I m in Karachi people. I’ve been here since the 19th of Feb’10. I apologize for not letting a lot of you know that, honestly I wanted to surprise :P

From the day I landed everything has been pretty energetic+super busy. Friday when I landed was the day I shocked my family, that was pretty neat I tell you

From then onwards things got pretty busy. We’re working on a new design for our main website www.xuqa.com, which is due out soon. The current design I think has taken away all the user experience, I plan to put that experience back in, so obviously alot of thought is being put into that.

But most of the problems+major improvements will come in once the new design is out.

Our Game Ventures office is officially open in Karachi now, and we have quite a team I tell you, for me a major addition is Arif Kamal, whose work I immensely admire.

On a personal level I’ve got some more work for myself, I m working on the new design of my blog, which is due for quite some time, and also another project which will be revealed in due time.

I also happen to meet alot of my dost, which was refreshing, had been wanting to catch up for quite some time, though one thing that I do miss are my drums. I miss those like anything, and offcourse the chocolate balls!

The rest is the usual.. getting into the Awesome Karachi spirit for a few months.

A very Merry Happy New Year to everyone.

Let’s see the the last year was ok, kind of lost so little, gained so much, still living, surviving, enjoying ! Wohoo

I got myself a brand new Drum kit, now I m looking for a proper tutor. Another thing I wanted for quite some time, let me thank Zulfiqar Ali Faisal for paying for the loan for Drums, thanks much mate

[Pictures at the end of the Post]

I’ve been in Singapore for a quite a while now, and I’ve had friends over from Pakistan about 2 or 3 times, yet I still hadn’t managed to discover as many places as I did when one of my friend’s sister was over. Maybe because she had quite an amount of energy to drag me about everywhere she could. This obviously is a great experience for me, and I hope it was better for her.

About a day before Christmas, Zohra reached Singapore at about 8pm, I thought I’d go and catch her at the airport, turns out she had already left for her hotel in a cab, and there I was standing at the Airport cursing at myself.

Anyways I called her up and told her I’d meet her at the hotel, and then I took the MRT and went over to her hotel, which by the way wasn’t very familiar to me, maybe because I was lucky enough to have a place to live when I came crashing to Singapore, so obviously being an owner of an iPhone 3G, I flipped out my phone and navigated to that place using the super awesome Google Maps, I just wished I had a 3GS, would’ve made finding the hotel a breeze, oh and did I mention it was right next to “The Cathay” but since I didn’t know I got off a station away and walked to that place.

Anyways, once I was there, and I met her, we decided to hit the streets and catch a movie, since Christmas was next day I thought it’d be better to catch Orchard Road later and see some other stuff instead. So I took her to “The Cathay” to book our tickets to ‘Avatar’, and it was about 45 minutes before the movie would start we headed for Plaza Singapura, where I bought Paras her gift. When we headed out of the mall, Zohra seemed to have seen lights for the first time in her life obvioulsy she has seen Eid Milad-un-Nabi before.. Jokes aside these lights were kind of pretty and alot of things nicer from the back than from the front. They were lighted up from both sides.

Anyways after quite an amount of snapping and begging I finally got her on her feet and dragged her to the MRT since she wanted to expereince that too, so I took her two stations ahead and back so that we don’t miss the movie, oh and about the movie, we saw it in 3d which was a different experience for her.

So the movie wasn’t a short one and we kind of got off late from there, and we were hungry like anything, and she thought I would like some pickle with the food and I thought the same about her. Truth is neither of us were really concerned about it but I didn’t know that and neither did she, so we walked from “The Cathay” to Mustafa Centre at about 3 am.. yes 3 am.. got the pickles and some other stuff, and then got a cab back to her hotel and had some food. At about 6 am I left her to head home and snooze..

Then it was Christmas, even though our plan was to meet early and head off for Sentosa wagera and then see some other stuff before hitting Orchard, turns out we met at around 4pm, and then headed off for Orchard after a little lunch. I realized how much she enjoyed lights here. Kind of snapped everything she could, a sales girl selling some tiny clip caps, which I bought for her, a kid who wanted to take her picture, me as I borrowed a Santa cap from girl near by and pretended to do the yoga thing. The performances there for the Christmas was awesomely amazing, had one been there, they would’ve loved it

Since we were hungry I thought I’ll take her to Al-ameen, which is a funny thing in itself.. I ordered Palak Paneer, which she ordered ‘Nasi Lemak Ayam’ which is basically Plain Rice with chicken, but when it’s served they come with some nuts, a sauce and anchovies.. Now any sane person usually stays away from Anchovies atleast in the desi land, and after these are fried they look more like golden brown fried onions, and thats what she thought until she discovered the fish’s eyes… Yes these things are super tiny Anyways after the food we bid farewell till the next day.

The next day I woke up with her calling me, and asking for the plan, the plan again was Sentosa and stuff, but turns out she had to move stuff from her hotel to a paying guest place, so I headed over to her hotel, grabbed her stuff and headed to her paying guest place, I can tell you one thing for sure, that aunt probably is a murderer just kidding, I m sure she’s a wonderful woman, just looks angry

Anyways she dumped her stuff there, and we moved and went Vivo city at Harbour Front, where she bought quite a few chocolates, and looked at the other awesome stuff, drooled over clothing and shoes, saw some decoration pieces and fell in love with them. Aarghh I had to drag her again, this time we saw some performers at the mall and she immediately flipped out her DSLR and captured a bunch of stuff. We then headed for some other place… blah blah, and at the end since wanted to use some stuff which one of my house mates had, we were back at my place, where she used my room for the night, and I was kicked out of my room haha.. the couch can be a great savior I tell you.

The next day we finally went for Sentosa, but kindof missed the whole thing, the snow city, the science park, where she went crazy with photographs, sadly we lost some stuff too, which I think was very close to her. Oh and did I mention she did the reverse bungee with her eyes closed.. haha.. who does bungee with eyes closed

She stayed the night to my place again, since she forgot the keys at my place, and it was too late, infact we did go to her place only to realize the keys were missing. So we went back, backed up images, which are uploading for her, damn they account for some 7.5 GB :O and then went to sleep. woke her up at 6am, thats when she left for the guest house, so she could fly to Malaysia.

She’s been calling me since she went to Malaysia to ask for random things, and telling me about the infections she got at Langkavi.. girl take care of your health! Please.

Anyways the Christmas weekend for me was really exhausting, but it’s the best weekend I ever had in Singapore yet. So far nothing has beaten that, and yes I would miss her. Had been a great company.