Friday/ escape to Shenzhen

The project team got the weekend off – we needed it!   I could not get a hotel room at a decent rate in Hong Kong because of the Sevens Rugby Tournament there,  so just to get out out my apartment I came to Shenzhen for the weekend.

Pictures . .  Texting ‘We’re stuck in traffic?’ I’m watching you : )  /  Finally arriving at the Hyatt Hotel / Inside the luxury shopping mall by the hotel; no shoppers in sight on a Friday night, though / They are all outside enjoying the spring weather / The Di Wang*building aka Shun Hing Square which I have shown before.. / .. sending out a single green laser beam at times; not sure what the purpose of this is.  In Hong Kong some skyscrapers put on a whole laser show at times/  and as I noted before the ‘King of the Land’ is about to be dethroned by the King Key Financial Plaza building.  That’s the Agricultural Bank of China building in front of it.

*it means King of the Land

Sunday/ more Shenzhen buildings

These pictures are from my outing to Shenzhen yesterday.    It was foggy and drizzling, so not the best day to go skyscaper hunting in the city.

From the top down –

Entrance to the Grand Theatre metro station (this is by the mix-C shopping mall) where the cab driver from Dameisha dropped me off  /  ..  and there it is, the King Key Finance Center disappearing into the fog.  Not sure of the name of the building in front of it  /  This is an administrative building of some sort close by / The Shung Hing Square tower (tallest in Shenzhen but about to be overtaken by the King Key Finance Center) / tree with orange spring blossoms at the base of the Shung Hing Square tower/  this is a dorm building for University of Shenzhen students / in the background with the China Southern Power Grid building in the front /  the pink step building might belong to Huatai United Securities (that’s what the billboard on it says)

The next few pictures are from inside the mix-C shopping mall .. a tea seller / a hovercraft demonstrated in Toys-R-Us / a 3D puzzle for the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai / Wonderwoman and Medusa (?) at the MAC cosmetics store .. Pow! take that!

Now outside again .. the World Finance Center is also close by the other two towers the first picture of the base and the next from farther away and finally an Art Deco-y apartment building nearby (with the tree in front of it sprouting little green leaves).

Friday morning/ arrived

The flight path actually took us north of  Sendai over the northern tip of the main island Honshu (north of it is Hokkaido island; the other two big ones are Shikoku and Kyushu).      We arrived on time in Seoul.   That’s a shot of Incheon International airport with Korean Air planes,  late Thu afternoon.      I checked my location on the Google Latitude map on my phone just for fun.     The map detail for North Korea is completely blank – not surprisingly so, I guess.

The flight to Hong Kong was another 3 1/2 hrs.    We arrived on time but there was a delay with the baggage, and then a long line at the Hong Kong exit crossing and a luggage inspection for me at the China Mainland entrance crossing.    So it was 1 am by the time Mr Wu stopped with me at the apartment in Dameisha.

Wednesday/ Seattle > Seoul > HongKong

Yes, I finally made it to the airport for my next trip out to China.    The system we have worked on for 15 months now will go live on May 1.    The Asiana Airlines check-in is in the far south end of the Seatac airport’s upper level, where I found this airplane.

Today I fly to Seoul and then to Hong Kong and we fly over Japan (!), so I even with all the information I have regarding a realistic view of the risks of radiation exposure I am still interested in the exact flight path we will take.   I found Monday’s flight path on flightaware.com.    It does look like an adjustment was made to avoid flying directly over the area where the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is.   But 1. the radiation levels are reportedly down anyway and 2. the wind direction has been such that it has blown most of the radioactive particles out over the Pacific, anyway.   (There is even a headline question Seattle Times : Is the US West Coast at risk?  Answer : no, no – NO).

Friday/ Man Zou 慢走

慢走  màn​zǒu ‘Walk Slow’/ Don’t go yet! / Please stay a while longer!

Man Zou is a common phrase in Mandarin that translates literally to ‘Walk Slow’.   Used as a farewell, it is a way of reminding one another to be careful and mindful on our journey, and take the time to see things along the way. Walk slowly and you won’t fall. .. from the web page describing the documentary I saw last night on the KCTS9 public television channel.

The documentary is of four American friends (from Seattle) and their Chinese guide set out on a mission to bicycle more than 1,000 miles between China’s two largest cities : Beijing and Shanghai.   (They did it in 28 days).  I could relate to their experiences in such a heartfelt way : the chaotic traffic, the foods Westerners are just not used to eat, the friendly people (still finding Westerners strange and stare-worthy, especially in smaller towns), and people doing hard, hard manual work without complaining.

.. and here is a picture from Hong Kong airport I forgot to post yesterday.  It’s ‘The Dew Drop’ (see me in there?) by artist Lee Chin Fai Danny (2005).  The plaque says ‘Nature is all around us.   Yet often we look but do not see. Next time you see morning dew, take a look at just on dew drop.  See your surroundings reflected there. Look closely and you will see a reflection of yourself.  So why not pause and try to look at ourselves, objects and people around us from a fresh perspective?’

Thursday morning/ at SFO airport

I found this picture in the check-in hall in Hong Kong airport.   The dashing aviator is billed as Hong Kong’s first : a Belgian named Charles van den Born.   The picture was taken in 1910 and he was 35 years old at the time.

Then there’s the nose of the Cathay Pacific plane as we boarded*, and I found a nice picture of the flight path on-line (11h 42 mins and 6,951 miles).

*We were scheduled to fly on a Boeing 747-400, but now looking at the picture I’m not so sure it was one.

Thursday morning

Here’s this morning’s breakfast : clockwise from the bottom there is a little samoosa, noodles with soy sauce, chicken and beef dumplings, glutinous rice in lotus leaf and fried tomato.   All very tasty.

And below that is last night’s view now that the sun is shining.    Now it’s time to clear out and go to the airport!

Sunday/ Shennan Boulevard, Shenzhen

This Sunday morning finds me in Shenzhen’s JW Marriott hotel on Shennan Boulevard, Shenzhen.    I just had to get away from Dameisha for a little weekend break – what’s left of the weekend after working on Saturday, that is.

All the pictures are in and around Shennan Boulevard (Chinese : Shen Nan Boulevard).    It is a broad east-west road in the city and the Luobao line of the Shenzhen Metro runs under it (the Metro is the red line on my Google Latitude picture).     The big red flower is at the Mix-C shopping mall.   The Shenzhen Stock Exchange is nearby.   Vendor stalls – selling iPads and mobile phones, and prize draws with promises of sporty red BMWs and flashy watches –  are right there as well.   A stock broker handed me his business card.   The going assumption is that all foreigners are loaded with money – a reasonable assumption I suppose, because it takes money to travel here, right?    I love the feng shui square hole in the Panasonic building across the street.    Close by is a green skyscraper :   Shun Hing Square (Chinese: 信兴广场/地王大厦), also named Di Wang in Shenzhen.   It reaches up to 384m (1,260 ft),  is currently the tallest in Shenzhen*, 6th tallest building in mainland China, and the 14th tallest in the world.

*soon to be overtaken by the Kingkey Finance Center Plaza scheduled for a June 2011 opening.  I do not have pictures of it but will hunt it down on my next trip to the city.

The night-time pictures were taken in the vicinity of the Marriott hotel.   The Shenzhen Metro is within walking distance which is always great to have.   I found a nice little shopping mall with Starbucks and a ‘New York Deli’ around the Che Gong Miao metro station (last two pictures).

Sunday/ Canton Tower

Here are the Canton Tower pictures !

From top to bottom : View from outside/ inside the elevator; the Tower tops out at 107 floors/ in a city of 12 million you build apartment buildings by the dozens/ last night’s bridge looks tiny/ the view toward the Asian Games Stadium built on an island in the Pearl River with the plaza behind it; the very tall building is International Finance Center Guangzhou/ doing the don’t-look-down picture in the glass floor booth/ the Spider Staircase connects 10 floors at a time by stairs/ view upwards from the ground floor lobby/ double-click the picture to see how the Canton Tower compares with the other towers in the world/ artwork at the base of the IFC Guangzhou/ PwC building close by in the financial district/ sidewalk art for the Games/ new film bill-board (I forgot the name of the film)/ new apartment buildings/ more skyscrapers in the city center on the way back to Guangzhou train station

 

Saturday/ overnight stay in Guangzhou 广州

We worked a half-day and got our freedom at 12 noon.   Since my coworker Will decided to meet his cousin in Shenzhen and go check out Guangzhou, and jumped at the chance to go with.    Always a little easier if you have travel companions  to help you figure out the logistics in a foreign country.

Guangzhou is a 1 hour train ride up into the Pearl River delta from Shenzhen (see my Google Latitude picture) and is also known as Canton or Kwangchow.  It is the capital of the Guangdong province and one of five National Central Cities and a key transportation hub and trading port.    It is the third largest city in China and the official estimate of the city’s population at the end of 2009 was 10.5 million.

We splashed out and are staying in the posh Ritz-Carlton on the Pearl River (it’s one night only, and we found a special rate of $150).

Pictures .. first one is of all the train riders making for the train at Shenzhen station.  The train is very nice and we had numbered seat assignments – so no need to push and shove!   Next one is of our arrival at Guangzhou station where we got a taxi to the hotel.    Wow! I said as I looked out my hotel room window.  The plaza below was constructed along with the stadium for the 201o 16th Asian Games, held in November last year.  The stadium is built on an island in the Pearl River, and the picture of the bridge is also close by, across the Pearl river.  All of the following pictures were taken in and around the plaza.   The spectacular tower is the Canton Tower, more pictures to follow since we plan to go up in it on Sunday.    The tower is the tallest TV tower in the world, and the tallest structure in China at 610m (almost 2,000 ft).   It opened in September 2010 after 6 years of design and construction.

Sunday/ a soggy Shenzhen

On our one day off from work it rained in Shenzhen today.  Ah well, better luck next weekend, right?  Two colleagues and I went to the Shenzhen Electronics Market, a really big ten-story building in the city center.   The first picture is just of the street nearby, the second from inside the building.  There are thousands of sellers in the building, most with one booth and one display case to sell anything  electronic.   The giraffe on the escalator says mind your head (especially if you are a giraffe?).   How about a panda web cam, or a Hello Kitty one?

Next we went to have some lunch as always at McCauly’s Irish Pub, and then to the shopping mall for a few  grocery items.  The mall is called Mix-C for some reason.    Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, and people were lining up for pictures with the romantic hearts backdrop.      I am sure I do not have to explain why the 2011 on the sign has bunny ears and carrot 1’s !

And finally – one of the newest tall apartment buildings on the way back to Dameisha .. this one is called the Spring and Sea.

Monday night/ 9.56pm in Dameisha

The first picture is from the Cathay Pacific automatic flight tracker, and shows us making a bee-line for Hong Kong with Shanghai to the north and Kaohsiung (Taiwan) and Baguio (The Philippines) to the south.    Next up is the familiar-by -now border crossing into mainland China flashing by while we are in the mini-van taking us in by road.    And hey! the Google Latitude mapping application on my iPhone works even here and shows exactly where I am right now : in Dameisha/ Shenzhen (Dameisha is in the far eastern outskirts of Shenzhen).   Neat!

Sunday/ in San Francisco

I had to get up at 4.30 am to make it to San Francisco on a 7.30 am Alaska Air flight.   Then they make you go through security again on the way to the international terminal (grr) – shown in the picture below.   The international terminal is 10 years old this year.

The now-defunct Trans World Airlines plane is from a display case here, as is the picture from a brochure.   Those were the days .. I’m sure there was no security check point to speak of.   And is that a bicycle I see stowed in the overhead space? Good heavens!

Saturday/ packing and The Packers

Yes, it’s time for trip #10 to Hong Kong and mainland China.   I applied for a Global Entry pass (costs $100) .. US Customs does a background check before approving it.   Then upon arrival back in the USA at 20 ports of entry so far (Seattle is one of them), the traveler can bypass the passport check points and just have the Global Entry machine scan the card.

Meanwhile the reports say that Google received 75,000 applications for the 6,000 jobs the company plans to add this year.   Should I apply?  (I think I should).

And with the Superbowl coming up on Sunday, the Jay Leno Show is predicting that the winner will be the Greenbay Packers.   A Jack Russel terrier (very fond of biting balloons, are they all like that?) was let loose among an equal number of black (Pittsburgh Steelers) and yellow (Greenbay Packers) balloons.   The last one to pop was a yellow one!

Sunday/ the TSA (and that scanner)

First, I apologize for the rude picture from our Seattle alternative weekly newspaper.  It’s a traveler in the hated full-body scanner giving the TSA* the finger.  The report describes what happened to a Seattle guy that showed up at the airport with a boarding pass but told the TSA at the security checkpoint he did not have any ID to present.   He was arrested and put in jail and later accused of trespassing, disorderly conduct, refusing to obey an officer and concealing his identity.  This was in Nov 2009, and the first case of its kind ..  but all charges were dismissed when the case was heard recently.  It took jurors only an hour to decide.   The lessons for me?  Yes, you have all kinds of rights that technically the TSA cannot take away or enforce, but behave yourself nonetheless at the airport if you want to make your flight.   (I suspect this guy left his ID at home or in the car and wanted to ‘test’ his case !)

*Transport Security Administration, in charge of security at US airports

Thursday/ at SFO airport

The first picture is from Hong Kong airport where the train arrives at the airport.    Next is the United 747 that brought us home sitting at the gate at Hong Kong airport, and happy Chinese New Year bunnies in the United lounge.  (I am sure only the hermit crabs in Hong Kong harbor do NOT know the Year of the Rabbit is about to arrive).     We made it in an hour ahead of schedule here at San Francisco airport just as the day was dawning.

Sunday/ Dim Sum brunch at the Peninsula

We made it to The Peninsula shortly after noon for their dim sum brunch.   On the pricey side (of course, it is The Peninsula after all), but very nice.   I recommend it !   Then we walked by the Heritage 1881 plaza (see the rabbits hiding in the greenery?), and on to the Harbor City mall nearby.  It is Hong Kong’s biggest shopping mall.   The Arc de Triomphe is made of white chocolate, part of a display of chocolate artworks.   A sign by it said ‘Please Do Not Touch and Do Not Eat’. (! LOL).   The firecracker billboard is an accurate depiction of the Chinese New Year celebration : plenty of firecrackers going off !

Saturday/ Stanley Market

We decided to get out of the city and go check out Stanley Market.   Stanley is a fishing village on the southern side of Hong Kong island.   To get there, one takes the island line on the MTR to the east most station and then hop on a little 16-seater minibus.  The drive to Stanley is along steep hillsides with lots of curves.  (Marked A on the Google map shot, and shown on the billboard on location there).  The first set of pictures were all taken there.  The temple is Tin Hau temple.   It think the picture of the sea is Repulse Bay, and check out the curved building overlooking it.   It was a very nice trip – the flea market is nothing different from what we’ve seen other places in Hong Kong, but it’s fun to get there and walk around.  I’m sure it’s packed in summer.

Then we went back to get some lunch in Soho, and went tea-shopping.   Expensive tea, not the stuff you buy off the shelf in the supermarket.   Ying Kee Tea Co. is on Queen’s Road in Central.   They sell tea that goes up to US$ 500 for 100g ! Yikes.    Some is sold loose leaf, others sold in big wheels of tea cakes.    The Year of the Rabbit is still on the way (starts early Feb) but I cannot resist snapping pictures of the rabbits in the city.

Friday/ Lan Kwai Fong

Three of us from work made it into Hong Kong on the company bus but we had many delays : waiting for someone before leaving, a random check by police at one of the toll plazas, traffic in Hong Kong.  So it took almost 4 hrs to get here!

We had a nice dinner  in the Soho area next to Lan Kwai Fong (in Central district on Hong Kong Island and also  party central for the expats).  That’s where we found ‘Elvis’, in a 7-11 store.  The Stella Artois billboard overlooks the main raod going down.  The Ice Vodka Bar has a freezer room where one is handed fur coats to wear while you have your vodka!   Yes, that’s a rabbit between the red lanterns.   And back in the hotel room there was a mean game of championship ping pong on the go on one of the TV channels.   That tiny table top might as well be a tennis court the way they play.

 

Sunday/ Windows of the World in Shenzhen

Sunday was pleasant enough to spend outside, and since I had to get away from work for a while – and Dameisha –  I took a taxi to Shenzhen’s Luo Hu station and on a whim the metro from there to the west side of the city to ‘Windows of the World’.   Nothing to do with Microsoft! – it is a very big theme park providing outdoor displays big and small of world landmarks, mostly scale models of man-made constructions, but also of natural landmarks.    The first picture is of the entrance (the monorail train car seems as old as the ones we have at the Seattle Space Needle!).  Scroll down and see how many of the other landmarks you recognize.  The answers are at the bottom of the post.

 

 

From the top down :

Eiffel Tower (of course), scene from Japan with koi feeding and Mt Fuji, Stonehenge, Lion Gate at Mycenae (full scale), Quell Park – the grounds of a house and estate in Barcelona that Gaudi designed and built for the Quell family*, African mask, 20 yuan (US$3) for a ride on the camel with the pyramids as a backdrop!, native American totem poles, the little pee boy from Belgium, the ‘official name’ is a little rude! (know what it is?), the Shwe Dagoon Pagoda from Burma, Chinese gate,  the Segovia Alcazar a fortress and magnificent castle from Segovia, Spain, and and Assyrian king Esarhaddon.

*my absolute favorite of the landmarks, trumping even the Eiffel Tower and the gorgeous Chinese gate.