a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
That’s what we told our audience after today’s presentation (a proposal for a new project). We’re up against three firms with proposals. From what we could tell, it went well. (The presentation was in Chinese, as were the questions from the audience, but they were translated for us). It has been a hectic three days since Tuesday : three nights and in and out of three hotels.
Here are my pictures from today’s trip to Beijing. The flight from Shenzhen to Beijing is almost three hours to the north, but that did not make much difference in the weather : Beijing seems to be as warm as Shenzhen is this time of the year.
It is very warm here. We’re at the bottom of the lower red blob; just outside of it right on the coast. So we’re not quite up to (35°C/ 95°F), but almost.
Two colleagues and I took a taxi out to Shenzhen late morning for some shopping at Luohu Commercial Center and the Coco Park mall. We encountered heavy traffic on the way back : it’s weekend and the Dameisha streets and beaches were overflowing with Shenzhen city-zens that wanted to enjoy the hot summer weather.
.. and that means some of our colleagues go back to Beijing and Shanghai – and those of us ‘left behind’ get to walk to the Dameisha Sheraton to make our bellies happy with a beer and a burger, or British-style fish and chips. The lobby was quiet this time except for the band downstairs that we could hear. They billed themselves as ‘Taste of Thai’ but nonetheless sang the John Denver classic ‘Country Roads (Take Me Home)’. Aw. For me it is one more week before I get to check up on my home and my friends, and the summer that Seattle has been having while I have been away.
Three colleagues and I finally – after all this time in the area! – went to check out the retired Russian aircraft carrier, the Minsk. It is a stone’s throw away from Dameisha, in the Yantian port area.
From Wikipedia : Named after the capital city of Belarus, the Minsk was laid down in 1972, launched on 30 September 1975, completed on 27 September 1978, and decommissioned on 30 June 1993. The Minsk operated with the Pacific Fleet. She was retired as a result of a major accident (details not known) which required the facilities at the Chernomorskiy yard, in Mykolayiv, located in the newly-independent Ukraine (the reasons for not attempting a repair are not known). In 1995 she was sold to a South Korean businessman, and later resold to Shenzhen Minsk Aircraft Carrier Industry Company Limited, a Chinese company.
The pictures are from Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo airport.
The airport stores are well-stocked with African handicraft and souvenir items, and seemed to be doing a brisk business even though it’s winter time and not the tourist season.
Our Airbus A340-300 was filled to capacity. The number 4 engine did not start properly, though, and we went back to the gate for a check-up.
Take your time, technicians, I thought .. make sure everything is A-OK. All was resolved after 30 minutes, and we were on our way.
I am at Cape Town airport. It’s a 2-hour hop to Johannesburg and then onto a direct flight of 13 hrs to Hong Kong from there. I resisted buying any more Afrikaans books (already bought 4), t-shirts or bottles of South African olive oil that are shaped like Table Mountain !
Thursday was overcast and cool which made for good picture-taking weather. All the buildings are from the central area of Stellenbosch.
My journey to Cape Town at the southwestern tip of Africa was complete on Monday evening. Here are a few more pictures from the connecting airports.
We arrived at 4.45 am local time with the sun just coming up from the east. So one of two 8 hr flights done, and the next one is due south to Johannesburg.
Here is how I will get to Cape Town from Hong Kong. It’s on Qatar Airways with two 8 hour flights and then the ‘hop’ down to Cape Town on South African Airways from Johannesburg. The stop in Doha shows where Qatar is : a kingdom on the small Qatar Peninsula on the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Qatar is arguably the world’s richest country : it’s estimated 2011 GDP per capita was $102,943 according to the International Monetary Fund.
These pictures are from near the Tsim Tsa Tsui station in Kowloon, along Nathan Road. It is warm and muggy outside! Walking around makes you break out in a soaking sweat for that ‘swimming in it’ feeling.
My flight to South Africa is on Sunday. It rained all Saturday which was fine with me : I could use it as an excuse to relax in the hotel and catch up on what’s happening in the world with the TV coverage of the elections in Greece and in Egypt this weekend. I did catch the Marriott SkyCity’s shuttle bus to the Tung Chung station and shopping mall close by.
It is time for a get-away from the slog at work. A colleague and I got the van to Hong Kong on Friday for our flights from the airport this weekend. A little travel disaster struck me when I got out of the van at the hotel : inadvertently left my cell phone on the seat, with the driver disappearing from sight as I ran back out of the hotel. We did have his phone number but as I was trying to figure out the dialing codes for mainland China to call him from my room, the front desk called. Was I the person that left my phone in the van? Yes, yes! I said. May we ‘inconvenience you, sir’ into coming down to the lobby to get it? (You can inconvenience me all you want!). And there he was, the driver with my phone. Don’t worry so much! he said, as he handed me the phone.
I had to get out of the hotel room for a bit on Saturday, and off to the Mix-C Mall in Shenzhen I went late afternoon, a 20 minute taxi ride. I would have walked around more but it was raining when I emerged from the mall, and I decided to come back instead of waiting to see if it would clear up.
We flew across Japan and approached Seoul from the south this time. The connection time there was just right : stretched my legs, brushed my teeth and then boarded Asiana’s Boeing 747 that took us to Hong Kong.
It was only three hours to Hong Kong, and we arrived there at 10.30pm Thu night. That made for my usual midnight border crossing into mainland China.
I made it to the airport with two hours to spare before the flight to Seoul departs. I usually try for three for an international flight. I had e-mails to send off and I almost left my electric toothbrush in the bathroom – not a calamity to leave it behind, but still. And as always : don’t forget the charger. Below is my flight from Flight Aware .. the usual trek across the Pacific to Seoul, and then down to Hong Kong for a late Thursday night arrival.
I am getting ready to go out on Wednesday for my next trip to China. It’s a new project. So last chance for anything that needs to go with to make the cut and jump into my suitcases. (If only it were possible to snap my fingers and the suitcases just assemble themselves! ).
This Texas Longhorn looked down at me as I was exiting the security clearance into the departure area at Bush Intercontinental Airport’s C Terminal to make the 4½ hr flight back to Seattle. These cattle are known for their diverse coloring and despite the fearsome and long pointed horns, generally have a gentle disposition and intelligence. The longhorn is the official animal of Fort Worth, Texas, which is therefore nicknamed ‘Cowtown’.
