Hi all
Well, I'm off again but this time on holiday with my brother, Mike. We left Perth in the early hours of Dec 20th and flew via Sydney (and a 5 hour layover) to Los Angeles, arriving 6am on Dec 20th (thanks to gaining a day). We first hit up our hotel which was behind the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Nothing flash but very well located. Given nothing in Hollywood opens til 10am, we spend the first part of our morning walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard looking at all the stars and getting familiar with our surroundings.
We entered The Guinness Book of Records store for a tour around there once it opened and then to the Hollywood Wax Museum. Amazing how they can get wax people to look so much like the real things. Next we headed for Santa Monica to visit a ski shop to buy some gear we needed and while we were down there, we checked out the beach and pier. Wasn't a very nice day though weather wise with dark skies and rain. We hung around walking the streets and malls checking out the shops and restaurants, grabbed a bite to eat and headed home. Both of us were pretty worn out and rather jetlagged.
Day 2 saw us head to Universal Studios. We had pre-purchased front of line tickets which were worth their weight in gold. So cool. Literally walked straight in on every ride and every show. Had a great day for it and did all the usual rides + studio tour. Very interesting and parts of it certainly came back from my memory of visiting in 1993. Everything is done there so well with no detail spared.
Day 3 had us renting a car (nothing exciting) and driving (exciting? maybe stressful) to Six Flag Magic Mountain, which is a roller coaster theme park out of LA. This place ROCKS. Biggest, scariest, first, highest, fastest are some of the words that feature in the roller coaster descriptions while names such as colossus, goliath, scream, viper and tatsu are the names of these beasts. By far and away my favourite was Tatsu. This roller coaster loaded you into a chair that hung by the rail above so you were seated. However, once everyone was strapped into the seats, your feet get raised behind you so you are almost in a "flying" position (ie, think of laying on your stomach but with your lower half in a seated position and then dangling looking at the ground). Awesome ride, pulled some serious G forces and had the biggest queues, although we did get through all rides at least twice or more and every ride sitting at the front.
Our final day in LA isn't much to write about. It basically involved me returning the car from the previous day, then Mike and I heading to LAX to check in to fly to Vancouver. Of course, we were selected for a "random" additional security check but otherwise, made it all without fuss. After a rather hairy ride in a bus to Whistler, we made it to our next location.
Sorry folks but as yet, no pics. Stay tuned for my "Christmas Special", live from Whistler.
Merry Christmas!
Dave
Hi all
Having flown back to China to arrive in Changchun, north east of Beijing from my trip to Australia, I was keen to get back to Beijing for a weekend. Last weekend I managed to do this. I headed back to Beijing Friday and joined some colleagues for a few cheeky beers Friday night before getting up for a 7am journey out to the Great Wall saturday morning.
I was joined by my colleague Carolyn, and the two of us headed by car to the Mutianyu location of the great wall. Here we took one of two cable cars up and walked from that cable car stop to the other, roughly an hours walk. To anyone visiting this section of the wall, definitely take the red cable car, the one not associated with the toboggan up to the wall, and then walk to the other cable car or the toboggan for the downward trip. Doing it this way, you get more downhill than uphill. Trust me, that's a HUGE tip.
Anyway, the wall is simply stunning. Running right along the ridges of the mountains, it's quite amazing. What was more amazing was the lack of tourists. I have photos without another soul in them. That simply does not happen in China. We actually walked past the other chair lift and up a very steep section of the wall as far as they let tourists go. Well worth it but my sore legs say otherwise.
After the great wall, we headed to the Summer Palace, via the construction site of the "Birds nest", which is the Olympic Stadium in Beijing. Very cool to see, given I *hopefully* won't be here still during the Olympics. The Summer Palace is a pretty location with lots of temple-type buildings with names such as "Purple Heaven Hall" or "Hall of Virtuous Glories". Perhaps my favourite was "Bridge of Knowing the Fishes". Haha. We wandered around the expansive Palace area for the rest of the afternoon.
Saturday night we had a little Team China, Deloitte Perth dinner before meeting up with more colleague to paint the town red. This included my friend Sigi, from Austria. Was great to catch up with him again.
Sunday we headed to the Temple of Heaven, which was actually quite cool, which surprised me as i'm a little Temple'd out. After walking around there, we headed for Tiananmen Square then onwards to the Forbidden City. Beijing put on a belter of a day weather wise and it was very hot walking around. The other disappointing thing was that so much of Beijing is under construction in preparation for the Olympics. The larger of the halls/buildings/temples within the Forbidden City are all under construction so we couldn't have a good look. Never mind. Interesting to see anyway.
That just about wrapped up our day with an evening flight back to Changchun on the cards. Heading back to Shanghai next weekend so unless I discover a part of Shanghai I haven't seen to write about, there probably won't be an update. Still hoping to get to Xian next to see the Terracotta Warriors so stay tuned to see if I can make that work.
Lots of pics on photobucket to match this rather epic posting.
Hope you are all well, miss you all heaps.
Dave
Hi readers
Will be a shorter one this week.
After Tokyo I was requested to come to South Korea to help out the teams over here. I spend Tuesday - Friday working in Chongwon, about two hours south of Seoul but returned to Seoul for the weekend.
Saturday I booked myself on a half day tour of the Demilitarised Zone, or DMZ, between South and North Korea. It is one of the last relics of the Cold War and represents an area of approx 4km wide, 2km wide each side of the "truce" line, which represents the border between the two countries. We learnt a bit about the history behind the DMZ and also got to check out the 3rd of 4 inflitration tunnels discovered by the South that the North had been building. Was a pretty interesting tour, and some what surreal to think that I was essentially in a no-man's land between North and South Korea, who are technically still at war!
Saturday avo I went with a colleague to check out Yongsan markets area, which is known for electronic goodies. Didn't by anything though but amazing to see, so many electronic shops in one place, selling everything from PC components all the way up to super-high-end audiophile equipment.
Sunday it was raining but that didn't stop me checking out the Namdaemun Markets, taking a cable car up to Seoul Tower and then going up the tower itself to get a view out over Seoul city and also visiting the Myong-dong shopping district. I spent the remainder of the day relaxing before having a work meeting later that afternoon.
Well, that's it for this update. I will be back in Shanghai this weekend coming and then back in Perth the following so maybe no update for the next couple of weeks. As usual, photos are posted at my photobucket website.
Cheers
Dave
Hi all
After being on project in China for nigh on 6 weeks, it was time for a little R&R so myself and a colleague, Carolyn, decided to take a 4 day long weekend and head to Tokyo. We flew out after work on Thursday night and made our way to the Dai Ichi Hotel, in Ginza, an affluent area of Tokyo known for its shopping.
Friday we got up and headed out with some guidance from the conceirge. We walked down to the river, through some parklands and then cruised up the river to Asakusa where we checked out the Asahi Beer building and grabbed some lunch. We then walked to the Sensoji Temple, through the street bazaar. After checking out the temple, we took the subway to Akihabara, which is famous for its electronics. I purchased a carry case for my DSLR camera which i had purchased the weekend before in Hong Kong. We browsed a few more electronics shops before leaving via subway.
Our next stop was Shibuya/Harajuku. We walked down the Omotosando fashion street to the Meji Jingu Shrine in the centre of more parklands. It was getting dark at this point so we walked back to central Shibuya and caught a train back to the hotel. That night I caught up with a good family friend, Charlotte who took us out to dinner at some Japanese bar/restaurant place.
Saturday we went and had a look at the Beijing tower which we decided not to go up as it looked pretty ordinary. We then headed via subway to the Imperial Gardens which we wandered around before heading to Tokyo International Forum for lunch. After lunch we got on a train straight to Tokyo Disneyland. I was honestly surprised at how tourist unfriendly it was and indeed, how little caucasian people there were. Everything in Japanese which was strange when sitting on splash mountain watching Brer Rabbit and co talking to me in Jap. Most rides were exactly as i remembered from my visit to Disneyland in LA which was very cool. Was a great afternoon/evening though and we stayed at the park til closing at 10pm.
Sunday we'd organised a tour out to Mt Fuji and Hakone. We were picked up early by bus and taken out to Mt Fuji which we couldn't see due to cloud. We did a boat tour down by one of the lakes at the base of Mt Fuji and also took a cable car up one of the neighbouring mountains for a different view. The tour continued up to the 5th station of Mt Fuji where we could actually see the summit, some 6.5kms further up. We drove back to Hakone after visiting Mt Fuji where we caught a Skinkansen (bullet train) back to Tokyo.
Monday we didn't get to do too much as we had a 1pm bus back to the airport. We headed for Ginza where we had a walk around, visiting the oldest beer hall in Tokyo and also the Nissan Automotive gallery. A quick lunch and it was back to the airport.
I forgot to mention that before I left for Japan on Thursday morning, i was asked to go to Korea to help out with the work there so I actually was flying to Seoul rather than returning to Shanghai. I was due to fly business class but JAL airlines upgraded me to first which was very deluxe. Shame the flight was only two hours.
Anyway, i'm now in South Korea, about two hours south of Seoul working in a place called Chongwon-gun and staying in Chongju. Not sure how long i'll be here at this point.
Thanks for reading!
Dave
Hi all
On Saturday, I took a road trip along with three other Australians to Hangzhou, which is about 3 hours by car out of Shanghai. We hired a minivan driver for $300 AUD for the day to take us around.
A lot of people go to Hangzhou as it’s quite a pretty area, with a significant lake area called the West Lake as well as temples, carvings and places of worship to see. We spent a bit of time walking around before boarding multiple ferries while we island hopped across the lake. It was very nice and quite pleasant to get out of the hustle and bustle of Shanghai but gee it was hot. Sitting out in the sun while we island hopped and walking around the area in the sun had most of us feeling like we were literally going to melt away until there was nothing left of us. We later found out it was 37 degrees with about 80% humidity. Not nice.
Anyway, we continued on exploring having conquered a small part of the West lake area and headed to lunch at a near by restaurant. After lunch we headed to a couple of temples and observed some of the local religious practices. We visited one place which had some cool stone carvings of people etched into rocks found on the side of a hill and in a cave. We took some path that led up the hill and got ¾ of the way up only to find out from someone that the path didn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t believe this so went the rest of the way up only to find it really went nowhere and headed back down to meet the others. Remembering that it was uncomfortably hot, by the time we all got down, most of us were wet through. Very attractive I can assure you…NOT
Anyway, we ultimately found the temple we had started out to find and went in and had a look at the giant golden buddha inside (not made of gold but physically painted gold). We checked out a final temple before departing back to Shanghai for our three hour drive home, most of us physically exhausted from the heat.
Sunday was fairly quiet back in Shanghai with more preparations for the lawyer visits. We are planning a bigger trip outside of China so stay tuned.
Cheerio
Dave
Howdy
One word describes Hong Kong: Awesome
As part of my visa conditions, I must leave China within 30 days of entry and having been here for nearly three weeks, a few of us took off to Hong Kong last weekend.
Firstly, I must mention my trip to the airport in Shanghai. I took the Shanghai Maglev. To the uninitiated, the Maglev is a train that "levitates" off the train track by a magnetic field and uses said field to propel it along by varying electricity states of the magnets embedded in the track. Sounds complicated and I'm sure it is. However, this particular train here in Shanghai has been limited to a commercially optimised speed of 431km/h, every 15 mins, all day. The ride takes just 7 mins to get from Shanghai to Pudong airport, approx a 35km trip. The train only requires 3 of those minutes to reach top speed which, I might add, is great fun to experience.
Hong Kong itself is another metropolis of high rise buildings and due to it's limited space, the tall buildings are everywhere. What's more, every saturday night, they light them all up and put on a fireworks display which we caught from our vantage point on the harbour aboard a star ferry night cruise. Truely a sign of extravagance. Of course, every other night the buildings are also lit up like Christmas trees but without the fireworks and choreographed light show.
Hong Kong is very much a best of east meets west, with a lot of western feel despite its eastern appearance. We spent most of saturday walking around taking in the shopping of Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui and Harbour Town. Our hotel, the Marriott, was on Hong Kong Island so we took the Star Ferry to commute to the shops on Kowloon and back. We also ventured up to the Peak for a full view over HK by cable car, which was amazingly steep. Saturday night (and Friday night) we headed to a popular drinking area called Lan Kwai Fong. This is the eastern equivalent of Bourbon Street in New Orleans I'm told. Lots of neon, lots of bars and lots of people. Very cool.
Sunday, we headed out to the giant buddha on Lantau island. This consisted of a long ride on the MTR (mass transit rail) and then a long ride in a taxi but after arriving, there atop the hill sat a giant bronze buddha with a great view over the many smaller islands in and around Hong Kong. There was also a monastery there that we briefly checked out before heading back to the hotel so I could get back to the airport.
Now safely back in Shanghai and into the new work week. It's been raining here a lot but it's still hot as outside. The rain just ramps up the humidity rather than bring down the temperature.
Cheers for now.
Dave
Hello
Been a few months since posting so it's time for an update. I'm in Shanghai!
Yet another global engagement has shown up and this time my volunteering has landed me squarely in Shanghai China. This time, i'm not alone with quite a few aussies scattered around the place, including a couple with me here in Shanghai.
I arrived here Monday the 18th of June after flights via Hong Kong and instantly was aware of the heat and humidity, even at 9:30 at night. Next thing I noticed was that the roads are in an organised state of chaos, which includes, but certainly not limited to, people riding bikes at night the wrong way down the highway. If you think indicators are optional to Perth drivers you should see the locals here.
Let me start by saying this, Shanghai is HUGE. Over 16.2m people call it home, skyscrapers are growing out of former rice paddy areas at a rate of knots, there is always traffic and people everywhere and the smog is really bad to the extent that when walking around and I catch a glimpse of the sky, I feel lucky.
The first weekend here saw some touring around the Yuyuan Gardens, up the Pearl TV tower for a look at the smog from 350m high and some shopping in Nanjing Road, a popular shopping area. There are more scalpers of knock off goods in Shanghai than there are people in Perth. I started off by saying no, now I just ignore them completely or pull the mickey by offering them similar items before they get a chance to open their mouths.."watch, bag, shoe, dvd, you like, you lookie lookie, no cash, just lookie".
Walking around Shanghai is definitely a good way to lose weight, as long as you don't mind doing it by sweating kilos. To say that 32 degrees with 95% humidity is hot is an understatement. You're just in a perpetual state of perspiration. On the plus side, the hotel is very nice and has an excellent swimming pool to cool off in.
Work wise, it's starting to ramp up after having been here a week. I'm working about an hour out of Shanghai at the clients premises. Can't really talk much about that and no one wants to hear it anyway.
That'll do for now. I'm planning on being in and around China for a while so stay tuned to see where i'm off to next.
Zai Jian
Dave
