Category: Travel

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Saturday/ last day in New York City

I tried one more time to get into the 9/11 Memorial, but the only slots available were late Saturday afternoon, and I didn’t make it back there to go inside.  (At the base of the tower a group of 9/11 conspiracy theory believers were making their case. Man! Give it up).  Late morning in Manhattan there were gusty winds, with showers in the afternoon.  I learned on the news two tornadoes touched down at the edge of New York City! — but no serious injuries were reported.

Here’s a day-time view of the Freedom Tower (One World Trade Center), now at 105 stories, already making it the tallest building in Manhattan. The steel frame has topped out; the spire of glass and antenna still has to follow.
The main entrance of the New York Times building on 8th Avenue (52 floors). It’s fairly new : completed in 2007.
I had to go check out Grand Central Station’s main entrance (Park Ave and 42nd St). It was one of the pictures of New York City in my ViewMaster (disk with slide show pictures) many, many years ago !
The Chrysler Building is not far away, on Lexington Ave and 42nd St. It is an Art Deco style skyscraper, and is surrounded by several other very, very fine examples of art deco.
Art Deco on Lexington Ave – and no, this is not the iPhone Apple, it’s a different Apple.
The corner of the same building (I couldn’t get enough of the Art Deco). I am not sure if the silver metal cladding on the building on the left is old or new.
The Stars and the Stripes on a lamp post on 42 nd Street.
This is a food vendor on a street corner by Bryant Park.
This is about 8 pm on Saturday night after a downpour, looking south over the trees in Bryant Park at 42nd Ave. Yes, that is the Empire State building (on 34th Ave).
A closer look at the Empire State building’s top, this is from 36th st and 6th Ave.
This is close to Herald’s Square where Macy’s is, a designer studio from what I can tell. I am having trouble keeping the raindrops off my camera lens.
A night time shot of Grand Central Station’s facade. Shortly after this it started raining hard again, and I went back to the hotel.

 

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Wednesday/ midtown Manhattan

It was a long day at the office and we went out for dinner, so I did not have too much time for gallivanting around New York City and gawking at the buildings and the people !

It’s 7.30am and I’m sitting in the lobby waiting for my colleague to walk over to the PwC office. The rain gods smiled on us : dry while we walked over with a big downpour soon after that!
It is so easy to find one’s way with the phone’s GPS and maps. Just plug in the address you want to go to and presto! This is midtown Manhattan, the area directly below Central Park.
A little city park called Bryant Park is close to the hotel. This is a cityscape view from within the park.
This is Times Square, 42nd St and 7th Ave. Check out the New York Police Dept’s Tokyo-style police box right there on a strategic street corner.
There is a Hard Rock Cafe in the historic Paramount building, just off Times Square.
The police on horseback seem to be very popular tourist attractions !

 

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Tuesday/ arrival in NYC

It’s been a long day since I got up at 4.00 am Seattle time to make my 7.00 am flight.  We left Seattle a little late, and there was light rain in New York City when I arrived, but everything went according to plan.    I had dinner with a colleague and then we went for a short walk to Times Square.  We also went down to the World Trade Center site. The 9/11 Memorial had already closed, though.

This is the Airtrain shuttle that runs between the Newark Airport terminals. I am on my way to the Newark Airport train station to catch a train on the New Jersey Transit system to NYC Penn Station.
On the NJ Transit train on the way to NYC Penn Station with very old industrial age structures flashing by.
Here is the main schedule board inside Pennsylvania (Penn) station in New York City.
At the Marriott Residence Inn on 6th Avenue. ‘All pets much be checked in’ would be better, not? Fido cannot check himself in with a ‘woof!’.
The McDonalds by Times Square is right up there with all the other gaudy neon signs and displays.
The corner of 7th Ave and 42nd Street.
The tower at 1 World Trade Center has 3,000 construction workers on site everyday, says a sign there. It is expected to be completed in mid-2013.

 

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Monday/ planes and trains to New York City

I leave very early Tue morning to go to New York City to attend a training course set up by my firm (yes, the old dog can still learn a few new tricks).  I will arrive at Newark Liberty airport, and I need to get right into Manhattan.  I will take several trains to get there :  Newark Airtrain shuttle to the Newark Airport station, the New Jersey Transit to Penn Station in Manhattan, and then the New York subway train to get me to two blocks of the hotel.

The United Airlines website’s New York City picture.
The sprawling New Jersey Transit system. I start at Newark Airport station. And it’s good to know ahead of time there’s a Newark Penn Station and a New York Penn Station, and they are NOT the same!
Once in Manhattan, the New York subway will whisk me where I need to be (well, I make it sound easier than it is. Sometimes it takes a little time just to find out which exit to the street level to take!).

 

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Thursday/ Doraemon travels the world

I am still opening my little souvenirs from Japan.  I found this world map with a set of Doraemon refigerator magnets in Tokyo, and felt compelled to buy it (because I think it is cute, not because I plan to travel to every country in the world!).   Doraemon is the intelligent robotic cat (from a manga series created in 1969), who travels back in time from the 22nd century to aid a schoolboy, Nobita Nobi.

Here is the background board with numbers for 50 countries, and a background panel for each. The USA is easy to figure out (No 39 -Empire State Building and Golden Gate Bridge), South Africa less so (No 22- a mountain or cliff, but that is NOT the famous Table Mountain from Cape Town).
And here are the Doraemons for each country. The United States Doreamon is dressed up in a Statue of Liberty costume, and the South Africa Doraemon has a Nelson Mandela shirt and a vuvuzela (well done!).

 

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The traveler is home

Everything after the Narita Express train ride to the airport went very well : picked up the stowed suitcase, get the luggage out of the way at the check-in, buying a last souvenir at the airport shops and stamps at the airport post office, and onto the plane.    It was 9 hrs to Seattle, and I got in on Saturday morning after leaving Tokyo on Saturday afternoon.

That’s me, waiting for the train. My car was actually number 6, though (there were people crowding the platform at the Car No 6 sign).
Stay out of the way! This is actually the front set of cars of the train arriving a few minutes before the departure time of 1.33 pm ..
The front set of cars is connected with the rear set of cars. It goes very quickly. I am not sure why the two sets of cars have to be combined at Tokyo station.
Inside the car on the way to the airport.
Street scene flashing by on the outskirts of Tokyo ..
.. and this looks like a Saturday morning ‘Little League’ baseball event.

 

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Saturday/ on the way to Narita airport

I’m out of clean clothes, my camera’s battery is almost dead and the charger is in the bag I left at the airport – and I did what I wanted to do in Tokyo!  I’ve got my ticket, and about to go downstairs to check out.  A short trip on Tokyo Metro to Tokyo Station and then on the Express to the airport.

 

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Friday/ Shinjuku

I had to go check out the area around Shinjuku station .. lots of people, lots of places and a nice vibe.   It is warm even at night (of course).

The entrance of the Uni Qlo clothing store. It’s more or less ‘The Gap’ of Japan and has a sale on to celebrate its 10 year anniversary (so it’s much younger than the Gap, actually). I bought two polo shirts for US$10 each. I ran out of clean shirts!
One of several signs for Shinjuku station, this one for the Marunouchi Line from Tokyo Metro.
Asahi makes many, many more beverages than just beer. This one from a vending machine came in handy on Friday.
This is a video game and game machine and parlor.
These little fluff ball soft toys are inside a coin-operated machine and are all hoping to get grabbed by a crane hook that the operator manipulates to try to grab one. Remember a scene like this in one of Disney’s Toy Story pictures?
It’s fun to cross the street with 10,000 other people (or so it feels like!).
This is the giant TV screen at the Studio Alta (store) entrance at Shinjuku station. Lots of young people hang out here. It’s the de facto meet place for friends on a Friday night in the area, no question.
Here’s my dinner from the 24-hr Dennys across from the Marriott. No English on the menu, and really no burgers. Cheers! to my friends in Seattle, I thought as I drank the Kirin beer. I missed you. I will be there soon.

 

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Thursday/ Skytree : Mission Impossible

Alright, so I tried !.. but couldn’t make it up to the Skytree’s observation decks (there are two).  I got there a little after 12 noon and the line was so long that they sold tickets for 4 pm.   School is still out here, so everyone was out in full force.  To make matters ‘worse’ there is a whole Skytree Town built at the Tree’s base : souvenir shops, stores, a food court and an aquarium as well.

This is in the Asakusa station area. Skytree visitors take the Tobu line from there across the Sumida river to the new Tokyo Skytree station. The entrance to the Tobu line is in the Matsuya department store building (right on the picture).
Still in the Asakusa station area, the Sensoji temple with a large plaza behind it that sells food and handmade gifts and souvenirs.
Here’s the glimpse of the Skytree from the street neat the Sensoji temple. The yellow lanterns provide a festive atmosphere.
Now I have arrived at the base of the Skytree. These ladies are enjoying the mist and cool air. I saw these misters at a few places on the Tokyo streets.
.. but don’t approach the misters ‘too much’. But let me submit that I think 1. It’s perfectly OK to get wet. 2. You are wet already, from sweating. I gobbled up several 500ml bottles of water yesterday.
Here is as close to the monstrous metal Skytree I could get. Skytree is the world’s highest free-standing broadcasting tower, ‘with cutting-edge Japanese building technology supporting it safely’, says the website (I think that means for earthquakes, I think). The structure is 634 m tall (2,080 ft).
Looking up from the base.
Yes? How is your knowledge of Japanese pop culture? This is Pikachu frolicking on a Skytree t-shirt from the gift store : a short, chubby, rodent-like Pokémon with yellow fur all over its body.   (They did not have an extra large shirt for me).
And if I were 4 years old, I’d love to have a pair of these bullet train sneakers.
Now I arrived back at Asakusa station, and I am walking on the Azumabashi bridge across the Sumida river. The two buildings to the right of Skytree are the Asahi Beer Headquarters. The biggest building resembles a giant beer jug complete with a foam shaped white roof. The shorter building is known as the Super Dry Hall. It is a black building in the shape of a beer glass, with an enormous golden flame shaped object perched on top (affectionately known as the ‘golden turd’)..
And is this riverboat is sleek or what? There may very well be aliens (from Mars) inside.
More paper lanterns, this in the park across the Azumabashi bridge.
Of all the Skytree toys and souvenirs I saw yesterday, this one has to take the cake : a Swarovski crystal tree fitted with LED lights that goes for 665,700 yen (US$8,400). This is in the Akihabara electronics store.
The main entrance to the Akihabara electronics store. I did check out the Seiko watches, but didn’t buy another one. I have too many already!
I have no idea how famous Kanako Mimura is as a anime character. There are posters around the Akihabara store of several other anime characters as well.
Here’s Colin Farrell on a subway poster for the 2012 version of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Total Recall. The Japanese characters gives it that extra little bit of high-tech edge, not?
This picture belongs with the one with the colored paper lanterns. It is a statue of Katsu Kaishū (1823 – 1899), a Japanese naval engineer and statesman.

 

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Wednesday/ in Tokyo’s Ginza district

It’s been a long day of travel but I’m in the Marriott Courtyard in the Ginza district, ready to settle in and get some rest.  Narita airport was very, very busy.  It took 40 mins to get through customs and another 30 in line just to buy a ticket to Tokyo on the Narita Express.  I found a baggage storage facility at the airport that took the unwieldy one of my two big suitcases off my hands.  They will store it for me for $5 a day until I return to go on to Seattle : a lifesaver.   I cannot use the trains and the Tokyo subway with two big bags!

Here’s my Japanese lunch (naturally, since I am on All Nippon Airlines). They do offer a Western lunch, but then I would not have jellyfish salad (top left), orange fish eggs, pink-and-white lotus root, smoked eel and some other items I did not recognize!
A countryside scene that flashed by while we were on the Narita Express shinkansen (bullet train).
The white bullet had stopped at Tokyo station, and you have to get your get up and go. The train stops for only two minutes.
Eek! It’s going to be WARM tomorrow. That 34 C for Tokyo is 93 F.
Taxis in the Ginza district.
It’s Wednesday night, so the streets are not very busy. This is the Matsuya department store, glowing with pink lines.

 

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Tuesday/ back to Hong Kong!

Yes, I know I was there just Sunday.  The van picked me at the Dameisha hotel today and brought me to the Hong Kong Marriott Skycity : making its way across the border, and the two bridges to Lantau island where the airport is.   I am making my way back to Seattle but stopping over for two days in Tokyo.  Might as well, I thought : it’s on the way, and I want to go check out the Skytree (tall antenna tower for digital transmissions, newly open to the public), and go to the Akhihabara electronics and toy store.  I love that store, bought a beautiful Seiko watch there a previous time (which I could have ordered on Amazon but hey! feels nice to say ‘I bought this in Tokyo’ and it brings the happy memories back).  I just think it’s going to be warm there, but I should be OK.  Not like I’m not used to warm humid weather coming from Hong Kong and Shenzhen !

Crossing into Hong Kong after a stop at the mainland border. I had to open my suitcases this time for a quick check by customs!
You have to be quick to catch this glimpse of Victoria Harbor and Hong Kong island : it lasts only a minute or so while crossing over to Lantau island.
And here is the backseat view of the suspension of the Tsing Ma Bridge to Lantau Island.

 

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Sunday/ Hong Kong day trip

It was my last weekend for awhile here in the Hong Kong area.  So I felt I had to go there one more time to go to my favorite places and walk around.

This is the Shatoujiao Port crossing in the Yantian district. A little quicker than the Luohu crossing with fewer people, but one can only take a bus from here to Hong Kong on the other side – and depending on the bus schedule you could wait up to 45 mins for the next bus.
My timing turned out well : I waited only 5 mins for the next bus to depart. We’re now in Hong Kong and the high-rise buildings are starting to flash by. ‘Do not eat on the bus’ and ‘Fasten your Seat Belt’ says the signage in the window.
A ‘Find the Willem’ picture from the Staurbucks in iSquare in Tsim Tsa Tsui.
This is right next to the iSquare biulding, just a lot of colorful street signs. I think (I hope) the red banner sign with the shark on says that the store is NOT selling shark fin products.
This bus with the display advertisement that says ‘The Hilfigers Love Hong Kong/ on Nathan Road TST’ is ACTUALLY on Nathan Rd in Tsim Tsa Tsui as well !
This is in Central district. (I have no idea if real people actually aspire to buying Gucci clothes. I guess they do).
Bus in Central District decked out with a cure picture. I like the stethoscope .. but that syringe, ouch!
Now I’m heading back .. this is the classic industrial design of the Hung Hom train station roof. Lots of natural light comes in through the window panes in the wavy roof.
And here is another classic : the view as you walk out onto the plaza at Luohu station after arriving from Hong Kong, and you turn around. This is around 7 pm.

 

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Sunday/ back to Dameisha

After checking out of the Shangri-La, I knew I had to go directly back to Dameisha : the little beach resort town gets a crush of visitors from Shenzhen on summer weekends that makes for bad traffic jams.  A rainstorm on Sunday afternoon made the traffic situation even worse, but luckily I was in the Dameisha hotel by then.

The driver in the taxi cab across from ours buys a bottled drink from a street vendor at a traffic light.
I like the ‘auspicious’ turquoise color of this deluxe Wuzhulong bound bus!
We’re winding our way through the little port town of Yantian, trying to get around the traffic jam on the S30 freeway.
I’m in my Dameisha hotel room looking down at the main entrance.
And here are the gray colors of the rainstorm.  It is the view from my hotel room looking out over Da Peng Bay with Dameisha beach and the Dameisha beach tower on the left.

 

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Saturday/ Shenzhen is hot and hazy

Here are Saturday’s pictures of being out and about in a very hot and hazy Shenzhen.  You can only walk outside for so long before it was almost necessary to go inside a shopping mall or store to get into some air-conditioned environment.  My colleague is new to Shenzhen and so we made the classic stops at the Shenzhen electronics market, the Civic Center plaza and concert hall, and finally went to the McCauly’s pub in Futian district to check out the expats and drink a beer.

Here is the view from my 10th floor room in the Shangri-La hotel towards the Hong Kong-mainland border. The green hill in the background is in Hong Kong. The Chinese building is the customs building.
Here is a map from inside the Luohu metro station. Its sister station across the border is called LoWu. The regional train station with trains to Guangzhou is right here as well.
This giant mechanical clock in located in the middle at the bottom of the first picture. The seconds hand sweeps around and around, so the on-lookers and those posing for a picture are about as close as they should get !
Scooters and high heels at the electronics market off Huaqiang Road, the main street with buildings that house vendors and stores from the Shenzhen electronics market.
This store sells iPhone and iPad covers, buttons, battery packs and related knick knacks.
This is inside the 10 story SEG building, each floor filled with cubicles or enclosed little stores that sell electronics components and products.
Just a colorful picture at a vendor’s cubicle that advertises a shoot-em-up game, that drew my attention.
These are little LED lights for sale.  They are used by hobbyists that build their own gadgets with electronic circuits and switches, and then the little light indicates an ON/ OFF or ACTIVE/ INACTIVE status.
This is the gigantic wavy roof on the Shenzhen museum viewed from the plaza that we emerged onto from the underground metro station called Civic Center. The kids in the foreground are roller blading.   
We’ve now gone up the steps and stand almost under the roof, and this is the view looking back. The sky was very hazy – I left the grays in this picture as the camera captured it (without auto-adjusting the colors with Photoshop).   The black item in the foreground in an umbrella.
Now looking back at the roof with the plaza on the other side. I adjusted the colors in this picture to make the red and yellow pillars stand out a little more.
These street musicians are doing a great job. I couldn’t understand a word, but they sang a beautiful song.
These golden beams that support a ‘spider web’ of rafters are from the lobby of the Shenzhen concert hall nearby.
This is the outside of the Shenzhen library. The photographer is using a gold reflector to light up (or warm up the colors) on his ‘subject’. He actually needs an assistant to hold the reflector at the right angle.
This is around 9pm on Saturday night and we have just emerged from the Shopping Park station in Futian district. The expat Irish pub/ watering hole called McCauly’s is right there.
And this is the night view of the Shangri-La hotel as I approached it after arriving at the Luohu train stop right there at the hotel.
There is a big mirror in the lobby of the Shangri-la hotel that allowed me to take a picture of myself.

 

 

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Friday/ escape to the city

I hopped in a taxi and came to the city of Shenzhen just for the weekend, just to get out of Dameisha for a night or two and save on the taxi rides back and forth.

This is the Kingkey 100 building at night : impossible to miss with its gigantic scrolling letters. Each letter is 6 stories tall !  It is near the Grand Theatre train station, named after the theatre in the foreground.   But there was no event and no theatre goers at the theatre on Friday night.
This is a bus stop nearby. The bicycle at the bottom right is a policeman’s.

 

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Early Wednesday/ arrival difficulties

Typhoon Vicente had passed by Hong Kong by the time I arrived late Tue night, but left a lot of turmoil in its wake.  We left Tokyo an hour late, circled before landing at Hong Kong for an hour, then waited on the tarmac for almost an hour.  So by the time I cleared customs and had my luggage it was 1.30 am.  The van scheduled for my pick-up several hours earlier had left.  The airport hotels were all full  .. I got a hotel room downtown, but the line at the taxi stand had 200 people, and the airport train was no longer running.  One option remained : the airport’s night buses running every 30 mins.  That got me to the hotel at 4 am.   Quite an adventure.

Hermès scarf on display at one of Narita airports luxury stores. (Hermes was an Olympian god in Greek religion and mythology, son of Zeus and the Pleiade Maia).
This head of this ‘solar’ samurai in a toy store bobs back and forth. There is a little solar panel in the base.
An ATM in Narita airport. Looks like 7-11 is in the banking business in Japan as well.
That’s Mt Fuji on the wall of this Narita airport restaurant.
Look for the wolf in this elaborate Red Riding Hood origami display, from a store that sells all kinds of origami kits.
Oh no! McDonalds has infiltrated Japan as well. (That’s a Big Mac). ¥670 for the Big Mac meal is about US$9 : expensive compared to elsewhere in the world.
We’re on the way to Hong Kong.
The wasabi-flavored rice snacks are very very tasty.
This is midnight on Tue night and I spotted this Hong Kong Airlines plane as I stepped off from ours. We are about to board a bus that will take us to the arrivals lounge.
Waiting to check out of the hotel Wed morning, and checking out the offerings in the little souvenir shop. These Chinese zodiac characters are the Tiger (for 2010), the Rabbit (for 2011) and the Dragon (for 2012).
SpongeBob Squarepants and I are on the way to Dameisha. (SpongeBob is not mine! belongs to the van driver).
And here’s the obligatory border crossing picture as we entered the mainland, leaving the Hong Kong area.

 

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Tuesday/ at Narita airport

Here we are about two hours from Tokyo, as seen on the flight tracker on the United flight. It was an OLD Boeing 777-200 we were on.

We arrived at Narita airport in the Tokyo area. The layover is 4 hours, which is totally fine given that the more time I spend here the better the weather in Hong Kong will be at our arrival.  The typhoon has actually made landfall and is now moving westwards, away from Hong Kong.

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Monday/ Vicente and I are Hong Kong bound

I am Hong Kong bound again, this time on United Airlines to Tokyo (9 hrs) and then on All Nippon Airlines to Hong Kong (4 hrs).  There is trouble brewing in the form of tropical storm Vicente in the Hong Kong area, though.  I might have to wait at Tokyo’s Narita airport for a few hours – or even stay over for a night.

This picture is from Flightaware.com. That is Lantau island where Hong Kong International Airport is located, with little airplanes departing from it. So far the departure delay is only 30 mins.
And here is Hong Kong observatory’s projected track of tropical cyclone Vicente, threatening to turn into a typhoon before it makes landfall.

 

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Saturday/ arrived in the Pacific Northwest

It is turning into a long day : the 3 hrs to Seoul and 9 hours to Seattle disappeared into thin air.  I arrived in Seattle on Saturday 15 minutes ‘earlier’ than my Saturday departure time in Hong Kong.

This limerick in honor of Einsten’s Theory of Relativity has been around a long time, but it still makes me smile : There once was a girl named Bright/ Whose speed was much faster than light./ She set out one day/ In a relative way/And returned on the previous night.

Here’s the Hong Kong ground crew checking us out as we taxi by. My plane looks like the one on the right, Asiana Airlines.
This is looking back after 5 minutes or so. The brownish diamond shaped island is Lantau island, some of it reclaimed from the sea to build Hong Kong International Airport on.
And here is the roosting place of the skyblue Korean Air birds. We have just landed at Incheon airport in Seoul, and are taxiing toward the gate.

 

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Friday/ at the Sky City

My flight on Asiana Airlines to Seattle with my usual connection in Seoul, is on Saturday. Check out the Friday night sunset view from the 15th floor of the Marriott Skycity hotel at Hong Kong airport. (See the plane that is about to land?).