O, Canada... the glamorous life... or not

End of day one in Vancouver. Now I remember what attending the user conference was like last year. Mostly tedious.

Last year we were in San Francisco. From the day I arrived to the day I left, I managed a total of two hours outside the hotel. This year will be slightly better because I've got a lighter set of duties, for example I don't have to work the booth. And they wouldn't let us stay in the hotels closest to Canada Place so it's a four block walk and I get to see the outside world.

I guess this balances out the trips to the Eiffel Tower and Great Wall. It's almost 8pm and I'm back in the hotel. Been on my feet most of the last 9 hours and ready to kick back and catch up on the episodes of Heroes that I've got squirreled away on the hard disk. Pretty thrilling.

Gone again... Vancouver BC in ... almost winter

Late flight out of Houston last night for a midnight arrival in Vancouver BC.

Up here for a company conference at Canada Place, the big exhibition center here. I should have a quiet morning catching up with email before plunging into it. Got two speaking gigs here, one this afternoon and one on Thursday. I'm doing part of a 3-hour tutorial today and just a quick update on our product line Thursday.

Flight home is scheduled for Saturday morning but I might see if I can change it to Friday.

Home again, not quite un-lagged

Rush hour on Dong Chang'an Jie, Beijing

Been home for a bit over two days but still not back to this time zone. I'm falling asleep at 8pm and then wide awake by 2 to 4am.

The flight from Beijing took off at about sunset on Monday Oct 22 and landed in Newark 13 hours later at about sunset on ... Monday Oct 22! The route was northwest out of Beijing to the Mongolian border. Then turned north-northeast over Mongolia and Russia, up close to the pole, down over Canada to Newark.

The trip back was full of small annoyances.

• Late taking off from Beijing due to plane being late to arrive from Newark. On the plus side one of my colleagues on this trip had lounge access on his airline so I spent most of my waiting time in a comfortable chair with free food and drink.
  
• The boarding process was horribly mismanaged. Perhaps because they were trying to rush everyone on board, perhaps because Chinese people don't queue up, they jam in. There was just a total crush of people trying to board and the gate agents had jammed tables in the way to force two single file lines.
  
• Continental 777 layout sucks. Way too few restrooms in coach, no space to even pass by someone. I did manage to get a window seat with an empty seat next to me, which helped immensely.
  
• Customs in Newark was a mess. They routed a couple dozen of us from the U.S. citizens lines over to the foreign visitors lines. Problem was that about every third foreign visitor had fubared their paperwork and got escorted out to the little rooms in the back for processing. So I spent a good 45 minutes in line there.
  
• Rushed to my flight... well what I thought was my flight just in time to board. Only when I presented my boarding pass did I find that the agent in China had rebooked me onto a later flight. Everything going out of Newark was late so I really didn't want to wait. I managed to get on the original flight... but my luggage didn't.
  
• Arrived at Bush Terminal E. Baggage claim for domestic flights arriving at Terminal E is over at Terminal C. A solid 10 minute walk, just the thing after over 24 hours in transit.
  
• By the time I figured out that my baggage wasn't on my flight, the next one in from Newark was due in 30 minutes. So I waited. Got bags, left the airport about 90 minutes after landing.
  

It was really, really good to get home!

Campagna T-Rex

This little hotrod was in the parking lot of the local Tex-Mex eaterie we frequent. Picture doesn't do it justice. Some kind of cross between a go-kart and a motorcycle. Three wheels, one fat one in the back and two up front. Two side-by-side seats, butts less than 6 inches off the pavement. Looks incredibly fast!

Final impressions of Beijing

It's Monday morning in Beijing. This afternoon begins the 18 hour flight back to Houston via Newark. The inbound airplane was 90 minutes late leaving to come here so my flight is showing to be delayed.

There would be enough time for a final shopping trip, at least over to Wangfujing... but I'm out of money and out of energy.

Final impressions of Beijing

• Weekend "Dirt Market" (PanJiaYuan Antique Market)
  Enormous. The city spreads for miles and miles in all directions. The drive up to the Wall at Mutianyu took us about 120km out from the city center... and it was all occupied. Some farmland interspersed but apartments and "suburbs" all the way.
  
• Traffic. All the time. Saturday morning and afternoon, Sunday night, Sunday morning. People going places all the time. And "right of way" is what you take, not something that is given. Pedestrians, bikes, taxis, private cars, and buses all mostly just go where they're going and dare the other to hit them. Saw surprisingly few accidents just lots of near misses.
  
• Air pollution is an issue. I had blogged that it wasn't bad. We had a fluke of the weather that kept a fair breeze blowing most days and so the air was perfectly fine. Yesterday, Sunday, the breezes were absent and you could see and taste the air.
  
• Security everywhere. I don't know if this is the norm. This trip coincided with the once every 5 year congress of the Communist Party of China. A hotel quite near ours was cordoned off with police tape and surrounded by a combination of military guards, uniformed police, and civilians with red arm bands and jackets marked "security". As near as I can tell, the meeting is in a huge edifice called the Great Hall of the People which is more or less across Dong Chang'An Jie (the 12-lane street in front of the hotel).
  
• Lots of manual labor. Saw lots of jobs being done by labor that would be done with some sort of mechanical aid in the West. For example, driving up to Mutianyu on Saturday morning, we would periodically pass someone sweeping the road shoulder with a long broom made of twigs. There didn't seem to be any job in the hotel that didn't have two or three people assigned to it.
  
• Everything is well used. Lots of bicycles, electric bikes, enclosed gas powered tricycles and such. Almost all are battered and rusted.
  
• Clean but dusty. I saw very, very little trash on the streets. But there's also very little sign of streets and public walkways being washed. Kind of a ground in dirt and dust patina on everything. Not helped by the massive amount of construction going on.
  
• CCTV buildings going up
  Construction absolutely everywhere. 24x7. At 10pm on Sunday night we were walking out from the restaurant last night to where we could get a taxi. We passed a crew digging up the street to lay a cable. The cable was being pulled off the spool through the trench by a gang of men. Not just small projects and also not just Olympic projects. There are a mind-boggling number of huge office buildings going up.
  

Truly perfect day at the Great Wall

My two compatriots and I had arranged a trip to the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu today. Absolutely an amazing place.

There are four segments of the Great Wall accessible from Beijing. We had been warned away from Badaling as a tourist trap. One of my companions on this trip had been to Jinshanling on a previous trip to China and also seen Simatai off in the distance. He was trying to be nice about it but really wanted to make it clear that those were too challenging for someone of my fitness level... poor.

So Mutianyu was our choice. We arranged a car with the help of the office. Set price of 700RMB (less than $100) gave us the car and driver for the day. A bit under a two hour ride up to the parking area, the driver would wait until we came back down and then drive us back to our hotel.

From the parking lot we hiked up a row of t-shirt vendors, snack vendors et cetera until we reached the cable car terminal. Cable car up to just below a point on the wall at more or less the center of the accessible part of the wall. Then hiked on the wall.

The day could not have been more perfect, sunny and comfortable very early fall day with the foliage just barely starting to turn colors. For me, it was an overwhelming experience to be in this iconic place. It's one of those places that I never really thought I'd see.

From the cable car head we hiked westward and upward until we made it to the limit of the area where tourists are allowed. The last section (second picture) was pretty challenging for someone whose exercise has been limited to a 30 minute daily walk on the flats of Houston. The very last bit is very steep, practically a stone ladder. After a couple of rest stops on the way, I caught up to my younger, fitter friends at the top. I was gasping and seriously wondering if I had overtaxed.

We rested quite a while up there, had snacks and water and let me get my heart rate back to normal. Then back, mostly downhill, to where we started.

When we hit the spot to turn off and take the cable car down we sat for a bit again. If we ignored the cable car, the next stretch was also mostly downhill. At the end of it were three ways to get down: a gondola, a "toboggan run", or walk. We ended up walking it all the way down. Massively easier than up.

We were by no means alone on this segment of the Wall. But it was also not very crowded. The vistas were beautiful as the wall snaked along the mountain ridges. And even though the wall has been restored, just being on this ancient thing is very moving.

Altogether we spent about four hours hiking on the wall. We didn't quite cover all the way to the eastern end of the Mutianyu section but reasonably close. Total trip time from leaving the hotel until returning was a bit over eight hours.

Training of Willpower - Party Office Department

We're in a pretty high priced hotel even though the company rate is dirt cheap. The room has all sorts of folders full of information about the half-dozen restaurants in the place. One of the things says "newsletter" on the top of the cover. It's about 90% very poetic descriptions of particular dishes served or the furnishings of the nicer rooms.

Near the back of this is this little gem of an article:

In the running up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Grand Hotel Beijing commenced its preparations for the training sessions in hospitality reception and services geared at 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, all relevant activities are fully underway with definitive objective and focal point in an orderly manner.

As an important part of the training for 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Party Office organized the employees in batches to participate in "Willpower Training Activity" - they are sent to Beijing Canal Golf Club to go in for labor of getting rid of the weeds. The training strengthened the willpower of the entire staff members, tempered their superior quality of willingness to work under pressure and to adopt the work style of hard struggle as well as the team spirit, so that the employees of the Hotel can perform the arduous reception tasks during Olympic Games period with excellent skills and sound mentality.

Um. Wow.

Beijing impressions

Some random impressions:

There is no such thing as "right of way" in Beijing. Cars and bikes routinely drive right through crosswalks packed with pedestrians.

Traffic lanes are only a mild suggestion. I've mostly been in the back seat of taxis but last night was in the front. The driver wandered freely from lane to lane including encroaching into the oncoming traffic lane.

Less pollution than I had been led to expect. The weather has been perfect. A couple of cloudy days but mostly sunny and beautiful blue skies. One day had something like a temperature inversion and the air looked a bit ... thick.

Construction every freaking where! They're in the run up to the 2008 Olympics. So there are major projects, building new venues. And there are alos signs of sprucing up everywhere we've been. Piles of bricks and tiles and mounds of dirt, lots of them.

Enormous. Everything is big and spread out. From the 12-lane street the hotel is on to Tiananmen Square to the spread of the place. Today I walked up a hill in a park just north of the Forbidden City. City as far as the eye can see in all direction.

Lots of people trying to scam the foreigners but also some that are just friendly and curious. Today while walking to the Forbidden city, two 20-something kids walking the same way struck up a conversation with me. I was wary, expecting them to want to sell me something. But we walked and chatted for a few minutes, then they said "good bye, have a nice stay" and headed down into the subway. I also had I think three "art students" want me to come see their school's exhibition and a dozen folks selling books and maps and flags hit me up during the afternoon. But that one encounter was ... pleasant.

Scorpion on a stick and less recognizable ... treats?

Just have time for a quick post. The picture is from a street market off Wangfujie a few blocks from the hotel. The market stretches for a very long Beijing block, probably a good 600 yards, of booth after booth selling all sorts of stuff. Most of which are not something I'd care to eat. The scorpions are obvious, I don't know what the heck those things to either side are!

Beijing has been quite different from my expectations. Not that my expectations were clear but I expected something quite foreign. In a lot of ways, it is. Almost everyone dresses in western styles. The people passing on the street wouldn't draw a second glance in any U.S. city. And there are a lot more signs and such with English on them than I expected.

But most people speak very little English if any. As a rule, taxi drivers do not speak any English. So to take taxis we have to get someone, either hotel or at work, to write the destination in Chinese characters. And we carry a card from the hotel with the hotel name and location in Chinese characters.

Everyone is either friendly or just ignores us as inconsequential.

More later.

You are kindly requested not to exit your room barefooted

I'm now two full days in Beijing. My free Sunday and one work day.

Sunday was a down day. I was depressed or culture shocked or maybe still just jet lagged even after a week on this side of the world.

I did get myself out of the hotel for a couple of walking tours of the neighborhood. The geographical center of Beijing is the Forbidden City. My hotel is just off the southeast corner of the wall enclosing that vast space. One of the several restaurants in the hotel is called the Red Wall Cafe because it looks out at the red wall that surrounds the Forbidden City. One block west is the gate to some parks that then lead up to the Meridian Gate. The trick being what comprises a "block".

The scale of this place is a little hard to get sorted out. I went walking Sunday, went about 1/2 kilometer west and got to a gateway in the red wall. Thinking I had made it to the entrance to the parks I turned in and headed what felt like a long ways north, probably a kilometer. Nothing that looked like the Forbidden City. I ended up looping around back to the hotel.

Well it turns out that I had gotten only about half way to the gate I should have taken. And it's the Tiananmen, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, a huge hundred foot tall structure with an enormous banner of Mao Zedong's face on it. Not something that could have been missed if I hadn't been a zombie.

My compadres both arrived at midnight last night after their own airport adventures. Tonight after we let our students loose, we struck out for a little stroll down to see Tiananmen Square, the largest public square in the world. The size of the space is ... stunning. It's a rectangular space that's 1/2 kilometer by over 3/4 kilometer. About 80% just open space paved with concrete pavers. We walked more or less around the perimeter. At 7pm or so on a weeknight, there were thousands of people out walking or taking pictures. And thousands didn't crowd the place, far from it in fact.

I managed to get out tonight without my camera so have no pictures of the square. I'll get back to do that but pictures aren't going to convey the scale of the place.

Oh, and about the title of the post. I was idly flipping thru the booklet that lists the hotel services and came on the "safety and security" section. In there are the kinds of things you'd expect. Lock your door, no animals, no explosives allowed etc. And there tucked in the "Prohibitions" list is ... You are kindly requested not to exit your room barefooted. Um. OK.

Not in Kansas anymore... travel to China

Saturday Oct 13 was a long travel day for me. Sydney to Beijing, 15-1/2 hours from take-off to final touchdown, two flight legs on China Southern Airlines.

Up at 5:30am to get a 6:30 cab and be way too early at the airport.

First flight was Sydney to Guangzhou (what we used to call Canton). That was the long segment, almost 9 hours. The seating configuration was 2-4-2, I got lucky and had a window/aisle row to myself. So room to stretch out, easy to pop up and down but no getting whacked by carts and passengers in the aisle.

The transit through Guangzhou was ... an adventure. Huge spread out airport from what I could tell. I cleared through customs there. Three separate forms filled out, three separate queues, none of them excessively long waits but it all added up. Then an interminable wait for the luggage.

I hadn't been paying close attention to the time as my schedule said I'd have 3 hours in Guangzhou. But at the transfer counter where I had to recheck luggage for the flight to Beijing, the agent got very excited. Her English was good enough to make me understand that I had to hurry but not good enough for me to understand just where to go! Turns out that I had 15 minutes before my flight would board. I was tired and a bit disoriented and just not "getting it".

Finally one of the young guys handling luggage grabbed my backpack, motioned for me to follow and took off at a trot through the terminal. They had been trying to get me to follow another young guy in a sort of bellman uniform. Turns out he drove the cart (which cost me $US2 to ride!).

After a bit of hurry up and wait we ended up with a full cart of mostly Chinese passengers and headed off through a maze of empty walkways. After a 10 minute drive from the A terminal he dropped us at the B terminal. Up the stairs, through security, down the stairs just in time to join the end of the boarding line. But this boarding line led to jam-packed buses bound for the actual gate... back at the A terminal. Up three flights stairs to the outside access to the jetway and onto the plane.

When the plane pushed back it had been maybe 45 minutes total from when I dropped my bag at the transfer counter. So I figured it would be a miracle if my bags actually made the flight.

But it all worked out. Two and a half hours later in Beijing, my bag was one of the first half-dozen on the carousel. The office had arranged a car to the hotel. I managed to follow the right exit sign and meet up with the driver. So probably 15 minutes after the plane started to unload I was in the back of the limo on the road into the city. Hit the hotel at midnight and was exhausted.

I planned to call back home, Alice and Aryn are off to "Dr. Penny's" wedding this weekend and I thought I could catch them... but I couldn't figure out how to dial home from my cell. The cell actually works in Beijing, a first for all my travels.

Last full day in Sydney

It's 7:30am on Friday Oct 12 in Sydney as I write this. This will be my last full day in Sydney. Flight to Beijing is at 10am tomorrow morning.

My work week here consisted of doing a 90-minute presentation on Tuesday followed by an all-day training on Wednesday. The software for the Wednesday training was loaded into a virtual machine. And when I checked it out on Tuesday it was completely fubar. The person who normally does training on this software was in Amsterdam this week. When it hit daylight there we started in trying to fix the problem. It took until 11pm to resolve the issue. For a while there it was looking pretty tense. The training went off pretty well.

Yesterday was the turn of my two colleagues to take over the training. I camped out in a cubicle at the office to fix up some very out of date material that I'll be using in the Beijing training next week.

The week hasn't been very adventurous. Dinner twice in the hotel restaurant. I had kangaroo. Rather like slightly lean beef. So now I've seen a kangaroo in Australia, cooked medium rare. We went into the city with one of the locals one night for dinner at a Lebanese restaurant named Habibi's. Excellent food there. And dinner last night was at a nearby restaurant named Basil's. The food was very good but it was a bit of an odd place. It claimed to be Italian but the menu was 90% seafood and the staff was all Chinese or Japanese.

My two colleagues aren't flying to China until Sunday so they will be moving to a downtown hotel this evening. It's not worth the trouble for me. I'll probably cab into the city with them and have dinner. We've got some sorting out to do for the training next week that is best done over a couple of bottles of wine.

Spring time in Sydney

Arrived in Sydney bright and early Sunday morning. The flight was uneventful. But note to self: try to remember that "exit rows" in 747s pretty much suck. I had the pod that holds emergency evac slide right in front of me. We had an abbreviated overhead storage and zero under seat storage as we faced the big door and a crew jumpseat. The only positive was unlimited leg room if I angled out past the slide. My other alternative was a middle so this was better.

After getting settled in the hotel (out in the boonies) and meeting up with one of my coworkers, we headed into town to mostly kill some time. Wandered about Circular Quay and The Rocks. There was a big street market going on in the Rocks. After a couple of beers there we decided to do a ferry ride to somewhere. Decided to go out to the Taronga Zoo.

We took the train over to Town Hall and walked to Darling Harbour. It was starting to rain a bit and had gotten a bit cooler. Dinner at Nick's on Darling Harbour was very good. Back at the hotel about 8. By 9pm I was crashing. Lots to do for work but still got time.

www.TimeAndDate.com

I deal with a lot of different time zones on a daily basis. My team is scattered across four time zones on three continents. And I answer questions or do conference calls with people all over the world. But not too long ago when I traveled one time zone away I couldn't figure out what time it was at home.

And let's not even talk about Daylight Savings Time rules in different countries and different hemispheres!

At some point I googled up www.TimeAndDate.com. This has been incredibly useful!

For example today I had to set up a time for a conference call that will take place next week. I'm currently in Houston and the person I'll be calling is on the U.S. East Coast. Next week I'll be in Sydney and he'll be in Amsterdam. I used the meeting planner on timeanddate.com. With that it was a snap to find a time that was suitable for both of us. And then translate it to my current time zone to put it on the Outlook.

Kudos to this site! Not only useful but very clean.