a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Here is the local newspaper delivery arriving this morning as we waited for the bus to pull up outside the hotel, probably the Shenzhen Daily News. I am sure turning a corner with those stashes of newspaper attached to your bike, takes some getting used to !
This sign is from our lunch cafeteria here at work. There are two service windows that accept used lunch trays and cutlery, and this one is the put place for knives and forks (I love the direct translation!). Since I am part of the majority of lunch-goers that use chop sticks and soup bowl spoons to eat their lunch, my ‘put place’ is on the opposite side of the room.
These little mandarins make one feel like the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk. The peel comes off easily and then you pop the whole mandarin in your mouth. Most of them don’t even have seeds* to deal with. Very nice!
*when eating an orange or a mandarin outside of the USA (in say, South Africa or Great Britain), say pips and not seeds. Just for fun I looked up ‘pip’ on dictionary.com and found another meaning for it. Check out the explanation for ‘last night’s party was a pip’ !
pip
noun
1. a small seed, especially of a fleshy fruit, as an apple or orange.
2. Also called pipperoo. Informal . Someone or something wonderful: Last night’s party was a pip.
Origin: 1590–1600; 1910–15 for def. 2; short for pippin
This white Audi R8 V10 Coupé is parked in the hotel lobby for a promotion. Asked what it costs, the attendant said ‘more than ¥2m (US$314,000)’. I think it can be bought for under $200k in the USA, though.
(The other pictures are from searches I did on-line). NHK World TV from Japan reported here that Chugoku Expressway in Shimonoseki, Japan was the scene of a very costly crash on Sunday which reduced eight Ferraris, one Lamborghini and three Mercedes-Benz to wrecks (no serious injuries to the 10 drivers and passengers, though). It was a gathering of luxury sportscar owners going for a Sunday afternoon drive toward Hiroshima. The front driver struck a median while crossing lanes and set off a chain reaction of crashes which was all over in less than a minute. Eyewitnesses say the cars were going at a fair clip, some 140-160 km/h (up to 100mph), and driving too close together. It is not clear if the little Prius was caught up in the tangle as well, or if it was parked on the side of the road.
Our flight path took us over the Sea of Ochotsk, just over the northern tip of Sakhalin island, Russia’s largest island at about 1/4 the size of Japan. There’s the Asiana plane bound for Hong Kong parked at Gate 32 at Incheon airport in Seoul (see me in the reflection?). And there are a lot of Samsung LED TVs in the airport (it would be sacrilege to have Sonys, right?); this one had a Chevy Malibu commercial on. Now it’s time to snooze for a few hours before Monday morning is upon me.
I’m at Seattle-Tacoma airport at the South Terminal gates waiting for the Asiana Airlines flight (it’s a regular Airbus A330) to Seoul. Then on to Hong Kong for a late Sunday night arrival. A Starbucks at the Hong Kong terminal our agreed-on meeting point for finding the driver for arriving Americans. The pictures are all from the Asiana Airlines website.
Yes, it’s that time again : to fly to Hong Kong, on Saturday. I only have to pack one suitcase since I left one at the hotel in Dameisha, so that helps! (The stuffed snake is checking out the jumping Puma on the t-shirt, see?). And the little things matter very much : cell phone cord and charger, passport, camera battery charger, medicines and all that. So even after two dozen trips to the same place, a check list is indispensable. Got this? check Got that? check.
It’s December! .. yikes. I am not ‘home free’ for kicking 2011 out the door yet, though : got to make one more trip this year to China for work. So I got my hair cut today so that I don’t have to track down a Chinese hairdresser (and explain what needs to be done with my hair!). The Right Lane MUST turn Right sign is on Olive Way by Denny. Seattleites especially the ones here on Capitol Hill cannot leave well enough alone, and leave street signs unadorned with stickers. And poor Santa is smoking pot on a poster from the Kottonmouth Kings – an American rap rock group from Orange County, California. They describe themselves as “psychedelic hip-hop punk rock”. And a little later I stopped in at Smith here on 15th Ave for a beer and a bite with a friend right as the sun was setting (at 4.19pm). The days are short here! Go out and do something before it’s dark!
Open wide ..! That’s a ‘Hot Babe’ BBQ pork sandwich (burger?*) with a little coleslaw and carrot, and with sweet potato fries. This item is a permanent fixture on the Elysian Brewing Company’s menu. The beer I had was called ‘Hibernation Ale’ and it was a little too dark and heavy for me. I should have gone with the one that all my compadres had : the ‘Fireside Chat’, an early winter seasonal brew with a brown color.
*a burger has a meat or vegetarian patty, which is not the case with this one
.. are the only two things to be sure of in life, right? Yes, but how much taxes will we pay in 2012? Seems the Republicans are in a corner, at first opposing the proposed extension of 2011’s Payroll Tax Cut through 2012, and now supporting it – but demanding that federal employees’ pay be frozen for three more years. This is news from Wed Nov 30 .. the Democrats’ $265 billion proposal would be offset by a permanent 3.25 percent surtax on annual income exceeding $1 million. So we should see by year-end where we end up, but most economists agree it makes sense to extend the 2011 Payroll Tax Cut. It amounts to some $1,000 on a $50,000 individual salary, and businesses big and small, benefit from it as well.
So .. I thought as I arrived back at Seattle-Tacoma airport on Monday : taxi or train? Train is officially called ‘Central Link Light Rail’ (airport to downtown), and then I have to take the No 10 Bus from downtown to Capitol Hill to the closest stop two blocks from my house. Since my luggage was manageable, and I wanted to see how it works out, I took the train.
Here is a comparison :
Would I do it again? Hmm, yes – if I don’t have a ton of luggage for an overseas trip, and I have the time!
The pictures : The ‘toy’ planes (3,000 ft view) at Boeing Field airport, paper ticket if you’re a bad boy and left your Orca card at home, combination inside-outside picture of Beacon Hill’s underground station, brief glimpse of city skyline on one of the curves, route map that shows the train route going toward I-5 and then north to Seattle downtown from the airport.
We took the Pacific Surfliner (it’s an Amtrak train) from Solana Beach station to San Juan Capistrano (only about 1/3 of the San Diego – Los Angeles rail line shown below. The first picture shows the tracks at Solana Beach, then there is a map of San Juan Capistrano surroundings. The emu is from a petting zoo right there (the emu is not for petting, though). The southbound train was tardy, arriving 35 mins late, but was about 90% full. The reactors are from San Onofre Nuclear Power Generating Station. The starfish is from a tide pool on Solana Beach where there was a very low tide. The sun sunk into the Pacific Ocean at 4.44pm already! so it was time to go. And what looks like a lunar module from far away is a life guard station from closer up !
It was a beautiful day today in San Diego (could the sky have been any bluer?), so my brother and I went to Torrey Pines State Park and beach for a short hike. The torrey pine grows naturally only along a small strip of coast from Del Mar to La Jolla, and on Santa Rosa Island some hundred and seventy miles to the northwest.
(From Thursday : yes, it is every morsel as scrumptious as it looks. It’s Bryan’s home-made apple pie and home-made pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream. This was after Bill and Dave’s wonderful turkey dinner with cranberry sauce and stuffing and green bean casserole .. ! ).
So what is black about this Friday following Thanksgiving in the USA? The term ‘Black Friday’ originated in Philadelphia around 1966 (source: Wikipedia). Back then it was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. Then later an alternative explanation began to be offered: that “Black Friday” indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are “in the black” .. since many people have a day off work or take a vacation day and start their Christmas shopping. Stores used to open at 6 am on Friday, which in recent years crept up to 4 am. Then this year several large chains opened at midnight for the first time. It should be noted that Walmart opened at 10pm on Thursday and Sears was open all Thanksgiving day (gasp!).
But enough of that. I for one certainly did NOT go shopping. I did find myself back at Seattle-Tacoma airport, making my way to my brother and his family in San Diego. It was not busy at the airport and it’s 2 hours on Alaska Airlines down to California. And it doesn’t rain all the time in winter in Seattle, see? It was not even a gray Friday, but a beautiful blue-sky one.
The colorful leaves are from my walk outside .. and now I am almost on my way over to friends for Thanksgiving dinner.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone !
Seattle is ‘cold’ and wet but I am very happy to be home. The Chengdu billboard is from inside Hong Kong airport (if ‘real China’ is meant to say Hong Kong is not ‘really China’, well then, I guess Hong Kong can counter with ‘you got that right!’). The puppets are from a display at Seoul airport. In ancient times Korean parents would hang a straw rope called geum-jul across the main gate of the house for 21 days to indicate the arrival of a newborn and to ward off evil spirits (the parents look very happy!). The phoenix is the latest Hermès scarf on display in their store, the bibimbap was dinner on the way to Seattle (this is before I threw in the white rice, red pepper paste and sesame oil and stir it all together – and before I knocked over a small glass of water on my seat neighbor’s leg. I apologized profusely and jumped up and got some napkins to mop up the water. Yes, I’m a clumsy idiot but at least it was not red wine or coffee!). And finally, the Airbus A-330 from Korean Air that brought us across the Pacific, at the gate at Seattle airport.
Here are the ferries from Macau coming to the back of the hotel this morning to pick up supplies and to refuel, I think – since this is not where they pick up passengers. And here at the airport I always go by the Japanese store Muji to ogle the packaged food offerings. (This time I didn’t buy any since I don’t want to declare any foodstuffs coming in to the USA). The baumkucken is a German layer cake – made on a spit by adding layers of batter – that is popular in Europe as well as Japan. Pao de lao is a Portugese sponge cake. And lo and behold, there is even some apple pie. Now let me go find gate 15 and see if that turquoise Korean Air bird bound for Seoul, is sitting there already.
.. for my flight out to Seattle on Wednesday morning. We went across the border at the Shenzhen Bay (Shekou) border crossing again, and it was nice to have a very short line of cars in front of us to deal with. The suspension bridge picture is on the way to Lantau island where the Marriott Skycity hotel is, right by the airport.
The paper cup is from my visit to Dameisha’s KFC on Sunday night .. which reminded me of the NBA lockout. Monday was ‘Day 143’, noted on the USA Today’s sports page. It has to be bad press for the owners and players to publicly squabble over the billions of dollars the franchise earns every year. I’m not a big team sports fan and I cannot say I am crushed by the cancelled games so far. Wikipedia gives a great up-to-date summary (look up ‘2011 NBA lockout’).
That’s Dameisha beach reflected in my hotel room balcony door. The South China Morning Post I got in Hong Kong reports that home prices in mainland China have FINALLY started to drop. The percentage drops from Sept are mostly small but 4.9% in Wenzhou – so experts worry that the downward slide may turn into a panic. In the meantime the local bank’s ATM advertises Mortgage Loans with American symbolism (see picture, is that a good thing?). The zeroes with the check marks do NOT mean ‘no down payment’ .. it’s got something to do with ‘no additional secure assets needed’. First-time buyers typically have to make a minimum down-payment of 30%, and those buying a second property must find a 60% deposit as well as paying higher interest rates.
