a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
The football field-size flag was unfurled before the singing of the national anthem for the New York Jets-Dallas Cowboys NFL match in the stadium on the New Jersey side. The 9/11 Memorial was open to families that lost loved ones 10 years ago today and opens to the general public tomorrow. (Pictures from NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcast).
The short connection in Seoul went well and the gate security was the usual hand search of our carry-ons, no more. The pictures are from Saturday morning. From the top: crossing the suspension bridges from Hong Kong mainland to Lantau Island (the airport’s location); walking to Gate 24 to board; looking out the window at the Korean Airlines Airbus A380 getting pushed out to the runway; I wondered for a moment how the dinner appetizer should be eaten (mushroom, mozzarella and cherry tomato with mint leaf garnish); then stuffed it all in my mouth :0).
These artifacts are from a display in Hong Kong airport. Monday is Moon Cake Festival Day in China (those are moon cakes in the picture). Carambola, or starfruit, is really native to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka – but I have seen trees here with the fruit. Now I have to run for the gate! I have a short connection in Seoul, then on to Seattle.
We celebrated the end of the week with some beers in the hotel bar. Heineken for me. I tried to look up where the red star on the logo came from, but without success. Maybe I shouldn’t read too much into it, but then again the 3 e’s were tilted back slightly to make them ‘smile’, according to one description of the logo. So little details matter.
My bags are packed. A driver is picking me up early Saturday morning here at the hotel to take me to Hong Kong. There is usually an extra bag search before boarding a flight for the USA; I am sure it will be even stricter tomorrow.
.. yes, the car. (Spotted from my perch in the bus on the way to work). The original Nissan Bluebird was launched in 1957, so the name has been around a very long time. In China the cars are made under licence by Dongfeng Motor Corporation, one of the three big automakers in the country.
It is finally cooling down somewhat from the August highs here in South East Asia, and in Japan. The TV screen shot is from the Japanese channel NHK World. It says ‘Forecast Lowest Temperature’ 予想最低気温 at the top* and the 22 ºC (72 ºF) is for Tokyo. It still goes up to 30 ºC (86 ºF) some days there, but the Japanese government’s campaign to urge businesses to consume less electricity this summer was a resounding success. Average electricity use in peak hours on weekdays in Tepco’s service area fell 20.4 percent in July and 21.9 percent in August from 2010, exceeding the targeted 15 percent cut. Check out the manga character with the sad eyes. And I like the pointer with the black blob that the meteorologist is using. Somewhat different from the way our TV stations present the weather, no?
*the successful outcome of a guessing game I played in Google Translate, plugging English phrases into its English-Japanese translator
These are fresh dates, a first for me, since I have only eaten dried ones all my life. A coworker brought them from Beijing. We sometimes say in Afrikaans ‘daar sal dadels van kom‘ ( ‘dates will come of it’), meaning nothing will come of it. One theory has it that dadels actually refers to a good-for-nothing Dutch governor-general from Batavia in the East named Daedels.
The tech world (at least or the Apple fandom part of it) is on iPhone5 watch. The rumors here in Shenzhen are rife : its release is imminent. (One of the factories making the phone is right here in the city). Here is a screen shot I snapped from aTV commercial for iPhone4.
Two colleagues new to the project and I took a taxi to Shenzhen’s electronics market on Huaqiang North Road. The beautiful gazebo is close by and so is a large watch store that sells any watch one can imagine. The ‘Rolexes’, ‘Omegas’ and ‘Cartiers’ are fake (prices are negotiable, between US$50 and US$200), but there is a very large selection of cheap and colorful quartz watches with Mickey Mouse, Batman, Astroboy and Snow White. Then we hopped onto the one of the Shenzhen Metro’s brand spanking new lines, the She Kou line. No Scottish Terriers/pets : ), no begging, no vendors, no littering and NO balloons!*. The trains are very clean with animated displays that show the whole line and connecting stations. At this moment we had arrived at Grand Theater station and are directed to use the open doors on the other side to exit.
*Because they pop and scare people? More likely because the trains are typically crowded and the balloon or string gets stuck in the doorway on the way out!
Our ‘Sand box’ system is ready! The ‘Sand box’ is an SAP* system (database and programs) where we can make a mess and figure out which solution is the best before we work in the clean ‘Development’ system. Then comes the ‘Quality Assurance’ system where final testing is done, and only then do you transfer your work to the Production system : the one that is used to run the business. *Don’t say ‘sap’! Say ‘S’ ‘A’ ‘P’. In German it stands for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung (!) and in English simply ‘Systems Applications and Products’.
Typhoon Talas is headed for landfall west of Tokyo on Friday, reported the TV channel NHK World Thu night. The heavy rains ahead of the center of the storm has already caused flooding in some coastal areas.
Yes, yes, if you are American you know exactly what this is! Around since 1930, and named after a horse by the Mars family. In South Africa I grew up with Nestlé’s similar offering, called a Bar One.
