Kongee’s Iran Trip Report Part 1

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It has been a month plus from now since I came back from Iran. Iran is a very beautiful place with friendly people and great hospitality. On 29 August 2011, I left Malaysia to Iran with AirAsia. As a typical traveler, he/she would at least made some research about the country and its culture prior to the visit but i didn’t do so. I want to keep it as a surprise when i reached there, yet i knew it is a Islamic country.

The 8 hours flight journey from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Iman Komeini International Airport is really bored but i have made it the most enjoyable. Yes! Make some friends on board! It totally turned out to be unexpected incident where i met Tony Fernandes, the owner of AirAsia when i checked in my luggage. We talked couple of stuffs including the mission I am involved in Tehran.

I was invited to be a delegate for Iran Open 2011, an official rubik’s cube competition together with Ron van Bruchem from Netherlands. Nevertheless, i never forget to bring my Supernova and NOVA together. I had Beef Kebab with saffron rice for dinner and huge sandwiches for supper. As we all knew, AirAsia never include the meal into the air fare and I am suprised that they included meals this time. I guess it is only for KL-Tehran-KL flight or vice versa.

Tehran time is 3 and half hour behind Malaysia time. I was received by Arash and his brother, Iman at the Airport and we reached our hotel in an hour later. The hotel room was superb because it was built for Olympic and they named the hotel as Olympic Hotel. After i took my shower, i dozed off till the next morning.

Morning breakfast in the hotel was my first Iranian food tryout. I was told that this hotel is only for Iranian National team in all kind of sports and the hotel room is not available for online booking. Therefore, i met alot of sportsmen while having my breakfast. Jaber Ruzbahani was a guy i met. He is the tallest guy and a basketballer in Iran. Unfortunately, i didn’t manage to talk with him because he needs to prepare for training after the meal.

Ron will be reaching after midnight so i got a chance to do the first sight-seeing before he did! Tahere Jalili was my translator and my tour guide of the day. We went touring around the city from west to east and then to the north. There are alot of roundabouts and each of them was given a name and ended with ‘Square’, e.g. Azadi Square, Kitab Square, etc. We went to Tadjrish Square which located at the northern part of Tehran when we went for food hunt. And so we went to the Old Market where i thought it is a good place to see their way of life. With my Blackberry 9780, i snapped alot of photos and some footages for my yoyo video. Most of the footages do not have me playing yoyo but they are important elements to make an interesting video

The night before we depart to Airport to pick Ron up, we were setting up the venue with some cool decorations. The hall itself was an auditorium and it was huge. Definitely it is bigger in size as compare to Malaysian Cube Open 2009 venue which i did. I threw my Supernova on the stage that night and the feeling was awesome. Imagine the whole hall is filled with people. Arash and the rest of his family members were amazed to see my 5A tricks and the unresponsive yoyo itself. He did some throw with my Supernova but he didn’t know how to bind it. All of us were tired after the setup. Stay tune to Part 2 which i will summarize the 2-day competition.