Our project is rapidly nearing its end. I am leaving on Saturday, so I have to start packing up – and clear out the little food items I have squirreled away in the hotel room. These cute little cans of peas and mushrooms are from Japan and came complete with pull-top lids.
Wednesday/ early morning Da Peng town plaza
Here is an 8 am in the morning glimpse of the Da Peng town plaza as we drive by in the bus on the way to work. The pedestrian is listening to his music and the Tai Chi exercise group is at it in the background. I no longer read e-mails or news articles on my phone or iPad on the bus but just take the time to relax or even take a little nap if I can. 
Tuesday/ beef jerky from Mongolia
This ‘Big Pasture’ beef jerky brought back to us from a colleague that visited Mongolia is very good ! It’s dry and breaks up as you chew it, so it doesn’t stick between one’s teeth the way jerky sometimes do. The black 肉
Monday/ watching North Korea
The picture is from NHK TV, showing a news conference at the site of the scheduled rocket launch from North Korea. Japan prime minister Noda has given permission for the Defence Ministry to shoot down the rocket with Patriot interceptor missiles if it strays over Japan airspace. (The missiles are parked in the grounds of the Defence Ministry in the heart of Tokyo : two giant green batteries surrounded by a stunning white blaze of blooming cherry trees). And on state TV in North Korea it was announced ‘Whoever intercepts the satellite or collects its debris will face resolute and merciless punishment by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’. I am keeping track of the events since I am scheduled to stop over in Seoul on the way to Seattle this weekend !
Sunday/ still for sale
The sign is new – but the ’80 Step Sea House’ apartment building across from our hotel is not. (50 sq m is small – only 538 sq ft. 140 sq m is about 1,500 sq ft). Construction of the complex was completed a long time ago, more than a year. Some units might have been sold, but not a single person has moved in yet. Singapore-based investment guru Jim Rogers for one, says the property bubble in China is ‘over’, and that there will be no hard landing for the economy. If that is true, that is good news for everyone. 
Saturday/ supporting the new sites
The project team is going out to the new sites to provide support for the new users in the system. The map shows two of the three sites where the new system has started up : Taishan and Yangjiang. I stay put in Dameisha to provide support from a central place (at the offices at Daya Bay).
Friday/ Cherry Blossoms
It’s the centennial of the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC. And the blossoms (called sakura) are out in Japan as well. Cherry blossom forecasts are available on-line for both places so that visitors can time it just right.
Check out Google’s ‘Street View guide to Japan: Cherry Blossom Season Edition’ with 360° views at the most popular sites there.
Here is the link http://www.google.com/intl/en-US/landing/japanview/#cherryblossoms
Thursday/ the road less costly?
This is from a recent Wall Street Journal : a guy that takes his folding bicycle with on international trips to save his company money on taxi fare. And he refuses to fly business class on 16-hr flights to India, he says. ‘I would never dream of spending an extra thousand dollars to stay in a hotel room that’s slightly more comfortable than the bed I get in a $100 hotel room. Why would I do that with an airline seat?’.
Wednesday/ Tomb Sweeping Day
Wednesday was Tomb Sweeping Day. I found the colorful little shrine on the sidewalk in Hong Kong near the hotel (those are incense sticks in the tray). Some enterprising individuals have started to offer tomb sweeping as a service, but it is not without controversy. Can one really outsource the activities that go with remembering someone very personal and close? (No – the point that the cartoon from the South China Morning Post is also making).
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.
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/
Sunday/ hello Hong Kong
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.
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‘.
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.
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.
Wednesday/ Ichiromania in Tokyo
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.
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. 
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.
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.
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.