted tml. Hopefully...

Night all~

Offshore again... FPSO EAST FORTUNE

Please note its going to be a bit boring this time, as internet connection was bad and i couldnt upload the picture as much as i would like before. However, i did reduce the size of the photos and they do look reasonable to me. :)

Hopefully i will be so bored to post my Istanbul photos too. (Do flip back to last months post to see my first day post in Istanbul!)

Second day on this job was tough… I had to leave the hotel at 0300hrs to take a transport to the domestic airport to Batam, (???) then take another plane to Matak (near South China Sea) and lastly a chopper flight to the Oilfield. The whole journey took me 7hours and my beauty sleep…

Upon reaching the FPSO, I was assigned to the Visitor’s cabin, which was one of the largest cabins I was offered throughout my offshore experiences.

Picture of the working desk taken from my bed.

Picture taken from the Sofa, I got sofa leh!!! :P

Thats the door to my cabin.

The attached bathroom was small, but attached leh!

This time round, my job was fairly simple.

*Eye Power* Wahahahaha

Something similar to my previous offshore jobs though, but this time round, I do not need to give any opinions, no need to give recommendations, no need to sign any documents as I am here as a position of a technical advisor to the Bank who is financing the company. So the only important thing is the updates on the field and to give a third party point of view on the situation. Easy right?

Well, of course easy job dun come through so easily… The price to pay, work over the Christmas holidays and stuck with lousy food for Christmas… T_T Furthermore, missing crucial gatherings to close friends and as well as missing my Godson first year birthday…

On my first night in the field, I came to know that the project is ending and all left to do was to connect the vessel and hoses and do a simple leak test! It seems too good to be true! I might just be back home for my weekend plans! Of course, nothing of that sort happen, else I will be back home by this time instead of writing this blog… T_T

The next day, work started at 0500hrs. Of course, not me la! I slept to 6am, (hey very good le leh! We had discussion till 10pm and the previous night I was on various planes and didn’t have proper sleep at all!!!) We were well underway when the hookup completed before 10am and the other surveyor and I were planning our returning trip for the next day… All appears too well as the connection of the hoses took a while but we were up and connected by night fall. So all that was left was the leak test! Somehow, I was feeling a bit uncomfortable about it; coz there wasn’t any proper document/procedures for this leak test. I hear the other surveyor saying that the planned test pressure was 3bars, which was a very small pressure! Thinking that nothing could have gone wrong as the previous week they have already tested the pipelines and its holding pressure then. The only thing that could have gone wrong will be the hoses and … it just went wrong…

We couldn’t hold pressure that night. Even to 3bars, nothing came out of this end. Crap. Furthermore, the two parties in the vessel, the owner and the charterer, was not in good communication terms and it seems to be a pushing game between them. End up, the test was aborted and an option to do it the next day was planned… *whoosh…* there goes my high hope for a good weekend…

On the third day, the weather was picking up… The sea was getting choppy and a storm was imminent. However, we did have a breakthrough early in the morning; a very bad one actually, as one of the crew sighted the hose was disconnected to the buoy! Crap, as all offshore construction vessels was demob the previous day, there was no way we can solve the problem as divers are required to do it. Furthermore with such bad weather, no one knows even with the divers, if anything could be done. Situation onboard was a bit messy, with both parties trying to push the blame on whose responsibilities it is to repair this, I was right in the middle, only to listen from both side of the stories and kept it within myself…

Well, as of now, the decision was made and 7 divers were transferred from the construction barge to the FPSO. A quick conversation with the divers, even they were uncertain that they can accomplish the job. We all have to wait till tomorrow then we can make a decision…

Oh, I did capture some pictures of the chopper that I took. I was told it was a 1985 model…. @_@

As it was arriving the helipad.

Landed.

Close up.

Oh, the crew caught some huge and weird fish that day too!

Look how happy they are!

Somehow i felt this fish looks wierd leh... I think they actually eat them! *Yucks...*