Category: Travel

Akihabara/  Electric Town   First more Saturday pictures.   The Shosen book tower is right by the Akihabara train station and has an enormous collection of anime books.  There is only a small section with English books, from which I bought a charming ‘Life in Japan’ book with English annotations and will put up some pictures out of it.    The detailed steam locomotive model at the Yodobashi electronics and toy store goes for ¥14,000 (US$175).    I now regret not buying the cute wooden block game with the pictures on.   I thought it would be too heavy.     I think it’s a picture version of dominoes.    

No Devil in the Details  I’m a detail kind of guy and to me all the little things about visiting a foreign country together makes for a neat experience.   So even if people think I’m crazy I take pictures  : of the raccoons that say ‘Keep your grubby fingers out of the train car’s door pocket’ ; of the straight iced tea (wink) from the ubiquitous vending machines (delicious); of instruction stickers in the clean subway wash rooms; and of  the packaging of snacks in the 24 hr marts that are scattered everywhere throughout the city.

Tokyo Tower Sunday’s mission – with the little time I had – was to chase down Tokyo Tower (東京タワー) :   an icon of the city and a communications and observation tower located in Shiba Park.    Its claim to fame is that, at 332.5 metres (1,091 ft), it betters the Eiffel Tower by 10m (30 ft) to be the world’s tallest self-supporting steel tower.    It is painted white and international orange to comply with air safety regulations and has an antenna at the top.     I lost my way a little there, but found back alleys and man-hole plates that could pass as works of art.    And I saw nary a piece of trash or a cigarette butt or anything lying on any street or sidewalk.     

This is a view of Tokyo Bay (its old name was Edo Bay) with the Rainbow Bridge in the distance.    Some land has been reclaimed from the sea along the bay.     This view is from the 150m observation deck on the Tower.    The line up to the 250m observation deck was too long and I had to abandon it.

The Narita Express back to the Airport   Now it was time to check out of the hotel and make for the metro to take me to Tokyo station to catch the Narita Express back to the airport.    The Express was scheduled to leave at 2.03pm, and it arrived a few minutes early at Tokyo station to allow more cars from another track to be hooked up to it (picture shows the back end of the front cars).    At 2.03 pm exactly we slid out of the station and accelerated.   It’s a little like sitting in an airplane, only it rides on rails, and buildings, bridges and rice paddies flash by the window.   I think that’s another glimpse of the Rainbow Bridge I saw at the end of the water channel.  I kept snapping at the new under-construction Tokyo Skytree in the distance and finally caught it between two buildings.   It is scheduled to open in 2012.   Japan’s planned switch from analog to digital for all television broadcasting by July 2011 from Tokyo Tower is problematic – the current height is not high enough to adequately support complete terrestrial digital broadcasting to the area.   So the Skytree will become the digital broadcasting tower.

(Very late Sunday night in Hong Kong as I write).   Just a few pictures from Saturday – I will post more tomorrow.     First picture is a sign from a restaurant in Ginza.   I assume it talks about help needed for the earthquake victims.      The subway is super efficient and super easy to use and I love the station names.   The trains were generally not very crowded, possibly because it was in the middle of a weekend day.     This is inside a giant electronics + toy store in the Akihabara district with 7 floors that sells electronics, computers, anime, model trains, planes, automobiles and toys of every stripe.    I was overwhelmed – even though all the kids with their parents seemed to handle the visual onslaught of all the merchandise on display better than I did.

The traditional gate is near the Asakusa station and in a very nice area with small streets and malls of stores and eateries.   There were several people collecting money for the earthquake victims.

Then early evening Saturday I met friends of my Seattle friends at Shinjuku station – it is the busiest train station in the world.    Outside there was a buzz outside with many of Tokyo’s young people just hanging out and socializing.    The two night time picture is from there as well.     The little tickle-me- Elmos(?) are inside a coin-operated machine, hoping to be picked up with a dangling hook by a lucky Saturday night player.

Our flight left 3 hrs late!  with two returns to the gate needed, the last to fix a broken Pitot tube.  (Let me not mention Air France 447 but now that I did, I think they will find out if the Pitot tubes were actually responsible for the crash now that they recovered the flight recorders. )

So some people missed their connections in Tokyo, but that gave me time to fix my hotel reservation which I discovered just before boarding, had me arrive Thu night instead of Friday.    I called the hotel in Tokyo from the plane parked at the gate, after getting the correct country code + area code from a woman called Debbie who says people call her all the time asking if it’s the hotel.   So sorry! I said.

The train station picture is my arrival at Tokyo station, that’s the Narita Express on the left.   Check the Do Not Rush! instruction on the pillar (you will stumble and crash into the train or fall onto the tracks – not good).    So then I used my Suica card to take the regular subway train to Ginza – only thing was, there is a Ginza station on three lines, and I picked the wrong one.     So I ended up quite a walk from the hotel.      When I finally re-located myself and the hotel on my map – not easy with the translations and street names – three cabs in a row refused to take me there even though I pointed to it on the map.    Two friendly passers-by* explained that they are all waiting at the bars and hotels for the midnight/ 1 am start time when they can picked up people in the Ginza district.    I’d have to walk to a taxi station.    But anyway, the hotel is probably just as far, and they pointed me to a street corner, take a right, and walk for 10 mins.    And there the happy sight of the Tokyo Ginza Marriott was at last.    *It is true : Tokyo people are very helpful and very friendly!

The last three pictures are of my midnight walk .. I have to say Tokyo’s luxury stores are not nearly as glitzy and ostentatious as they are in Hong Kong (and Shenzhen for that matter).       The city is also in a power conservation mode and not all the night lights for the buildings are switched on (or maybe it was too late at night when I walked by).   The taxis outnumber regular cars by 10 to 1.    There are almost no private vehicles to be seen on the streets.

I am at Seattle airport.    I see the Airbus A319 that will take us to Tokyo today started in Wichita (Kansas) this morning, hopped over to Denver (Colorado) and has landed at Seattle airport.     Our scheduled flying time is 10h 12 min and the scheduled arrival is Fri at 3pm Tokyo time.

I’m on my way back to China on Thursday, but here are some of my ‘prep notes’ for my two-day stayover in Tokyo before I travel on to Hong Kong on Sunday.    Tokyo is very big, and not like Western cities with one ‘defined’ downtown.   Several big urban centers are built around the major train stations.   (No way you can get 35 million people in the world’s largest megalopolis to where they need to be if you didn’t do that !).   The black map diagram is of the Marriott Courtyard hotel in the Ginza district where I will stay .. a long way from the airport, but in the middle of a very nice area.

Notes for Tokyo Narita Airport Arrival

At  JR East Travel Service Center – Narita Airport Terminal 1,  8:15 – 19:00, every day of the year

buy a combination Suica card + N-Ex return for the green car, it costs Y 5500 for a round-trip.

For the Shinkansen (Super Express ‘bullet train’) the stations are –

Ofuna Totsuka Yokohama Musashi-Kosugi Omiya Ikebukuro Takao Hachioji Tachikawa Kokubunji Mitaka Kichijoji Shinjuku Shibuya Shinagawa Tokyo Chiba Yotsukaido Narita Narita Airport
Terminal 2 Narita Airport  Terminal 1 Narita Airport

All seats on the Narita Express require prior reservation. Advance reservation for the seat and travel interval are required.

Round trips

• Outward reserved seats are available for the Narita Express when purchasing a Suica & N’EX package.
• The special-value outward ticket can be used to board the Narita Express and travel to any JR East station in the Designated Tokyo Train Interval, the yellow area on the map. Riders may get off the train along the route as long as they do not exit from the ticket gate.
• Return reserved seats can be reserved in advance at designated seat ticket machines and JR Ticket Offices (Midori-no-madoguchi).
• The return ticket is valid for entry at any station within the yellow area on the map. When returning to Narita Airport Station on the Narita Express, riders may get off the train along the route as long as they do not exit from the ticket gate.
• If you miss your booked train, you cannot use the seats on a later limited express even if you have a Green Car ticket. In this case, please stand.

We are operating the Narita Express (N’EX) with a partial suspension of service. N’EX departs from Narita Airport Station every 30 minutes or hourly from 7:31 to 11:15 and from 14:15 to 20:44. Please note that the service of N’EX departing from Narita Airport between 12:00 and 14:00 is to be cancelled, but the Rapid trains run every hour for Tokyo.

I got a few South Korean bank notes at Incheon airport on Saturday.   The won has been in use for thousands of years, but represented by different denominations and notes over the centuries, of course.    Today South Korean paper money comes in 50,000 won (introduced only in 2009, equal to US$ 45), 10,000 won (US$ 9), 5,000 won (US$ 4.50) and and 1,000 won (US$ 0.90).    So the $9 in exchange for the 10,000 won note is fine for adding it to my world money collection.

The front of the 10,000 won note shows Sejong the Great, the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea (born May 7, 1397 – dec. May 18, 1450).    The background contains a folding screen from this time, and text from the first work of literature written in Korean.   The work is called ‘Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven’, and was also compiled during this time.

I arrived in Seattle a few hours ago via Seoul.   The van picked 3 of us up in Dameisha on Saturday morning.     The first picture is on the way there; the ubiquitous red Hong Kong taxi making it into the picture.   Next stop Hong Kong airport, super efficient and organized as always.    I opted for the Korean dinner on the Asiana Airlines flight, called Bibimbap (‘mixed meal’), a signature Korean dish.    It is served as a bowl of warm white rice and namul (sautéed and seasoned vegetables) and gochujang (chili pepper paste).   My version had sesame oil and some ground beef as well.  The ingredients are stirred together thoroughly just before eating.   Delicious!   The stewardess said I got the good version of bibimbap, supplied by a Korean company, and that the meals they get from Hong Kong suppliers are not nearly as nice.   The soup was salty with bit of dried fish, onion and cabbage and was very good, too.

The final picture is our approach into Incheon airport in Seoul with a nice suspension bridge in the distance.

It’s Friday, it’s two weeks after the go-live, and most of the Americans are going home for a week.     So we are as happy as robot cat Doraemon on the candy tin (picture from a candy store in Hong Kong), and sitting pretty as the spotted cat (leopard) in the tree (picture from a colleague, taken in a private game reserve in South Africa). 

I will stick around in Dameisha tonight and then get picked up in the morning to catch my flight out to Seattle on Saturday,  Asiana Airlines via Seoul.    And I might even arrive there with 64 degrees and the sun shining. 

 I took these pictures Thursday in Dameisha.   Shenzhen is the city that hosts the 2011 Universiade (the ‘Start Here’* picture is presumably an office that sells tickets to events -or registers participants?).   The Universiade is an international multi-sport event, organized for university athletes by the International University Sports Federation (FISU).      It has 10 compulsory sports, namely track and field, water sports (swimming, diving and water polo), basketball, soccer, fencing, gymnastics, judo, table tennis, tennis and volleyball.

*the ‘Start Here’ reminded me of the Windows 95 launch .. and sure enough, the ‘ Start’  on the picture with Bill Gates uses the same font !

I discovered later the ICIF on the green ball stands for the International Cultural Industries Fair of 2011 which is the 7th annual cultural trade fair in China.     So there is that going on somewhere in the area as well.  

I stayed at the hotel on Monday to get over my cold.   Of course : I had to get a day with lots of activity out front in the street.   Whole trees getting lifted up by a crane and put in by the enormous (but empty) apartment complex, AND a crew with jack hammers breaking up the pavement in front of the hotel.     So that’s where you need these little memory foam earplugs.  Granted, they take a little getting used to but they drown out the decibels from screaming babies, jack hammers and jet engines.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers!  We love you! [big hug-g].

The TV screen is from my hotel room in Dameisha after I had arrived.      So .. to make my way back to Dameisha today, I took a taxi from the hotel on Hong Kong Island to the Hung Hom terminal station of the East Rail line (light blue line on the map).   That train runs up all the way to the Lo Wu border crossing (about 40 mins).   Then you walk through the Hong Kong and mainland China crossings, and catch a taxi again for Dameisha.    I worried that I might be stopped at the border if I had a fever (I have a runny nose and a sore throat), but I made it through.   ‘Stay away from wild animals’ said a sign coming in to the mainland.   Yes- nevermind the animals, I’m staying away from humans so as not to make them sick!

Just a few pictures from my evening walk around Da Mei Sha : the entrance to the freeway that runs to Shenzhen,  the Jing Di hotel on the beachfront (hotels.com reports that it goes for US $106 a night – that puts it halfway between the cheapest hotels in Dameisha which go for $33 and the Sheraton which goes for $250),  and flood lights on the Mei Sha beach around 8pm in the evening with some evening swimmers.

Sunday was May Day here in Asia and in Europe (Google’s homepage), and in most places that makes Monday a holiday.    My colleague had not taken the Hong Kong Peak Tram, and so we did that — but the line was so long that we bought a combination Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum plus Tram ticket in the much shorter line.      The museum was a lot of fun.   (The picture of Einstein is my favorite*.   One could only get a picture with President Obama from the official photographer, that’s why I couldn’t pose with him on my picture).

*The weekend China Post reports that there is an Einstein exhibition planned for Shanghai and that authorities there insisted that it be coupled with an exhibit of Confucius

The corporate steering committee’s reviews and assessments have been completed. and we have been given the green light to go live on Tuesday with our system.   The cut-over activities went well this week – so well that we don’t have to work over the weekend.      So a colleague and I jumped on the bus and came to Hong Kong.   Pictures :  a new face for the Sha Tou Jiao border crossing building, waiting for the bus to Hong Kong.    Prince Edward station on the Hong Kong metro and a British pub in Lan Kwai Fong televising the Royal Wedding (of course).    All kinds of pubs and restaurants in Lan Kwai Fong, we picked a Greek restaurant for dinner.   The Hong Kong Hard Rock Cafe has just opened.

Since I had Tuesday off (due to Monday’s night shift) I went back to where I was on Sunday : the Shenzhen Library and Concert Hall.    (I bought a silver coin with a rabbit on.   I will show it tomorrow).    So the first picture is of the Shenzhen Library.    Remember the building with the wavy roof?    It houses the Shenzhen Museum, and check out the second picture – made me think the building is galloping towards me, very cool.   It was designed by architect Li Mingyi, built by the Shenzhen QiXin Construction Group and completed in 2004.     The small picture is an artist’s rendition.   It shows the entire structure which I couldn’t into a single picture, so I covered it from left to right with three pictures.    The Civic Plaza from where I took these three pictures has big and small light fixtures powered by solar energy.     I don’t know the names of the other glitzy new glass and steel buildings, but the last picture is of the Children’s  Palace.   It’s a science museum but it was very much closed on Tuesday night.

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I was finally free to go to the city on Sunday, and so I did.    I started off by going to the SEG electronics market (赛格电子市场) in the Futian area (exit A of Huaqiang Lu station – this for my own reference!).     There are several electronics marts and buildings, some more formal than others.   The tall building is the SEG building.    The inside pictures are from a cylindrical building called Huaqiang Market if I recall correctly.    The lighting orbs five floors up on the ceiling change color every few seconds, making for a nice display.     Check out the close-up of the green traffic light figure -fitting for located at ground zero for electronics geeks !

My other major stop was at the Children’s Palace station (少年宮站) to go to the Book Experience Mall.   At over 74,000 sqm (800,000 sqf) and occupying two city blocks,  it is billed as the world’s first and largest retail center dedicated exclusively to books, music and art.     Unfortunately for me it has very few English books (probably by design).   I bought a country map of China and snapped pictures of the covers of a 600 page tome about the Yin and the Yang and Nelson Mandela’s autobiography in Chinese.    (By the way, South Africa’s Chinese population is 350,000. Google ‘Chinese in South Africa and read the The Wikipedia entry for more).    I couldn’t resist taking a discreet cell-phone picture of the two kids reading the book together.     I envy them with a lifetime of books to read ahead of them! – and thought why do I not make more time for reading myself?    The final pictures are outside of the bookstore.   There is an open plaza with musicians and singers performing in public.    It was such a gorgeous Sunday afternoon and made for a very nice experience.     So the backdrop of the musicians and audience picture is the Shenzhen Library and Concert Hall.    The dad teaching his daughter to ride her bike and the enormous wavy roof structure is the view looking out from the steps on the way to the lobbies of the library and the concert hall.   The lobbies face each other (with the pyramid-shaped roofs).     I took two pictures of the roof beams-as-art inside the library before the security guard ran up to me and said ‘no pictures’ !

I’m on solid ground here in the airport lounge and happy to report nothing is a-wry.   I got my boarding pass as well.  It’s an All Nippon Airlines flight masquerading as a Continental flight that will take me to Hong Kong.    I snapped all the pictures the last hour or so.   Oh, no Tin tin books but I did get two Doraemon books from which I will post some pictures later.

The pictures :  I’m at Terminal 1, the International terminal / view outside of Terminal 1/ set your watch to Japan time, 16 hrs ahead of Seattle time/  the Narita aiport mascot points to something / my childhood favorite Kit Kat candy bars are available in green tea and wasabi flavor here / the red lettering ‘K’S COFFEE SHOP’ looks like Starbucks but its not, it’s Beck’s Coffee Shop /  ever seen a paper hippopotamus?  it’s from the origami art store, as is the scene from Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf !  he heh / check out the tuft of hair that the Gap Japan dude is sporting / and a Newsweek magazine showing 3.11 (as the day of the earthquake became known)

I am at Seattle-Tacoma airport.   A Boeing 777 is going to fly us to Tokyo’s Narita airport.  There is also Haneda airport, closer to the city.    I see there was another tremor of 5.8 that shook buildings in Tokyo this Saturday morning there.    The layover time for the flight from there to Hong Kong is 3 hrs so I hope everything will be OK.   I’m not used to earthquake tremors!   (Is anyone?)    I actually need a little extra time since  United couldn’t issue my Tokyo-Hong Kong boarding pass – I have to get it in Tokyo.   (The connecting flight is is on ‘another’ air-line :  Continental.     So given that Continental and United are merging, they still have some merging to do!     I can also check out some of the souvenir and book stores at the airport.      Maybe I will find a Japanese-language Tintin book to add to my collection (classic European comic strip book from the 30s now translated in 50 languages).      I can also look for a book with the Doraemon character that I have seen on sweatshirts that my China colleagues wear.     Doraemon is an earless robotic cat (!) who travels back in time from the 22nd century to aid a schoolboy Nobita Nobi.     The character is a Japanese cultural icon and was riginally a manga series which later became an anime series and an Asian franchise.

I leave on Saturday and that means I have to jump at it and make the purchases I need to so that I can pack on Friday.   At the top of the list was a replacement for my raggedy computer backpack.  The woven ballistic nylon is indestructable but the shoulder straps and stitching into the bag are getting frayed and that’s trouble.   This is basically an identical replacement for my older bag : a Victorinox Architecture 2.0 Big Ben Business Backpack.   It works very nicely for me as a computer bag that looks good enough to go to work with, with plenty of additional pockets and zips – and at the same time it doubles as a weekend city-backpack as well.    This new one has a so-called Fast Pass feature – you tear open the velcro that holds the computer section to the backpack and try your luck with the TSA official what might just let the whole thing go through the scanner without one needing to take the computer out.   Hey, anything that speeds up the process and reduces the number of items I have to stuff back into the bag, right ?

The gorgeous tiger picture arrived in the mail fom World Wildlife Fund.  I send them a little money sometimes for their efforts to save the wildlife on earth.    I hope we can save the world’s tigers a little while longer – what magnificent beasts they are.