Category: Travel

Yes, yes, I am in the Marriott Courtyard hotel as I have done many weekends before.   Too much money and stress to travel elsewhere for the weekend after a long, hard slog at work.  The dragon pillow is from Ikea (I now regret that I didn’t buy it), and the Lego characters and stainless steel tube chess set from Sogo department store in Causeway Bay.   Times Square is close by and always has an artsy outdoor display going at the mall entrance.  This time they had white trees  that reminded me of African boababs, with doll houses and giant lollipops below.   I think the gigantic high-res LED sign at the Emperor Watch and Jewelry store right there, is new.   As for the billboard of the wild-haired – nerds? -throwing the TVs and PCs around : my sentiments exactly!  ( at least sometimes).

The night-time pictures are all from around Central Station on Hong Kong island.    The ‘usual suspects’ Bank of China, Hang Seng Bank Corporation and Standard Chartered Bank are showing themselves off in gaudy night colors.   (Yes, there is a Occupy Hong Kong movement.   But unlike in Europe or the USA, unemployment has been falling in Hong Kong, a minimum wage was introduced in May and there seems to be little fall-out left of the 2008 banking crisis).  Can the billboard’s school kids with their red bow-ties be any cuter?  The building with the LED paneled strips going up is the AIA Insurance building.   And the building with the Season’s Greetings lights is yet another bank building.

Check out my little terracotta warrior replica, a gift from a colleague that visited Xi’an last weekend.    The real terracotta warriors date from the 3rd century BC and were discovered only in 1974 (!) by local farmers in Lintong District, Xi’an, Shaanxi province.   It is an UNESCO World Heritage site.   Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses (the majority of which are still buried in the pits).    I got the second picture from Wikipedia’s entry .. check out the rest of the entry at  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army.

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I hitched a ride into Hong Kong with a colleague that was taken to the airport.  The drivers that take us there have vehicles with plates for mainland China as well as for Hong Kong.  So we could stay put and not have to deal with the throngs of daytrippers.   Even so there was such a long wait for vehicles at the first crossing that the driver gave up and went to the Shekou crossing all the way over on the west side of Shenzhen.   We caught a glimpse of the 2011 Universiade Student Olympics stadium.  The Google map doesn’t show it but there is a suspension bridge to Lantau Island where the airport is, that gets one across the water.   From the airport I took the train to the city.   The promenade at the Hong Kong Art Museum is one of my favorite places in the city.     The guy in the boat is about to scoop up some floating debris in Victoria harbor.  Nearby at the Harbor City mall a crowd were snapping pictures of Pixar and Disney characters on a Happy Holiday display.   And up the street at the 1881 Heritage Plaza some recent graduates used the display of horses and carriages as a backdrop.  Check out the smart duck, the rose and the chipmink they are posing with.  I guess those are gifts they got from family or friends for graduating.  

It is Tuesday here in China but here are pictures from my connection in Seoul.    We arrived early so I had time to admire a model Korean junk boat and Hermès scarf in the shop windows.  (For Korea the symbolism of the crane goes back to ‘crane dances’ in the courtyards of early dynasties).   Then I headed over to Gate 10 where the A380 ‘superjumbo’ was getting pulled up to the gate.    I used that upper deck jet bridge to find my seat upstairs.    The plane feels more like an airship than an airplane.   As we started to lift off, it felt as if the ground speed was still way too slow (or maybe I was tired and dreamy).     Has the A380 made some inroads into the large jet airliner segment of the market once dominated by Boeing?  It certainly has – looking at the number of airplanes ordered and delivered* by EADS.   Both EADS and Boeing claimed victory after several rulings by the World Trade Organization in recent years in the world’s largest trade dispute.

*As of February 2011 there were 244 orders for the A380-800. The break-even for the A380 was initially supposed to be reached at 270 units, but due to the delays and the falling exchange rate of the US dollar, it increased to 420 units.  In 2010, EADS CFO Hans Peter Ring said that break-even (on the aircraft that are delivered) could be achieved by 2015, despite the delays; there should be around 200 deliveries by that time, on current projections.    As of March 2010 the average list price of an A380 was US$ 375.3 million (about €261 million or £229 million), depending on equipment installed.

I made it through the gauntlet of security hurdles at Seattle-Tacoma airport.   Out of the backpack and into the tray goes the PC, the iPad, the liquids, the cell phone, the jacket, the shoes .. still not good enough; off with the belt as well that the full-body scanner could clear me.   I hate that scanner!  but at least the TSA personnel put in an effort to be nice and not bark orders at the passengers.   It’s the first time I will fly in one of the turquoise airplanes of Korean Air.  It’s 10 hrs in an Airbus 330-200 to Incheon airport in Seoul, and then 4 hrs in the double-decker wide-body A380 (the world’s largest passenger airplane) to Hong Kong.     

I’m home!   There it is : the 787 Dreamliner that was sitting on the tarmac at Hong Kong airport.  I believe it is the one that made the world-first charter flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong on Wednesday.   The tunnel is at Tokyo’s Narita airport; the tubular lighting emitted a low but effective light.   Name the purveyor of the fine silk scarf? (Yes, ‘H’ is the clue).   From the airport’s toy store : stuffed Pokemon characters and ‘Franky’ with the killer arms (but what about his legs? those need a work-out!).   And the kaiseki  (a traditional multi-course Japanese dinner) served on the way to Tokyo was excellent.

My beer from last night; the view of the airport as I stepped into the hotel elevator to check out; Halloween display in the airport lounge (nice Chinese lantern with the skeleton on).   I smiled when I saw the sign on the airport shuttle train bringing us to the gate, say  ‘alight here’.   Would we say that in the USA? ‘Alight here’ ?  Well, I’m going to alight in Seattle.

My colleague and I made it to the Marriott Sky City (airport hotel) here at Hong Kong airport.    Our driver thought our destination was the Marriott in Central District on Hong Kong Island, and we had to explain nooo – the Marriott we want is the one at the airport.     But by then we were in the Harbour Tunnel on the way to Hong Kong Island, so we caught a glimpse of the buildings there before we turned around and made our way to Lantau Island where the hotel is.

I have a lot of stuff to squish into my two bags!   One bag goes with me, and the other stays at the hotel.   I go home on Thursday morning.   Meanwhile there are news reports of Hong Kong airport ground personnel mulling a strike (but nothing noted on the airport’s website yet).   And I see Narita airport (my stopover to Seattle) is posting radiation measurements every day to calm public fears over radiation from Fukushima.     It is fine – there is no problem.   

Here are pictures of my jaunt to Hong Kong on Saturday :

I’m sitting in the taxi on the way to Luohu train station and border crossing in Shenzhen.    Look for the signs that say ‘To Hong Kong’ and eventually you will end up at the customs check point.    For some reason an inordinate number of Mainlanders wanted to cross today, so the ‘Foreigner’ section and lanes inside were just swamped with people as well.  But an official called the few of us that were obviously foreign :  ) out to a barricaded lane they carved out for us.  ‘Thank you, thank you’ I said as he let us through.   Once on the Hong Kong side where you pick up the East Rail Line to the city, it was smooth going.   I took it down south all the way to Hung Hom station in the heart of Kowloon.   The pink mural is from there, showing the wavy roof of the station.      Of course there is a bus terminal and taxi stands outside as well.    But I took the train to Tsim Tsa Tsui from there where the people picture was taken and where I ogled some Swiss watches in the windows.   (Which one is best?  The super square design from Jaeger Le Coultre, or the one with the Salvador Dali-ish numerals from Frank Muller?).    Then I bought some newsmagazines, a math book ‘Alex’s Adventures in Numberland’ and a few grocery items before I headed back.      The Shenzhen Shangri-la with the UFO restaurant at the top (in the center of the last picture below) is my personal landmark when I arrive back at the sprawling Luoho train station.

I tagged along with two of my colleagues to Luohu Commercial City.   It is a shopping mall right next to the Shenzhen-Hong Kong border’s customs building (first picture).   Wikipedia says the place is notorious in Hong Kong for its bargains, and that many “one-day” visitors from Hong Kong venture no further into Shenzhen than the mall.  Most of the items for sale in the mall, however, are either counterfeit or cheap replicas of designer brands, and the mall has a reputation for selling low-quality goods through high-pressure bargain tactics.

So it’s not for people like me that 1. hate haggling over prices, and 2. want the real thing!   But there we were – and it wasn’t long before a ‘guide’ latched on to us, inquiring what we were interested in buying, and then taking us a store owner that sells it.   The guide was a nice young kid and I hope he gets money from the shop-owners he brought us to.   I am pretty sure he does.   We also stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall tea shop, and the owner sat us down and served up green tea, oolong tea and jasmine tea.   We loved the green tea and each bought a ‘brick’ of the stuff.   Then we hopped in the taxi and came back to Dameisha.

There is a tropical depression (named Banyan) off the coast of Hong Kong that has produced a steady rain the last three days out here.   This is bad news for the already-flooded areas in Thailand as well, I’m sure.   The arrow sign is at our turn into Ping Kui Road every day to work, and I wonder if there will be enough light energy collected by the little solar panel to make the left and right arrow flicker at night – there probably will be.   

Wednesday night I had dinner at the Denny’s across the street from the hotel one last time, then caught the Narita Express at 7am Thu morning at Tokyo station.    There’s the sleek machine in the picture,  gliding in and stopping so that the car doors line up exactly with the markers on the platform.    I learned of Steve Jobs’s passing away at the airport on CNN.    The picture is from a discussion of the iPhone 4S in Japan earlier in the week.  iPhones were previously limited to one carrier (Softbank), but will now be available from a second carrier (KDDI), similar to the at-first-exclusive-to-AT&T and then-also-Verizon situation in the USA.

It was rained all day Wednesday in the Tokyo metro area (picture from NHK TV station) and I had on-line work to do, but I still managed to run out to Akihabara.  It is also known as Akihabara Electric Town and located less than five minutes by rail from Tokyo Station.   As the name indicates, it is a major shopping area for electronic, computer, anime, and otaku* goods, including new and used items.   *roughly translates as geek; a person with obsessive interests in anime, manga or video games.   The store is gigantic : 7 floors of Best Buy, Toys-R-Us and Office Depot stuff.   The displays in some areas are just overwhelming but the store is very well laid out and run.   The friendly guy in the picture explains how to measure your wrist size for watch straps, the blond anime girl is from the floor in the DVD/ CD section – why waste floor space if it can be put to good use to advertise the merchandise?   The last picture is from outside.  By then my shoes and socks were wet in spite of the umbrella I borrowed from the hotel and I called it quits and went back. 

My first mission of the day was to find the Tokyo branch of the Japan Mint store to buy a 2011 Japan coin set, and I succeeded.  Most Japanese streets have no names! and the addressing system is quite different from Western ones.   It is near Higashi-Ikebukoro station and I had to ask for directions twice.   This is the entrance of the store.   (I will show the coin set later).

Next stop was Akasaka station.   There is a Noritake porcelain show room there that I wanted to check out (sneak picture of porcelain with gold leaf is from there).   The Akasaka area sustained heavy damage in WWII and has been newly rebuilt : and it shows.    I loved the spectacular curved vanishing-edge building with the diamond window panes.  The area is also full of shrines.   I walked to the east from the orange area to find the Hie Jinja Shrine (next two pictures).    Finally the obligatory self-picture in the subway mirror with my iPhone 4.  I see there is considerable disappointment at Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 4S (what? no iPhone 5?!).

Monday’s weather was perfect for being out and about.    This Ginza district lamp post with the Fenghuang (mythological bird of East Asia) on top has  a decoration with up-faces/ upside-down-faces on.   The Ginza street scene shows Matsuya Ginza, an upscale department store with a design museum on the 6th floor (white building on the right).   I love the chess set but didn’t make a note of who the artist was.   The Klein & More clock replica dates back to 1956 (a little pricey at  ¥ 47,250/ US$600, though).   Elsewhere in the store the Issey Miyake jackets went for $400 or so.  (Miyake was born in Hiroshima and witnessed and survived the atomic bomb at age 7 in 1945).   I ran into the Ichiro picture (from the Seattle Mariners) in the subway.  He is promoting Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and yes, that’s a Starbucks store name reflected at the top of the picture.    And back in the hotel I can watch high-definition manga animated stories.   The artwork is stunning, but of course the dialog is in Japanese!

Here is the Boeing 767-300 of All Nippon Airlines that brought us to Tokyo, at a wet Hong Kong airport.   (An ANA plane was involved in a hair-raising incident on Sept 6.  Flight 140 with 117 passengers en route to Haneda -Tokyo’s other airport- briefly flew virtually upside down after a co-pilot mistakenly operated a key steering mechanism.  Whoah!  Amazingly, just two flight attendants were slightly injured, and six passengers reported that they felt ‘unwell’ after landing).    Today I sat in coach but that didn’t stop me from enjoying a Kirin beer.   Wish I knew what the little sticker on it said ! of course I don’t !   So that was 4 hours in the air.   Then I took the Narita Express train to Tokyo (it’s been a long day, does it show in my face?).   It helped a lot that I have the Tokyo subway figured out and that I came to the same Marriott I stayed in, in May.

Shenzhen’s Civic Center is a great place for spending some time on a Sunday.   Only today it was rainy outside, so I took a few quick pictures of the sweeping roof of the Shenzhen Museum nearby, and then went inside.    The kids are dribbling and twirling their basket balls, waiting under the enormous roof for the rain to clear.     There is an art store for students inside the Center with portfolio books of reprinted artwork.    So the pictures are from those books : cranes in a pine forest, hoopoes in a loquat tree, and a portrait study.    The loquat tree is indigenous to southeastern China.   And so are the hoopoes with their cute tufty feathered heads, to my surprise.   We had them in the garden in South Africa; they are found in most of Africa as well.  To add a final twist to the tale of the hoopoe : it is Israel’s national bird.

Everything went fine and I am in the hotel in Dameisha/mainland China, ready to get a few hours sleep.   The ‘Welcome to Japan’ sign is full of Japanese icons (as it should be, of course).      There is the United bird (and old one with creaky seats!) that brought us into Narita airport, and the robot is from an airport toy store.

I’m at Seatac airport waiting for the flight to Tokyo (about 10 hrs duration).    The All Nippon Airlines website announced the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner routes : Tokyo(Haneda)-Frankfurt and Tokyo(Haneda-Beijing).    It also notes that Japan makes about 35% of the plane – the forward fuselage, the center wing, and some structural components.