Category: Travel

The Yantian Sports Center is from my walk around 8.00pm last night, so it is here in Dameisha. The big exploding firecracker is one of two or three dozen, viewed from my hotel balcony at 10.00 pm last night.  It makes a <<<REALLY BIG BANG>>> !  Take coverrr!  LOL.  That’s the Dameisha Beach ‘Evil Eye’ Tower in the background. (The tower is not evil  – it just reminds me of that tower with the eye in the Lord of the Rings movies).

Our hotel lobby has gotten this striking Lunar New Year tree with the little hong bao envelopes.   These are handed out at family and social gatherings such as those for the Lunar New Year (the ones on the tree are just for decoration and as symbols of prosperity).  Some pointers : the amount of money in an envelope should end in an even digit but not a 4, and it is best to put a single crisp note in (so that the envelope is not bulky).   I bought the little envelope with the happy guy on just for fun – there are many many different designs available but the color is always red.   The classic red lantern is from the entrance lobby of our offices at work.

Shenzhen’s first government-funded bicycle rental system has started trial operations here in the Yantian District. The bikes in the picture are from right across the street from my hotel. A total of 3,000 bicycles would be put into use in the early stage of the operation and will eventually reach 5,000.  We – the lǎowàis (foreigners) – are not sure we will qualify for the rental cards that are issued for using the bikes. Residents are to pay 200 yuan (US$32) of deposit for the card while others need to pay 500 yuan (US$80) for each card.  Then it is free to rent a bike for up to one hour, after which each additional hour will cost 2 yuan each.

Will the program be a success?  That is not at all assured .. here’s a report from Paris, France in Wikipedia’s entry (search for ‘Bicycle Sharing Systems’) :
A resurgence in bike sharing programs is attributed by many to the launching in 2007 of Paris’s Vélib’, a network of 20,000 specially designed bicycles distributed among 1450 stations throughout Paris. Vélib’, inspired by Lyon’s seminal Vélo’v project, is now considered the second largest bike sharing system of its kind in the world. While the Vélib’ program may be considered a success in terms of rider usage (daily use averages between 50,000 to 150,000 trips), a staggering 80 percent of the original 20,600 bicycles have been destroyed or stolen. Some Vélib’ cycles have been found in Eastern Europe and North Africa, while others have been dumped in the Seine River, hung from lampposts, or abandoned on the roadside in various states of disrepair, forcing the City of Paris to reimburse the program operator an estimated $2 million per year for excess costs under its contractual agreement.

I caught a glimpse of these buildings in the Shenzhen central business district before and had time Saturday to go check them out up close.    They belong to the largest non-government developer of commercial properties in Shenzhen, the Excellence Group.   These buildings are called the Excellence Century Center.   The first picture was taken late afternoon .. those HAPPY NEW YEAR letters are enormous!, each two storeys tall.    The next two pictures are drawings, showing their location close to the Shenzhen Exhibition Center (flat building with the curved roof in the foreground).  The red blow-up arch, the kitty kat KFC billboard, and the street vendor selling pink and white mice-with-wheels-on-a-string were by the Exhibition Center.   Next stop was a department store Jusco close by where I found the plush dragons (2012 is the Year of the Dragon) and the anime-eyed little guy with the rosy cheeks in a red star uniform.   And then it was dark and I knew I had to go back to the Excellence Center buildings to catch them showing off in the dark.

I have said it before :  it’s a long haul from stepping into the taxi cab in Seattle for the airport until I step into my hotel room in Shenzhen, China!  Here’s how it broke down this time.   

Mon 10.00 am leave for the airport from home.  
Mon 1.30 pm Tokyo-bound Boeing 777 departs.
Mon 11.00 pm  Arrive at Narita airport in Tokyo (picture of plane at gate).
> Switch to Tokyo time which is Tue 4 pm !
Tue 4.00 pm  2 hr lay-over at Narita airport.  The Choken Bako bank (picture) from the Akhihabara electronics toy store has a hungry friendly pooch sitting on top.  Drop some coins into his dish and he immediately goes for it, gobbling it up.  (The coins are stored inside the box). 
Tue 7.00 pm Late departure for Hong Kong, skirting by Mount Fuji’s south side (see map, but too dark to see the mountain).   Eat Japanese dinner (picture – rice, veggies, fish : delicious). 
Tue Midnight Arrive Hong Kong.
> Switch to Hong Kong time which is Tue 11.00 pm.  
Tue 11.00 pm Stand in customs line for 40 mins, even then my one checked bag had not arrived.   Bag finally arrives (whew), and driver is still there. 
Wed 1.00 am Go through Hong Kong – Mainland border crossings (even at that time, a long line of vehicles). 
Wed 2.00 am Arrive at hotel in Dameisha in the outskirts of Shenzhen.         

 

 

I’m waiting for my flight to Narita airport in Tokyo on United Airlines.  From there Japan’s All Nippon Airlines will take me to Hong Kong.  Seattle-Tacoma airport is busy .. many people are going home after visiting friends and family, of course.

I was grumpy this morning and endured the strip-and-body scan at security the best I could.  One’s belt and shoes have to come off, as well as everything in pockets, even plastic items.    So the number of items coming out in trays through the carry-on scanner is ever-growing.  The other thing is that Europe has now banned X-ray body scanners, which use back-scatter ionized radiation, due to health and safety concerns.   Instead of X-ray scanners, European airports will use millimeter-wave scanners that utilize low-energy radio waves.    The article in Forbes magazine reports that in the USA, the TSA uses both types of scanners: some 250 X-ray scanners and 264 millimeter wave scanners.   Sea-Tac airport uses the ‘bad’ one, the back-scatter X-ray machine.

I will start out on my next trip to China on Monday, and needed a new Chinese visa.   I picked up my passport on Thu night at the Fedex ‘World Service Center’ here in Seattle.   ‘You should see our collection (of souvenirs from around the world)’ says the poster from there.    The list of countries Fedex ships to includes just about every single country and island on the globe, but since Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria are countries non grata, they are not on the list.   I was surprised to see Afghanistan and Iraq both listed as Fedex destinations, though.

I am in Seattle !   The first picture is a night time satellite photo of North and South Korea I got from Yahoo News a day or two ago, showing the striking difference in economic activity between the two Koreas.     We made our stop at Incheon airport, as always a bare 35 miles from the North Korean border (see my Google Latitude picture).    The South Korean newspapers are full of speculation about the consequences for the region in the wake of  ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Jung-Il’s unexpected death.    The question is whether his son the 29 year old ‘Great Successor’ (these titles bestowed by the state media machinery) will have the support of his father’s peers.   It probably does NOT help that he was promoted some years ago to a 4 star general without a day’s military service!  Anyway.   After a quick check of the Samsung monitors (a rice-based dessert shown), we took off and our flight path took us over Tokyo and nine hours of flying over the Pacific.

The beautiful poinsettias are from the elevator lobby in the hotel when I left this morning.   The intriguing east-meets-west billboard (for JP Morgan Investment Bank) is from Hong Kong airport where I’m waiting at the gate.  That’s the Empire State Building and Big Ben, of course – but I don’t recognize the buildings from Asia.    I will have to deploy the latest version of Google Goggles and do a picture search when I have more time.   Got to go!   A short stop-over at Seoul and then on to Seattle.

I hopped into the van that took a colleague to Hong Kong airport for his trip back to the USA.   From there it was just 15 minutes on the Airport Express train south east to Kowloon station, site of this apartment building.   There must be a lot of feng shui in play with its large gap!   The street scene picture is in Tsim Tsa Tsui just off Nathan Road.    The Ferrero Rocher Christmas tree (Italian hazelnut cream chocolates wrapped in foil) is close by as well.    Junks were used as sea-going vessels as early as the 2nd century but in the year 2011 this one has a diesel engine and tools around Victoria harbor with tourists.   And then it was time for me to call it quits and head back up to the Hong Kong-mainland China border with the East Rail Line that starts at Hung Hom station.   I love the station’s wavy roof : a beautiful industrial design that is functional as well, since it lets in lots of natural light.

I took  the 20 min taxi ride for a quick trip in to Shenzhen tonight.  The pictures are all from in and around the Mix-C shopping mall.   I actually went to check out the Kingkey Finance Tower with its 100 floors at night.   It can run gigantic banner advertisements on its curved sides, make flowers drift down on it, or even display bursting fireworks.   (The third picture is an aerial perspective drawing that I found on-line).   Speaking of flowers,  the movie ‘The Flowers of War’ has just started showing here in theaters.  It features Hollywood actor Christian Bale as a Westerner that finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan’s brutal invasion of Nanking in 1937 and tries to lead them to safety.    The beautiful big dog was on the outside patio at Starbucks and generated a little stir among the other patrons.  His master is the guy with the big notebook computer.

We had a project team dinner at the Coco Park complex in Futian district in Shenzhen last night.   (Coco Park is Expat Central in the way that the Lan Kwai Fong area is in Hong Kong).   The dinner was at an Italian restaurant with a red interior and with bronze buddhas and water lilies filling out the decor!   But the thin-crust pizza (as appetizer) was very authentic, done in a wood-fired oven.    I love the crazy diamond-patterned skyscrapers but did not have my proper camera with me.  I will go back and take some better pictures at another time.

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.

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.

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.

.. 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.