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Tuesday/ Hong Kong update

Life goes on in Hong Kong after the conclusion of a bitter election for new Chief Executive.  Leung Chun-ying or Leung CY was elected by the 1,200-member Electoral Committee over Henry Tang and Albert Ho in a campaign marked scandals, dirty tactics and smears.   The city also had some protests against the Electoral Committee, saying every resident should get to vote (of course).  Then last week there was the arrest of two billionaire brothers Thomas and Robert Kwok who run Hong Kong’s top property developer in a high-profile corruption probe.  They proclaimed their innocence at a news conference yesterday, and were released on bail.

The pictures are all from Monday night.

The gold dragon in the jewelry store did not have a price tag, but it might be as much as $US 50,000.
I took this picture from the tram. The stately old Western Market building in Sheung Wan close to the hotel is now a theatre.
This is a very large Easter rabbit ! It's in front of the new iSquare mall building in Tsim Tsa Tsui.
Japanese strawberries for sale in the Sogo department's store's basin.
One of the many tunnels in the MTR. The train gets you where you need to be, but sometimes you walk 5 or 10 mins to get to the other line that you connect to.

 

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Monday/ Junk Wood Animal Farm

This outdoor-indoor exhibit is currently on display at Times Square in Hong Kong in Causeway Bay.  The artist is Won Tin Yan, a graduate from the Department of Fine Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2000.  He has been making farm animals from junk wood pallets over the last 10 years.  Here is his website http://www.wongtinyan.com/

The cows are doing a conga line! P.S. Conga lines come from carnivals in Cuba, and first became popular in the USA in the 1930s.
The water is vinyl. And the ducks are scary . .or are they cute?
The dog looks a little like Scooby-doo.
The Picasso-esque bull facade is part of the barn.
There's also a store that sells t-shirts and other items.

 

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Sunday/ hello Hong Kong

I think these flags on the Hong Kong side of the road after the Shatoujiao crossing have been put up for the Qingming Festval but I am not sure.
The Lion Rock tunnel is on the Kowloon side (the peninsula and not Hong Kong Island) and is near the Kowloon Tong station.

Our belated holiday weekend (the Qingming Festival or Tombsweeping Festival) has arrived.  We are all very happy – double happy – to get a break from the grind on the project.   The start-up went well, but it is always necessary to stick around for a few weeks to coach the new users and to work out any remaining  wrinkles with the new system.  So Sunday night finds me at my old haunt – the Marriott Courtyard – on Hong Kong Island.  I took a coach bus from the Shatoujiao border crossing to Kowloon Tong station, and from there a taxi to the Marriott on the western side of Hong Kong Island.

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Saturday/ Uncle Sam wants his money .. with interest

I may have to apply for an extension for filing my taxes since I don’t have the information for the foreign taxes I owe.  Applying is easy enough : there is a Form 4868 to file and extensions for 2 months are then granted automatically.  HOWEVER – as the form says ‘Even if you had a good reason for not paying on time, you will still owe interest‘.

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Friday/ working it

Four of us worked late Friday night with the ‘Basis’ team (they provide technology and systems support).  But in between work we had time to dash out for a dinner close by in the ‘expat’ village here by the nuclear power station.  The wall decoration is from the restaurant.   This Friday is no Friday anyway, because we work Saturday and Sunday as well .. but then Monday through Wednesday is Qingming Festival or the Tomb Sweeping holiday.

 

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Thursday/ street corner in Da Peng

This is a street corner in Da Peng around 6.15pm from my perch on the bus back to the hotel. The weather has warmed up and is pleasant, so more people are out and about. Maybe the convenience store will sell more ice cream now (the ice box in the doorway). And the red lanterns, red carpet and red banners on the entry on the right must have been put of for the start of the Year of the Dragon, and was not taken down.

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Wednesday/ Ichiromania in Tokyo

Japanese TV channel NHK's map of the USA with the Japanese players on the roster for the 2012 Major League Baseball season. Looks like there is a total of 16, and 3 for the Seattle Mariners.

From the New York Times : ‘The Seattle Mariners rode a wave of Ichiromania in Tokyo to beat the Oakland Athletics in extra innings Wednesday in the opening game of the Major League Baseball season’. 

Attendance at the Tokyo Dome was an overflowing 44,227 (officially 126% full), so it was great that Ichiro Suzuki gave his fans in Japan a performance to cheer about. He had four hits, Dustin Ackley a home run and a single in the go-ahead run in the 11th inning, which had the Seattle Mariners beat the Oakland Athletics 3-1 on Wednesday night’s season opener.

There is a second game Thursday night in Tokyo.  Major League Baseball and the players’ association are using the series to assist rebuilding in Japan following last year’s earthquake and tsunami. On Tuesday some players and coaches traveled to the disaster area to conduct a baseball clinic.

The three Japanese players on the Seattle Mariners 2012 team are Ichiro Suzuki, Kawasaki Munenori, Iwakuma Hisashi (nickname Kuma, Japanese for 'bear')
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Tuesday/ the King of Fruits

One of these days I’m going to buy one of these durian (‘king of fruits’) from the fruit market close to where we go for lunch every day.   The last time I had some was about 20 years ago on a trip to Malaysia (it is native to Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia).  The fruit has high levels of protein, fat and carbohydrates but the trouble is the aroma of the smooth buttery segments inside : overpowering and offensive to so many people that it is banned in public places in Thailand and on public transit in Singapore.   

From Wikipedia : sign on Singapore transit saying 'No durians'.

 

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Sunday/ my Seoul souvenirs

Here are the only two souvenirs I bought in Seoul.  Tintin goes by Ttang Ttang in Korean.  (No, of course I cannot read Korean. But I have this Tintin book in 5 other languages already, so I had to buy the Korean one).  The other item is the lid of a porcelain bowl I spotted in a department store.  It was not expensive (about US $30) and it is very very Korean with the cranes and the deer and the blossoms. I would love to know what is used on modern porcelain for gold trim.  I am sure it’s not GOLD, but I could not find the answer immediately on-line.

Here is what 'King Ottokar's Sceptre' looks like in Korean. Tintin goes by Ttang Ttang in Korean, but Snowy and Captain Haddock goes more or less by their original French names as Millu and Hadok.
Everything on the lid says Korean folklore, so a perfect souvenir, I thought. It's made in Korea. The manufacturer is Haengnam and it's a new design, said the saleswoman.
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Saturday/ we are in the box !

It’s ‘go live’ weekend for us.  The ‘box’ is the server with the SAP Production system on. ‘We’ are the project team and all the SAP objects we bring with us into the Production system.  The list of items is long : among others new companies, new plant codes, new organizations, new users, new reports, new interfaces, new master data sets and new system functions.  As with most SAP projects it’s been a long and winding road – but we have now arrived.  Now it is up to the users to jump in and start to swim in the blue SAP screens in the next few weeks!  That is what they have been trained to do, and we will help them.

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Thursday/ news items from NHK channel

The pictures are all from last night’s Japanese TV channel NHK news at 9.  1.  The Skytree Tower in Tokyo is now open for tourists.  It is the tallest tower in the world at 634 m/ 2,080 ft (formerly it was the Canton Tower in Guangzhou), and it is the second tallest structure in the world after Burj Khalifa at 829.84 m/2,723 ft.  

2.  The news reader is from North Korea’s state TV. She speaks with gusto and probably mentioned the intended missile test from North Korea. 

3.  File footage of South Korean soldiers inspecting the Demilitarized Zone’s fence.

 

 

4.  I passed on the opportunity to go for a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)/ Joint Security Area (JSA) while in Seoul – even though there was a brochure right there in the lobby of the hotel, touting it as the ‘Traveler’s No 1 Choice.  It probably is perfectly safe.  I see even President Obama will go and take a look when he arrives for the bi-annual 2012 SeoulNuclear Security Summit next week.

 

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Wednesday/ back to Incheon airport

View from the Airport Express train. We're approaching Incheon airport, so this waterway is probably connected to the ocean (Incheon airport is on an island ).

By Wednesday morning it was time to pack up and check out to go to the airport for my flight back to Hong Kong.  By now I was a ‘pro’ at using the Metro and finding the Airport Express train at Seoul station.  Confession : it’s not that hard to be a pro when you have an interactive map of the Seoul metro on your smart phone!  Still, it takes a few run-throughs to know which exits from the stations to take.  Take the wrong one, and it might be a long walk to the next street crossing because you’re on the wrong side of a busy highway!

I just stepped off the train after arriving (the one below), and I'm taking the escalator up into the passenger terminal at Incheon airport. The latticework overhead looks like stainless steel.

 

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Tuesday/ the War Memorial of Korea

The War Memorial of Korea is a sprawling facility with military hardware on display and coverage of wars fought on the Korean Peninsula from ancient times.  The most recent one of course, was the Korean War of 1950-1953.  I also made a stop at Yongsan station where the electronics market is but did not buy anything.  (1. The new iPad is not yet on sale in Korea. The 4G frequencies in the country are different from what the iPad has been designed for and some of that is still being worked out. 2. I cannot possibly lug around even one more device with me on my travels, anyway).

The main entrance to the War Memorial of Korea. It is a sprawling complex, with an outside area with military hardware on display as well (airplanes and boats and cannons).
Yongsan station is where the electronics market is (large department stores with cubicles selling computers, cameras, phones and tablets).
A peek at the plaza outside Yongsan station.
Here's General Motors Korea putting its wares on display inside Yongsan train station. Some of them are Cruzes, and the little grey one on the left is a 2012 Chevrolet Sonic sub-compact.
I love the colors on this suburban train.
This is the 'Brothers Statue' at the War Memorial of Korea.
Close by is the Korean War Monument, with bronze soldiers in action at its base.
There is a lot of movement in these bronze soldiers 'in action' at the base of the Korean War Monument.
The Korean War (1950-1953) is well documented inside the museum. I did not realize how perilously close to losing all of the peninsula, South Korea came. This area around what is known today as Busan port was at one point the last stand. (On 15th Sep 1950, General MacArthur landed American and South Korean marines at Inchon, 200 miles behind the North Korean lines, which was also a turning point).
This is a night picture of the Rainbow Bridge at 8 pm at Dongjak station. I read on-line that at 8 pm each night, water is pumped through a series of nozzels along the edge of the bridge and colored with LED lighting. Well, I was there at 8 and NONE of that happened ! .. I will have to check into it and find out if I was at the wrong place or there at the wrong time, or both. The speck on the hilltop in the distance is Seoul Tower.
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Monday/ more Seoul

My first stop of the day was at the fish market at Noryanjin station.   Then I went back to Seoul station to go check out the exterior in daytime.  After that I made a quick stop at the Naedamun street market and then went off to see if I could find the cable car boarding station for Seoul Tower.  I did, eventually!

This sign is almost unnecessary (you can smell the fish market!) .. on the overpass at Noryangjin station on Line 1.
The fish market is a large open warehouse with lots of vendors selling anything you might find in the sea.
Some octopus for you? 
Which way to go? (The newer signs inside the metro stations are very clear, so these old metal floor signs have fallen out of use).
Here is the exterior of the old arrival and departure hall at Seoul station. The new station hall is all glass and steel and not nearly as interesting as this one.
The sign and the Korean flag on the new Seoul station arrival and departure hall.
The entrance to the Namdaemun fashion street market. A fancy department store is right across the street behind it.
I think this marketer’s outfit is of a traditional Korean warrior. Very nice. I want to dress up as a Korean warrior when the next Halloween comes by.
See Seoul Tower in this picture? This foot path with stairs go all the way up to the Tower. But it was only a few degrees above freezing, so I walked down again to the cable station to take the cable car up to the Tower.
This is on the way up, a view from the cable car. The building looks new but is in the traditional Korean architecture.
Here is the view of the tower after one arrives in the cable car. There is another elevator up to the observation deck. The tower was built in 1969 and opened to the public in 1980. Its height is 236.7 m (777 ft) from the base.
This view is from the observation deck, looking north. (Wow. The distance to the north pole given to the nearest 10 meters!   5,837.57 km comes to 3,637 miles).
The Han river flows through Seoul. There are already 6 subway lines crossong it, and by 2018 there will be three more crossings, but these will be tunnels beneath the riverbed. Check out the cluster of white apartment buildings on the left. Seoul’s population is about 11 million people (seouls? seoulites?).
The Han River flows through Seoul and then merges with the Imjin River shortly before it flows into the Yellow Sea. The total length of the Han River (to include its tributaries the Namhan and Bukhan Rivers) is approximately 514 kilometres (319 mi). Although it is not a long river, the lower Han is remarkably wide for such a relatively short river.
[Picture and text from Wikipedia]
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Sunday/ modern Seoul architecture

I read about the GT Tower East with its wavy exterior and had to go and take a look at it.  It is by Gangnam station (use exit 9) between several other modern financial company buildings and Samsung buildings. Sunday night I went to check out Itaewon – the gritty expat area with bars and nightclubs, popular with US army personnel from the base nearby.

Gangnam station is in one of the most affluent areas of Seoul, located in the southeast.
These buildings are right by exit 9 of Gangnam station, I assume most of them are of financial institutions.
Here is the spectacular GT Tower East building 'making its waves' for me. It is 130m (390 ft) tall and was completed only recently (Feb 2011). It was a collaboration of Dutch architectural firm ArchitectenConsort and Hankil Architects & Engineers from Seoul.
These hands are at the base of the GT Tower East.
The Boutique Monaco building is close by and about as tall at 117 m (382 ft). It was completed in 2008 and designed by Cho Minsuk and Park Kisu.
This is one of several Samsung buildings in the area. My picture was taken by a Chinese student. She 'accosted' me right there on the street - she needed someone to film her in front of the building while she did a little speech to apply for a internship at Samsung.
This is a few blocks in from the main streets with the glass and steel buildings where the restaurants and bar signs jostle for business from the foot traffic.
Yes, I would like a dumpling. And your name is Mr. .. ? I cannot read Korean 🙁
Here's the sign for Itaewon station. I had to switch train lines twice to get to the darn place ..
.. and ended up checking out only the outsides without going into any one of the establishments. Some are holes in the wall, others are in the basement and still others are on the 3rd or 4th floor of a building.
The Dubai restaurant promising Arab food on top of an Dunkin Donuts and a Mr Kebab !

 

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Saturday/ Saemungil Museum Street

The two ancient royal palaces in Seoul are connected with Saemungil Museam Street and Sejong Main Street.  I first went to Gyungbokgung Palace and then I walked down to Changdeokgung Palace, spending a lot of time in the underground museum with its entrance at the statue of a seated King Sejong The Great.  I only made it to the entrance of the second palace, and plan to go inside tomorrow.

My 'home' station, the one closest to the hotel. 'Young dump-o' helps me to remember it.
A street scene outside Gwanghwamun station. Lots of (Korean-made) Hyundai and Kia cars on the streets, of course.
Here the layout of the two palaces that shows how they are connected with the Museum Street and Sojong Main Street. Watch for following pictures of the two statues on the Main Street.
These two stony-faced guys are outside the Seoul National Museum of Korea.
This is the first entrance to the Gyungbokgung Palace. First constructed in 1394 and reconstructed in 1867, it was the main and largest palace of the Five Grand Palaces built by the Joseon Dynasty. The original palaces consisted of hundreds of buildings on many acres.
The corner of the main palace hall. There is an on-going reconstruction effort to restore more of the original buildings.
A peek is given to visitors into the inside of the main palace building. That's the throne with golden dragon decorations.
This ine is for my Seattle readers and friends! I'm in the traffic mirror, and that figure with the hammer in the background is exactly the same one we have in downtown Seattle in front of the Art Museum. Hmm, which one was first? I will have to check into it.
Here is the monument for the legendary Admiral Yi Sun-sin. He is one of the most revered figures in Korean history - an oustanding leader, strategist and ship-builder and died in late 1598, in the Battle of Noryang, the final confrontation of the Imjin War with the Japanese.
Admiral Yi's famous 'turtle ship' with a closed deck.
This is a 1:55 wooden scale model of a turtle ship inside the museum.
This picture from a short documentary shown inside the museum of the wars that raged in the Korean islands around 1600. Those ships with the rising sun flags are Japanese, of course .. and a bloody sea battle is about to start.
This is King Sejong the great (hold still kids, so mom can take a nice picture!). He appears on Korean bank notes, and is credited with using military technology (think cannons and gunpowder) to strengthen his kingdom. He is also credited with creating Hangul, the Korean characters what are in wide use today for the written language. 1397, t
Here's the entrance to Changdeokgung Palace. I haven't gone inside yet.
A mural on the street promoting Seoul.
This is Jongno Tower, a 33-story office building owned by Samsung Securities. It was built in 1999.
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Friday/ arrival in Seoul

My trip from Hong Kong airport went very well.  My plan to get from Incheon airport in Seoul to the Marriott Courtyard hotel at Seoul Times Square was not too bad, either.   I did have a little trouble spotting the hotel in the dark and wet weather at my arrival at the closest metro stop.  It was just a four block walk but the darn Marriott hotel sign was on the opposite side of the Times Square buildings (of course!).

This sign was posted at the entrance to the baggage claim. No meat allowed! NO! NO! (I love the angry cows and pigs!).
The Kookmin Bank. ‘Kook min’ means exactly ‘Cooking a little’ in Afrikaans. I guess that’s MY bank! (Sigh. I would love to cook MORE, but I have to be home to do that).
.. and here’s the Woori Bank. Is that a Korean or Australian (Aboriginal) name?
The highest currency Korean note – 50,000 won. And how much is that? About US$44.
The super luxe connection from the airport terminal to the Incheon train station : all gleaming steel and glass and curves.
ere’s what you need to ride the Metro and buy yourself little snacks and knick knacks at the 7-11s and Family Marts : a T-money card.
The big blue line comes in from Incheon airport at the west of the city.
I took the Airport Express (ArEx) to Seoul station and then the Metro Line 1 down to Yeongdeungpo station. (Even the anglicised names are not easy to work with for a Westerner!)
Waiting at the Seoul metro station on Line 1 for the train to Yeongdeungpo station.
A cute whimsical display of Seoul station’s outside. There is a little model train that runs around and around, too. I will try to get some real pictures this weekend.
This is a peek outside Seoul station before I made my way down to the Metro station.
The huge display on the Seoul Square building is striking, because it is animated and the people keep ‘walking’ from right to left.
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Friday/ at Hong Kong airport

The black muffin from the Muji-To-Go store at the airport is a new item, said the display.  (Hmm, and what makes it black?). And this Qantas 747 was j- u- ust pulling up to the gate as I walked by .. most likely in from Down Under.  My travel advisory says the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement that took effect on Thu Mar 15 and prompted some street protests in Seoul – but at this point everything seems under control.   The accord will remove duties on almost two-thirds of American farm exports, and phase out tariffs on more than 95 percent of industrial and consumer exports within five years.  Tariffs will also be lifted on Korean car parts to the U.S.  — which should increase South Korean exports of the products.

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Thursday/ On the way to Seoul

I’m in the hotel at Hong Kong airport, on my way to Seoul, South Korea for a long weekend.  It’s not warm there yet, but at least warm enough to walk around at about 7 °C (44 °F).  There is rain in the forecast for Friday, but it should clear up by Saturday.

At the mainland China border crossing's Hong Kong side.
NHK World says there will be some rain in Seoul on Friday, and about 7 °C (44 °F).

 

 

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Wednesday/ 玛格丽特 mǎ​gé​lì​tè 披萨 pī​sà

I was too late to snap a picture of the margerita pizzas* (玛格丽特  披萨 mǎ​gé​lì​tè pī​sà, we had on Wednesday here at work.  (See the writing at the top of the box?).  So one of the 24 pizza boxes is all I can show. The pizzas were quite good, with a thin crust. It is quite possible that the little Aloha Beach Club restaurant had to stretch the pizza dough it had on hand for our monster order.

*Legend has it that in 1889, during a visit to Naples, Queen Margherita of Italy was served a pizza resembling the colors of the Italian flag, red (tomato), white (mozzarella) and green (basil) .. and that is how Pizza Margherita got its name.