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The traveler is home

Everything after the Narita Express train ride to the airport went very well : picked up the stowed suitcase, get the luggage out of the way at the check-in, buying a last souvenir at the airport shops and stamps at the airport post office, and onto the plane.    It was 9 hrs to Seattle, and I got in on Saturday morning after leaving Tokyo on Saturday afternoon.

That’s me, waiting for the train. My car was actually number 6, though (there were people crowding the platform at the Car No 6 sign).
Stay out of the way! This is actually the front set of cars of the train arriving a few minutes before the departure time of 1.33 pm ..
The front set of cars is connected with the rear set of cars. It goes very quickly. I am not sure why the two sets of cars have to be combined at Tokyo station.
Inside the car on the way to the airport.
Street scene flashing by on the outskirts of Tokyo ..
.. and this looks like a Saturday morning ‘Little League’ baseball event.

 

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Friday/ Shinjuku

I had to go check out the area around Shinjuku station .. lots of people, lots of places and a nice vibe.   It is warm even at night (of course).

The entrance of the Uni Qlo clothing store. It’s more or less ‘The Gap’ of Japan and has a sale on to celebrate its 10 year anniversary (so it’s much younger than the Gap, actually). I bought two polo shirts for US$10 each. I ran out of clean shirts!
One of several signs for Shinjuku station, this one for the Marunouchi Line from Tokyo Metro.
Asahi makes many, many more beverages than just beer. This one from a vending machine came in handy on Friday.
This is a video game and game machine and parlor.
These little fluff ball soft toys are inside a coin-operated machine and are all hoping to get grabbed by a crane hook that the operator manipulates to try to grab one. Remember a scene like this in one of Disney’s Toy Story pictures?
It’s fun to cross the street with 10,000 other people (or so it feels like!).
This is the giant TV screen at the Studio Alta (store) entrance at Shinjuku station. Lots of young people hang out here. It’s the de facto meet place for friends on a Friday night in the area, no question.
Here’s my dinner from the 24-hr Dennys across from the Marriott. No English on the menu, and really no burgers. Cheers! to my friends in Seattle, I thought as I drank the Kirin beer. I missed you. I will be there soon.

 

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Thursday/ Skytree : Mission Impossible

Alright, so I tried !.. but couldn’t make it up to the Skytree’s observation decks (there are two).  I got there a little after 12 noon and the line was so long that they sold tickets for 4 pm.   School is still out here, so everyone was out in full force.  To make matters ‘worse’ there is a whole Skytree Town built at the Tree’s base : souvenir shops, stores, a food court and an aquarium as well.

This is in the Asakusa station area. Skytree visitors take the Tobu line from there across the Sumida river to the new Tokyo Skytree station. The entrance to the Tobu line is in the Matsuya department store building (right on the picture).
Still in the Asakusa station area, the Sensoji temple with a large plaza behind it that sells food and handmade gifts and souvenirs.
Here’s the glimpse of the Skytree from the street neat the Sensoji temple. The yellow lanterns provide a festive atmosphere.
Now I have arrived at the base of the Skytree. These ladies are enjoying the mist and cool air. I saw these misters at a few places on the Tokyo streets.
.. but don’t approach the misters ‘too much’. But let me submit that I think 1. It’s perfectly OK to get wet. 2. You are wet already, from sweating. I gobbled up several 500ml bottles of water yesterday.
Here is as close to the monstrous metal Skytree I could get. Skytree is the world’s highest free-standing broadcasting tower, ‘with cutting-edge Japanese building technology supporting it safely’, says the website (I think that means for earthquakes, I think). The structure is 634 m tall (2,080 ft).
Looking up from the base.
Yes? How is your knowledge of Japanese pop culture? This is Pikachu frolicking on a Skytree t-shirt from the gift store : a short, chubby, rodent-like Pokémon with yellow fur all over its body.   (They did not have an extra large shirt for me).
And if I were 4 years old, I’d love to have a pair of these bullet train sneakers.
Now I arrived back at Asakusa station, and I am walking on the Azumabashi bridge across the Sumida river. The two buildings to the right of Skytree are the Asahi Beer Headquarters. The biggest building resembles a giant beer jug complete with a foam shaped white roof. The shorter building is known as the Super Dry Hall. It is a black building in the shape of a beer glass, with an enormous golden flame shaped object perched on top (affectionately known as the ‘golden turd’)..
And is this riverboat is sleek or what? There may very well be aliens (from Mars) inside.
More paper lanterns, this in the park across the Azumabashi bridge.
Of all the Skytree toys and souvenirs I saw yesterday, this one has to take the cake : a Swarovski crystal tree fitted with LED lights that goes for 665,700 yen (US$8,400). This is in the Akihabara electronics store.
The main entrance to the Akihabara electronics store. I did check out the Seiko watches, but didn’t buy another one. I have too many already!
I have no idea how famous Kanako Mimura is as a anime character. There are posters around the Akihabara store of several other anime characters as well.
Here’s Colin Farrell on a subway poster for the 2012 version of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Total Recall. The Japanese characters gives it that extra little bit of high-tech edge, not?
This picture belongs with the one with the colored paper lanterns. It is a statue of Katsu Kaishū (1823 – 1899), a Japanese naval engineer and statesman.

 

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Wednesday/ in Tokyo’s Ginza district

It’s been a long day of travel but I’m in the Marriott Courtyard in the Ginza district, ready to settle in and get some rest.  Narita airport was very, very busy.  It took 40 mins to get through customs and another 30 in line just to buy a ticket to Tokyo on the Narita Express.  I found a baggage storage facility at the airport that took the unwieldy one of my two big suitcases off my hands.  They will store it for me for $5 a day until I return to go on to Seattle : a lifesaver.   I cannot use the trains and the Tokyo subway with two big bags!

Here’s my Japanese lunch (naturally, since I am on All Nippon Airlines). They do offer a Western lunch, but then I would not have jellyfish salad (top left), orange fish eggs, pink-and-white lotus root, smoked eel and some other items I did not recognize!
A countryside scene that flashed by while we were on the Narita Express shinkansen (bullet train).
The white bullet had stopped at Tokyo station, and you have to get your get up and go. The train stops for only two minutes.
Eek! It’s going to be WARM tomorrow. That 34 C for Tokyo is 93 F.
Taxis in the Ginza district.
It’s Wednesday night, so the streets are not very busy. This is the Matsuya department store, glowing with pink lines.

 

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Tuesday/ back to Hong Kong!

Yes, I know I was there just Sunday.  The van picked me at the Dameisha hotel today and brought me to the Hong Kong Marriott Skycity : making its way across the border, and the two bridges to Lantau island where the airport is.   I am making my way back to Seattle but stopping over for two days in Tokyo.  Might as well, I thought : it’s on the way, and I want to go check out the Skytree (tall antenna tower for digital transmissions, newly open to the public), and go to the Akhihabara electronics and toy store.  I love that store, bought a beautiful Seiko watch there a previous time (which I could have ordered on Amazon but hey! feels nice to say ‘I bought this in Tokyo’ and it brings the happy memories back).  I just think it’s going to be warm there, but I should be OK.  Not like I’m not used to warm humid weather coming from Hong Kong and Shenzhen !

Crossing into Hong Kong after a stop at the mainland border. I had to open my suitcases this time for a quick check by customs!
You have to be quick to catch this glimpse of Victoria Harbor and Hong Kong island : it lasts only a minute or so while crossing over to Lantau island.
And here is the backseat view of the suspension of the Tsing Ma Bridge to Lantau Island.

 

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Sunday/ Hong Kong day trip

It was my last weekend for awhile here in the Hong Kong area.  So I felt I had to go there one more time to go to my favorite places and walk around.

This is the Shatoujiao Port crossing in the Yantian district. A little quicker than the Luohu crossing with fewer people, but one can only take a bus from here to Hong Kong on the other side – and depending on the bus schedule you could wait up to 45 mins for the next bus.
My timing turned out well : I waited only 5 mins for the next bus to depart. We’re now in Hong Kong and the high-rise buildings are starting to flash by. ‘Do not eat on the bus’ and ‘Fasten your Seat Belt’ says the signage in the window.
A ‘Find the Willem’ picture from the Staurbucks in iSquare in Tsim Tsa Tsui.
This is right next to the iSquare biulding, just a lot of colorful street signs. I think (I hope) the red banner sign with the shark on says that the store is NOT selling shark fin products.
This bus with the display advertisement that says ‘The Hilfigers Love Hong Kong/ on Nathan Road TST’ is ACTUALLY on Nathan Rd in Tsim Tsa Tsui as well !
This is in Central district. (I have no idea if real people actually aspire to buying Gucci clothes. I guess they do).
Bus in Central District decked out with a cure picture. I like the stethoscope .. but that syringe, ouch!
Now I’m heading back .. this is the classic industrial design of the Hung Hom train station roof. Lots of natural light comes in through the window panes in the wavy roof.
And here is another classic : the view as you walk out onto the plaza at Luohu station after arriving from Hong Kong, and you turn around. This is around 7 pm.

 

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Saturday/ NHK TV news

I stayed in (the hotel) on Saturday to catch up with some work.  Here are some snaps I took from the newscast on the Japanese station NHK.

It’s the 15 month anniversary of the 3.11 earthquake-tsunami disaster (an odd anniversary to mark, for us in the West, is it not?).
Even NHK TV broke the news of US presidential candidate Romney’s pick for vice-president Paul Ryan BEFORE it was official. Paul Ryan is a congressman, 42 yrs old, a budget ‘hawk’ and a conservative Catholic.
This is one of the medal competitions in the women’s judo. The woman in blue is from Japan, but I could not track here name down. The little clip of their bout of judo was ferocious ..
.. but here is she in the studio for an interview, soft-spoken and gracious.
The Japan women’s soccer team had high hopes of repeating their win of the 2011 Women’s World Cup final over the USA, but fell short (lost 1-2 to the USA in the gold medal match) and was very disappointed.
And here is Japan’s medal count as of Saturday .. not bad at all, I would say.

 

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Sunday/ back to Dameisha

After checking out of the Shangri-La, I knew I had to go directly back to Dameisha : the little beach resort town gets a crush of visitors from Shenzhen on summer weekends that makes for bad traffic jams.  A rainstorm on Sunday afternoon made the traffic situation even worse, but luckily I was in the Dameisha hotel by then.

The driver in the taxi cab across from ours buys a bottled drink from a street vendor at a traffic light.
I like the ‘auspicious’ turquoise color of this deluxe Wuzhulong bound bus!
We’re winding our way through the little port town of Yantian, trying to get around the traffic jam on the S30 freeway.
I’m in my Dameisha hotel room looking down at the main entrance.
And here are the gray colors of the rainstorm.  It is the view from my hotel room looking out over Da Peng Bay with Dameisha beach and the Dameisha beach tower on the left.

 

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Saturday/ Shenzhen is hot and hazy

Here are Saturday’s pictures of being out and about in a very hot and hazy Shenzhen.  You can only walk outside for so long before it was almost necessary to go inside a shopping mall or store to get into some air-conditioned environment.  My colleague is new to Shenzhen and so we made the classic stops at the Shenzhen electronics market, the Civic Center plaza and concert hall, and finally went to the McCauly’s pub in Futian district to check out the expats and drink a beer.

Here is the view from my 10th floor room in the Shangri-La hotel towards the Hong Kong-mainland border. The green hill in the background is in Hong Kong. The Chinese building is the customs building.
Here is a map from inside the Luohu metro station. Its sister station across the border is called LoWu. The regional train station with trains to Guangzhou is right here as well.
This giant mechanical clock in located in the middle at the bottom of the first picture. The seconds hand sweeps around and around, so the on-lookers and those posing for a picture are about as close as they should get !
Scooters and high heels at the electronics market off Huaqiang Road, the main street with buildings that house vendors and stores from the Shenzhen electronics market.
This store sells iPhone and iPad covers, buttons, battery packs and related knick knacks.
This is inside the 10 story SEG building, each floor filled with cubicles or enclosed little stores that sell electronics components and products.
Just a colorful picture at a vendor’s cubicle that advertises a shoot-em-up game, that drew my attention.
These are little LED lights for sale.  They are used by hobbyists that build their own gadgets with electronic circuits and switches, and then the little light indicates an ON/ OFF or ACTIVE/ INACTIVE status.
This is the gigantic wavy roof on the Shenzhen museum viewed from the plaza that we emerged onto from the underground metro station called Civic Center. The kids in the foreground are roller blading.   
We’ve now gone up the steps and stand almost under the roof, and this is the view looking back. The sky was very hazy – I left the grays in this picture as the camera captured it (without auto-adjusting the colors with Photoshop).   The black item in the foreground in an umbrella.
Now looking back at the roof with the plaza on the other side. I adjusted the colors in this picture to make the red and yellow pillars stand out a little more.
These street musicians are doing a great job. I couldn’t understand a word, but they sang a beautiful song.
These golden beams that support a ‘spider web’ of rafters are from the lobby of the Shenzhen concert hall nearby.
This is the outside of the Shenzhen library. The photographer is using a gold reflector to light up (or warm up the colors) on his ‘subject’. He actually needs an assistant to hold the reflector at the right angle.
This is around 9pm on Saturday night and we have just emerged from the Shopping Park station in Futian district. The expat Irish pub/ watering hole called McCauly’s is right there.
And this is the night view of the Shangri-La hotel as I approached it after arriving at the Luohu train stop right there at the hotel.
There is a big mirror in the lobby of the Shangri-la hotel that allowed me to take a picture of myself.

 

 

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Saturday/ blue sky

We had blue sky with fluffy white clouds on Saturday afternoon here in Shenzhen.  The pictures are from my walkabout in the area by the Shenzhen’s tallest building, the Kingkey 100.

The Kingkey 100 is located in Shenzhen’s Luohu District in an area which can be described as the financial district. PwC China’s Shenzhen office in on the 34th floor, but I have not been up to the office yet.
The side of the building flares out at the base to add some interest, I suppose – and create a larger entrance lobby.
There is a park across the building. I am standing at the 3D arrow looking at this map at a bus stop.
Mini Kingkey100 towers provide directions and promote stores in the KK mall next to the building.

 

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Friday/ the project team’s day off

The project team had Friday off from work.  Our plans to go to a water park were changed – to go to an indoor spa in Shenzhen instead (the weather was uncooperative since it was still raining outside).   And here in the Far East, Friday night had almost come and gone before the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony got underway (at 4 am).  I watched it for an hour or so on local CCTV and then went back to sleep. (Yes, I did see the ‘Queen’ parachute into the stadium with ‘James Bond’ 007!).

This is on the way in the spa. Hopefully the French do not mind that Shenzhen put Mona Lisa on display! Certainly makes her more accessible than the original bullet proof glass in the Louvre.
The spa that we went to is inside the building on the left of the picture.  The building on the right with the thin white ‘pillars’ and black towers is the Shenzhen Sheraton (not the same as the Dameisha Sheraton where we go many Friday nights for a burger and a beer).
This is a dragon fish (an Asian arowana), from a fish tank inside the spa. It is a predatory surface fish, and they get oxygen from the air by jumping out of the water and sucking air into their swim bladders.
A little 2012 London Olympics display in the Central Walk shopping mall nearby. It is actually the Tai Hing company promoting their ‘angry’ milk tea product. Milk tea comes from Hong Kong and is just black tea with evaporated or condensed milk added.
A display sign nearby .. the ‘angry’ milk tea (probably a reference to the game ‘angry birds’) against a backdrop of London.

 

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Early Wednesday/ arrival difficulties

Typhoon Vicente had passed by Hong Kong by the time I arrived late Tue night, but left a lot of turmoil in its wake.  We left Tokyo an hour late, circled before landing at Hong Kong for an hour, then waited on the tarmac for almost an hour.  So by the time I cleared customs and had my luggage it was 1.30 am.  The van scheduled for my pick-up several hours earlier had left.  The airport hotels were all full  .. I got a hotel room downtown, but the line at the taxi stand had 200 people, and the airport train was no longer running.  One option remained : the airport’s night buses running every 30 mins.  That got me to the hotel at 4 am.   Quite an adventure.

Hermès scarf on display at one of Narita airports luxury stores. (Hermes was an Olympian god in Greek religion and mythology, son of Zeus and the Pleiade Maia).
This head of this ‘solar’ samurai in a toy store bobs back and forth. There is a little solar panel in the base.
An ATM in Narita airport. Looks like 7-11 is in the banking business in Japan as well.
That’s Mt Fuji on the wall of this Narita airport restaurant.
Look for the wolf in this elaborate Red Riding Hood origami display, from a store that sells all kinds of origami kits.
Oh no! McDonalds has infiltrated Japan as well. (That’s a Big Mac). ¥670 for the Big Mac meal is about US$9 : expensive compared to elsewhere in the world.
We’re on the way to Hong Kong.
The wasabi-flavored rice snacks are very very tasty.
This is midnight on Tue night and I spotted this Hong Kong Airlines plane as I stepped off from ours. We are about to board a bus that will take us to the arrivals lounge.
Waiting to check out of the hotel Wed morning, and checking out the offerings in the little souvenir shop. These Chinese zodiac characters are the Tiger (for 2010), the Rabbit (for 2011) and the Dragon (for 2012).
SpongeBob Squarepants and I are on the way to Dameisha. (SpongeBob is not mine! belongs to the van driver).
And here’s the obligatory border crossing picture as we entered the mainland, leaving the Hong Kong area.

 

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Wednesday/ coins from the Minsk

Check these out!  I bought this set of used coins on the Minsk aircraft carrier museum (see my post of Sunday July 1) for ¥120 (about US$20).  The collection contains the smallest coins from some 50 countries.  Notably absent, though : the venerable one penny from the United States, and the one cent from South Africa!  Hmm.   The set DOES contain coins from some very unusual countries : North Korea and Myanmar, for example.

The collection of ‘World Coins’ contains the smallest coins from 50 countries, but NO penny from the United States in the collection, and NO one cent from South Africa! Hmm. And that 1 Yuan coin from China actually comes in 1/10 Yuan coins as well.
Here is a 1 won coin from North Korea. Its diameter is larger than a US quarter (24.26 mm) at 27 mm, but it is made of aluminum, so much much lighter than a quarter (2.32 g compared to 5.670 g). Enlarge the picture to see the tiny characters on the banner at the bottom of the coat-of-arms.
This is the back of the 1 won North Korean coin, depicting the Grand People’s Study House is the central library located in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. (I am sure that the contents of the library content is strictly controlled !).
This hexagonal coin is from Myanmar and worth 25 pya (hard to say how many US pennies’ worth. I couldn’t find Myanmar currency on any of the online converters!). The coin is made of copper-plated steel and weighs 5g, so slightly less than a quarter.
And – know what this is on the back of the Myanmar coin? Why, it’s easy : it’s a rice plant! (Ok, I will ‘fess up – I didn’t know that, I had to look it up).

 

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Saturday/ at Hong Kong airport

I am at Hong Kong airport.  I like to check out the offerings at the little Muji store (it’s Japanese) – especially the exotic snack food items.

These must have been boiled already!  I actually had quail egg just this Wednesday night in Beijing with our hot pot dinner. The ones we had were white, though – even after they had been boiled in the hot pot. These may have been boiled in tea.
Who says a chip has to be potato?
Here’s a Korean Air plane outside Gate 16 where I’m sitting. I’m upstairs in the lounge, will go look for the Asiana Airlines plane at Gate 22 shortly.

 

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Thursday/ ask us anything

That’s what we told our audience after today’s presentation (a proposal for a new project).  We’re up against three firms with proposals. From what we could tell, it went well.  (The presentation was in Chinese, as were the questions from the audience, but they were translated for us).   It has been a hectic three days since Tuesday : three nights and in and out of three hotels.

This is Wednesday night’s hot pot dinner. You pick a hot pot (mine is mushroom, you also get ones with a fish base, hot and spicy base, beef, and so on). Then they bring all kinds of goodies to the table that you cook in your pot. It could be veggies, thinly sliced meat, or tofu.
On the way to the presentation. I’m in a taxi, checking out a different kind of taxi.
The presentation venue was a Thai-styled hotel. (The elephants are the tip-off that it’s Thai).
Done, and now we’re headed to Beijing airport. Check out the cool traditional architecture of the toll gate.
This is the new Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital airport. As you step into it, the ceiling patterns is very striking. Very nicely done.
And I loved this dragon from an airport gift shop. I wanted to take it home with me, but I had too much stuff to take care of already.
These are my other favorite type of Chinese art – made of an ancient type of colored glass called ‘iuli’. The prices are in yuan, so divide by about 6 to get to US dollar.
I’m on the way back to Shenzhen, sitting in an Air China plane similar to the one I see through the window.

 

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Wednesday/ Beijing office

We sequestered ourselves in the Beijing office today to prepare for a big presentation tomorrow (Thursday).  It is for a new project.  The pictures are all from in and around the Beijing office.

This is the view from the office on the 26th floor across the street from the CCTV building catching the afternoon sun as it sets in the west.

The tall brown structure in the front is the Grand Millennium hotel where we stayed last night, very conveniently right across from the offices. (Yes, it’s grand inside. But the company has a special deal with the hotel).
The conference rooms are named after Chinese cities.
And I liked the colors on this series of giant Great Wall of China paintings.
This is an advertisement for ‘LongJoy’ Peking Duck. There are two or three very well established ‘brands’ of Peking Duck available in the city that is served up in restaurants and this is one of them. We had almost this exact same duck (just a different ‘brand’) on Tuesday night for dinner at a restaurant called Ba Dong.   The whole roasted duck is brought out to the table, and then carved and served like we do a Thanksgiving Turkey in the States.   I think what remains of the bones is used for making soup.

 

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Tuesday/ Beijing bound

Here are my pictures from today’s trip to Beijing.  The flight from Shenzhen to Beijing is almost three hours to the north, but that did not make much difference in the weather : Beijing seems to be as warm as Shenzhen is this time of the year.

I love the gigantic red characters etched out against the blue blue sky.
I traveled with a colleague but I may have been the only lao wei (foreigner) on the plane. I didn’t spot any others while we were boarding.
At the top of the steps and I am about to step into the Boeing 737-700.
This is at Beijing airport, on the way to baggage claim and to get a taxi to the city.
Beijing has SIX ring roads (freeways) around it. Other cities that I know of may have two or three.
We’re heading to Chaoyang district in the city where my firm’s Beijing office is.
Some interesting architecture on the way to the city.
And this is the spectacular China Central Television (CCTV) Headquarters building in the city.

 

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Saturday/ shopping in Shenzhen

Two colleagues and I took a taxi out to Shenzhen late morning for some shopping at Luohu Commercial Center and the Coco Park mall.  We encountered heavy traffic on the way back : it’s weekend and the Dameisha streets and beaches were overflowing with Shenzhen city-zens that wanted to enjoy the hot summer weather.

The concierge still hands us get-back-to-the-hotel-cards to hand to taxi drivers, which we appreciate! The writing at the top left says ‘Luohu Commercial Center’ and at the top right ‘Coco Park Shopping Mall’ : our two destinations in Shenzhen.
This is the Port of Luohu building with the Hong Kong-Shenzhen pedestrian border crossing inside. We’re about to go into the optometrist store to buy some glasses.
The optometrist store. Look for my reflection in one of the Oakley glasses’ lens. I just bought some reading glasses, but in a great titanium Ray Ban frame that feels very comfortable.
These are for Cat Woman! Check out the peace sign hidden in the engravings on the top.
We had lunch at a restaurant called Kitchen Futian; this is in the Futian district and the mall across the street is Coco Park.
This is from the Jusco department/ grocery store inside Coco Park. Not too hard to name all the world city landmarks on the coffee creamer lids, right?  I will help out with the Chinese one : the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.
This keg of German beer is filled with Veldensteiner. (We didn’t buy one!). ‘Brautradition im zeichen der burg’ translates to ‘Brewing tradition in the character of the castle’.
Now we’re headed back east out of the city to Dameisha.  Lot of tall apartment buildings, as in Hong Koog.
More interesting buildings. I don’t know the names of these.
I don’t know the name of this building, either. But I am sure those air-conditioners mounted on the outside are appreciated at this time of the year by the office workers!
Right about here is where we came to a complete standstill with all the traffic headed out to Dameisha. We already left the freeway and now attempted to use the coastal road marked ‘360’ to get to Dameisha. The road eventually opened up and it turned out to be the right call to leave the clogged freeway. We felt gave the driver a nice tip for his efforts (tipping is not expected and not the custom in China).

 

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Wednesday/ team dinner in Shenzhen

This is a side street just off Shennan Boulevard.

The project team went out to dinner on Wednesday night in Shenzhen.  All told, we were only 4 Americans in the party of almost 30 people – but we did clink our glasses of beer and wished each other Happy Fourth of July.

We are headed toward Shun Hing Square, the tall green building with the double spire. The restaurant is on the 4th floor.
This is towards the end of the meal with about a dozen dishes on the Lazy Susan. That’s fish soup on the right, and shrimp and scrambled egg on the left.
The restaurant is in Shun Hing Square (lower left).
Here is the dessert : watermelon, dragon fruit, orange and melon.

 

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Sunday/ the Минск (Minsk) aircraft carrier

Three colleagues and I finally – after all this time in the area! – went to check out the retired Russian aircraft carrier, the Minsk.  It is a stone’s throw away from Dameisha, in the Yantian port area.

From Wikipedia : Named after the capital city of Belarus, the Minsk was laid down in 1972, launched on 30 September 1975, completed on 27 September 1978, and decommissioned on 30 June 1993.  The Minsk operated with the Pacific Fleet. She was retired as a result of a major accident (details not known) which required the facilities at the Chernomorskiy yard, in Mykolayiv, located in the newly-independent Ukraine (the reasons for not attempting a repair are not known). In 1995 she was sold to a South Korean businessman, and later resold to Shenzhen Minsk Aircraft Carrier Industry Company Limited, a Chinese company.

Picture from Wikipedia : An aerial port beam view of the Soviet Kiev class aircraft carrier Minsk underway.
The retired Minsk today, in Yantian port here in the Shenzhen area.
That’s me posing in front of the middle of the port side of the ship. The gangway to the ship behind me is rusty and creaky!
The layout of the ship. The take-off and landing strip is at the bottom, so not even the entire length of the ship.
This is a torpedo. The ship has 10 × 533 mm torpedo tubes.
This is one of 2 × twin SA-N-3 Shtorm SAM launchers. The ship could carry 72 missiles.
I just liked this sign :).
This is the view out over the sea on the starboard side of the ship, looking east.
This is probably a Kamov Ka-25 or Ka-27 helicopter. The ship could carry 20 of these. The ship also carried 12 Yak-38M fighter aircraft.
I am sitting in the captain’s seat on the main deck.
Just some controls with the original Russian labeling.
This is a table with a glass top in the ship .. I was interested in the picture of the ship while it was in service.
You can even arrange to have your wedding ceremony and reception on the ship ! (Hmm, not so sure about that!)
This is below the main deck, probably a Yak-38M fighter aircraft, with all its bombs laid out.
We were lucky to catch this 6-man squad .. they did a march and a present-arms routine for us.
Don’t be push-y? Don’t be push-ed? Both!
This is a collection of mini-coats of arms in a display case on the ship. Those were the days of the Cold War and the USSR vs. the USA. The lines were drawn clearly and the colors (now faded) were black, bright blue and bright red.
The year on this one is 1988, so this was barely a year or two before the break-up of the Soviet Union.
This is a picture from the ship when it was filled with young sailors, these evidently in a friendly tug-of-war on the deck of the ship.