a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Four of us worked late Friday night with the ‘Basis’ team (they provide technology and systems support). But in between work we had time to dash out for a dinner close by in the ‘expat’ village here by the nuclear power station. The wall decoration is from the restaurant. This Friday is no Friday anyway, because we work Saturday and Sunday as well .. but then Monday through Wednesday is Qingming Festival or the Tomb Sweeping holiday.
This is a street corner in Da Peng around 6.15pm from my perch on the bus back to the hotel. The weather has warmed up and is pleasant, so more people are out and about. Maybe the convenience store will sell more ice cream now (the ice box in the doorway). And the red lanterns, red carpet and red banners on the entry on the right must have been put of for the start of the Year of the Dragon, and was not taken down.
From the New York Times : ‘The Seattle Mariners rode a wave of Ichiromania in Tokyo to beat the Oakland Athletics in extra innings Wednesday in the opening game of the Major League Baseball season’.
Attendance at the Tokyo Dome was an overflowing 44,227 (officially 126% full), so it was great that Ichiro Suzuki gave his fans in Japan a performance to cheer about. He had four hits, Dustin Ackley a home run and a single in the go-ahead run in the 11th inning, which had the Seattle Mariners beat the Oakland Athletics 3-1 on Wednesday night’s season opener.
There is a second game Thursday night in Tokyo. Major League Baseball and the players’ association are using the series to assist rebuilding in Japan following last year’s earthquake and tsunami. On Tuesday some players and coaches traveled to the disaster area to conduct a baseball clinic.
One of these days I’m going to buy one of these durian (‘king of fruits’) from the fruit market close to where we go for lunch every day. The last time I had some was about 20 years ago on a trip to Malaysia (it is native to Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia). The fruit has high levels of protein, fat and carbohydrates but the trouble is the aroma of the smooth buttery segments inside : overpowering and offensive to so many people that it is banned in public places in Thailand and on public transit in Singapore. 
Here are the only two souvenirs I bought in Seoul. Tintin goes by Ttang Ttang in Korean. (No, of course I cannot read Korean. But I have this Tintin book in 5 other languages already, so I had to buy the Korean one). The other item is the lid of a porcelain bowl I spotted in a department store. It was not expensive (about US $30) and it is very very Korean with the cranes and the deer and the blossoms. I would love to know what is used on modern porcelain for gold trim. I am sure it’s not GOLD, but I could not find the answer immediately on-line.
It’s ‘go live’ weekend for us. The ‘box’ is the server with the SAP Production system on. ‘We’ are the project team and all the SAP objects we bring with us into the Production system. The list of items is long : among others new companies, new plant codes, new organizations, new users, new reports, new interfaces, new master data sets and new system functions. As with most SAP projects it’s been a long and winding road – but we have now arrived. Now it is up to the users to jump in and start to swim in the blue SAP screens in the next few weeks! That is what they have been trained to do, and we will help them.
The pictures are all from last night’s Japanese TV channel NHK news at 9. 1. The Skytree Tower in Tokyo is now open for tourists. It is the tallest tower in the world at 634 m/ 2,080 ft (formerly it was the Canton Tower in Guangzhou), and it is the second tallest structure in the world after Burj Khalifa at 829.84 m/2,723 ft.
2. The news reader is from North Korea’s state TV. She speaks with gusto and probably mentioned the intended missile test from North Korea.
3. File footage of South Korean soldiers inspecting the Demilitarized Zone’s fence.
4. I passed on the opportunity to go for a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)/ Joint Security Area (JSA) while in Seoul – even though there was a brochure right there in the lobby of the hotel, touting it as the ‘Traveler’s No 1 Choice. It probably is perfectly safe. I see even President Obama will go and take a look when he arrives for the bi-annual 2012 SeoulNuclear Security Summit next week.
By Wednesday morning it was time to pack up and check out to go to the airport for my flight back to Hong Kong. By now I was a ‘pro’ at using the Metro and finding the Airport Express train at Seoul station. Confession : it’s not that hard to be a pro when you have an interactive map of the Seoul metro on your smart phone! Still, it takes a few run-throughs to know which exits from the stations to take. Take the wrong one, and it might be a long walk to the next street crossing because you’re on the wrong side of a busy highway!
The War Memorial of Korea is a sprawling facility with military hardware on display and coverage of wars fought on the Korean Peninsula from ancient times. The most recent one of course, was the Korean War of 1950-1953. I also made a stop at Yongsan station where the electronics market is but did not buy anything. (1. The new iPad is not yet on sale in Korea. The 4G frequencies in the country are different from what the iPad has been designed for and some of that is still being worked out. 2. I cannot possibly lug around even one more device with me on my travels, anyway).
My first stop of the day was at the fish market at Noryanjin station. Then I went back to Seoul station to go check out the exterior in daytime. After that I made a quick stop at the Naedamun street market and then went off to see if I could find the cable car boarding station for Seoul Tower. I did, eventually!
I read about the GT Tower East with its wavy exterior and had to go and take a look at it. It is by Gangnam station (use exit 9) between several other modern financial company buildings and Samsung buildings. Sunday night I went to check out Itaewon – the gritty expat area with bars and nightclubs, popular with US army personnel from the base nearby.
The two ancient royal palaces in Seoul are connected with Saemungil Museam Street and Sejong Main Street. I first went to Gyungbokgung Palace and then I walked down to Changdeokgung Palace, spending a lot of time in the underground museum with its entrance at the statue of a seated King Sejong The Great. I only made it to the entrance of the second palace, and plan to go inside tomorrow.
My trip from Hong Kong airport went very well. My plan to get from Incheon airport in Seoul to the Marriott Courtyard hotel at Seoul Times Square was not too bad, either. I did have a little trouble spotting the hotel in the dark and wet weather at my arrival at the closest metro stop. It was just a four block walk but the darn Marriott hotel sign was on the opposite side of the Times Square buildings (of course!).
The black muffin from the Muji-To-Go store at the airport is a new item, said the display. (Hmm, and what makes it black?). And this Qantas 747 was j- u- ust pulling up to the gate as I walked by .. most likely in from Down Under. My travel advisory says the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement that took effect on Thu Mar 15 and prompted some street protests in Seoul – but at this point everything seems under control. The accord will remove duties on almost two-thirds of American farm exports, and phase out tariffs on more than 95 percent of industrial and consumer exports within five years. Tariffs will also be lifted on Korean car parts to the U.S. — which should increase South Korean exports of the products.
I’m in the hotel at Hong Kong airport, on my way to Seoul, South Korea for a long weekend. It’s not warm there yet, but at least warm enough to walk around at about 7 °C (44 °F). There is rain in the forecast for Friday, but it should clear up by Saturday.
I was too late to snap a picture of the margerita pizzas* (玛格丽特 披萨 mǎgélìtè pīsà, we had on Wednesday here at work. (See the writing at the top of the box?). So one of the 24 pizza boxes is all I can show. The pizzas were quite good, with a thin crust. It is quite possible that the little Aloha Beach Club restaurant had to stretch the pizza dough it had on hand for our monster order.
*Legend has it that in 1889, during a visit to Naples, Queen Margherita of Italy was served a pizza resembling the colors of the Italian flag, red (tomato), white (mozzarella) and green (basil) .. and that is how Pizza Margherita got its name.
The green light has been given from the steering committee for our project’s ‘go-live’. (The last of the dragons have been slayed). So now the wheels are set in motion to move everything up from the Quality System into the Production System. That means all of our project’s extracted and converted data sets, additional system configuration table settings, program codes and user log-ins will be added into the live system. Our project will add three more nuclear power stations to the three already in the system, for a total of 6 stations altogether.
There’s happiness 喜 (xǐ), and then there is double happiness 囍(also xǐ) !
The ‘double happiness’ term is really used in writing and especially used in connotation with marriage, as shown on this candy gift that each of us got from a colleague that is getting married soon. The heart-shaped modification of the bottoms of the happiness characters is artistic interpretation, of course. And I cannot quite find out for sure how old the use of the heart ♥ symbol is. Its uses started in Europe.
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Sunday on Japan’s NHK World TV was dedicated to extensive coverage of the first anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami of March 11 last year. It made for a somber day to watch some of it. Isn’t the first anniversary is the most celebrated for happy events, and the most traumatic for disasters? (Yes). As for the nuclear industry there, the situation of running only 2 nuclear reactors out of 54 is unsustainable. It is costing utility companies billions of dollars to import gas, oil or coal to burn to make up the lost electricity, and they have not yet been allowed by the government to raise rates for consumers.
Here is the link for the interactive Fukushima radiation map (last picture). http://jciv.iidj.net/map/fukushima/, a compilation of readings done on 6 and 7 July 2011. I couldn’t immediately find a more recent update on-line.
Saturday was cold and rainy, so I felt better about having to knuckle down and work .. and drink my beverages that I got from the grocery store across the street. The sweetened Wanglaoji herbal tea (red can) rivals Coca- Cola in popularity in mainland China. I think the green Wanglaoji version is a new flavor since I had not seen it before. It’s certainly new to me : you go whoa! what are those flavors in there? Well – it’s lotus seed and mungo bean, buster ! And of course I had to look both up on Wikipedia to see that they look like.