Take a look at these pictures of my seat. My 550mL water bottle had
problem squeezing thru! Taken from my iPhone 3G.
Anyway, this morning I was trying to merge two pages of our finalized
bookshelf design to the carpenter. Yes, we did not send the original
ones from before. I had two Acrobat PDF files that I want to merge.
Umm... Thank god for Google. As it turned out, I can write my own
script, all visually thru Automator, to merge PDF pages together AT NO
EXTRA COST TO ME. Not like in Windows. Cool. I merged the PDF pages
together and know what the Automator can do. A productive morning.
The Automator is not a programming language. It is all drag and drop
from left to right side. It just flows in a top down format. Every
easy to use!
5 hours to Ho Chi Minh City tonight on Shanghai Airline. I think I
know what I will be doing! Just hope I have that much battery juice.
But to confirm it, I did a quick search of the person and the mobile
number listed at the bottom of the email. No such person. And the
phone number search came up as a scam warning in baidu.com, posted two
weeks ago. So there.
Wonder what kind of trojan horse virus lied in wait in those two
attachments. Powerpoint and Word doc. Ummm.... Thank god for Mac
and smart iron-wife not opening them to see what they are.
- Guangzhou since 2007 has so called 27 super expensive lands bided by
various real estate developers; 24 of them are still not being
developed. Those lands were over high 9-digits in value. But now
still not being developed; grass is overgrown everywhere. People
start wondering what is going on.
- BBMG the cement company that went IPO today surged over 56%. People
believe that the worst is over and the construction boom will
continue. Hence BBMG is the "darling" at the moment.
- A city mayor and his wife in a the self-administrative zone have
been sentenced to long time behind bar after being caught for bride.
On average this couple took in RMB 15,000.00 per day! That was since
2007. While they were being investigated, they continued to take
bride to "fix" things. Ummm.... Addiction or stupid?
- A laborer from Henan had to pay out of his own pocket to have his
lung cracked open in order to prove that his lung disease was work-
related. It made national news; after that, people were sacked.
Maybe they should all have their lungs cracked open without any
anesthetic as part of the punishment. I saw the footage on TV; not a
pretty sight for the laborer. See full article here: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=408934&type=National
- This will be good. The Hongqiao airport, now is more like a
domestic airport, will finish its new Terminal 2 by March next year.
Just in time for the World Expos. If this new terminal going to have
more international flight, iron-wife and I will be eternally
grateful. No need to ride an hour to Pudong Airport. Hongqiao is
only 20 minutes away. I saw the new terminal the last couple months
flying in and out of Hongqiao. Man, it is massive! Wonder where all
those people have gone who used to live there.
- iPhone is coming, officially to China. What functions are
"forbidden" to work, not sure yet. Don't even believe what a Merrill
analyst said about what works and what not.
- Found a crocodile at a subway line 10 construction site. It's a
baby. According to the biologist, there is no more native crocodile
in Shanghai, extinct. This is a foreign "brand". Ummm... Take a look
here: http://sh.xinmin.cn/tufa/2009/07/28/2302376.html
- Official diesel price per tone is dropped by RMB 200.00 as of
today. 90 Octane will be phased out soon to "protect the environment".
- Chinese officials are worrying about real estate bubbles. Couple
weeks ago, it has verbally order to restrict mortgage. Applicants for
bank loans must pay 40% of the value.
- This place is overheated with exhausts, concrete jungle and
artificially inflated economy. Wonder when will be a one big bubble
burst. Keep building commercial buildings and just pluck things down
in not so favourable locations. Still thinking build it and people
will come mentality. Not good.
I took it just before the Beijing Tri race early in the morning. Did
not notice until now.
Just dropped iron-wife at Pudong for her course. We decided to stay
overnight there at the venue hotel as it beats rush hour traffic
coming home. For those do not know, the entire district of Pudong is
under construction. All major exit points are totally "blocked" by
constructions. With rain in rush hour, will be lucky if we could get
home in 2 hours. The hotel is Pudong Ramada Plaza (http://www.ramadaplazapd.com/en/reservation.html
). The room rate was RMB 899+ taxes per night. We initially were to
spend two nights but decided against it. The client ( 8th alphabet +
"_"eter Pan without the "eter Pan" ) was to pay for the hotel; then at
the last minute, it said since we live in the same city as the
training, it refused to pay. Right, do you know how big Shanghai is?
And the traffic is like here? The HR department is based in the god
knowing all mighty US of A. Obviously, this HR department must be
located in a small peon size city for cost saving so don't see the
need for hotel room. The middle company is so nice that it offers to
pay for the hotel room. I think we will split the cost. This same
middle company did a very generous gesture to all its global
contractors not long ago, it gave out USD 1,000.00 to alleviate any
monitory stress due to this economic downturn. Very kind of this
company's founders.
O I digressed. This Ramada has a very special deal; you stay two
nights and on the next visit, you get a free night. Wow. And the
service so far we have experienced is top notch. This morning we went
to the meeting room, we were stunt! Normally, we had to rearrange the
room to our "standard" orientation and distribute materials. To our
surprise, everything was done to our requests the night before. The
materials were distributed to the way we want. And it even have a TV
and DVD player ready for us. Everything we need, the hotel staff
provided to the spec! We were laughing because we didn't have to
"bark" orders or roll up our sleeves. Save a lot of time in prep
work. This hotel is also a residence too.
Come the trusty Skype call out. I had to call Montreal from Shanghai
out of my own pocket to confirm a flight originating from this side of
the world. Talk about "globalization". Since we will be sitting in
the flat-bed section, I thought we don't have to pay for the Bike
bag. Wrong! There will be a surcharge for it! What? Hello? The
bike bag with the bike in it is less than 20Kg. Much less than other
passenger bags. Go figure. Even the AC agent on the other end of the
line commented on it, half laughingly said "must be some upper
management that has a smaller brain than you and I". I,
wholeheartedly, agreed. With this bike bag, I had to call Aeroplan to
"reserve" a space for it between YYZ and BOS. Man. The North
American airlines are really scraping the bottom. We travel far and
wide in Asia and never had any issue with bike on any airlines. Not
even a fuss. Must be the preach of "harmonious societies".
It was about 615pm when we got there on the name before the race.
Very peaceful and quiet; above all CLEAN AIR!
Labour Park with Kid's playground
We got upgraded to a one-bedroom suite. From the hotel's website
photo gallery, it looks very nice. When we walked into the room.
OK. Everything is all beat-up to some degrees. The coffee table was
all scratched and scuffed. Overall fit and finish like plywood put
together. I couldn't get the temperature control set right. I can see
finger prints on a ceiling access panel. Hee hee... Then on the
inside of the shower glass, I saw writings from the construction.
Welcome to Northern China.
Dalian is know for its fresh seafood. Did not sample any. We went to
a vegetarian restaurant instead just a block up on the 5th floor of
ZhongShan Hotel. Food OK. Expensive though. Four dishes came to
RMB145.00. I was expecting a bit less. Guess Dalian is getting
expensive as it is a Tier 2 city with a drive to be "Bangalore-like"
economy.
Have taken pictures from iPhone. Will post after Beijing Olympic-
distance Triathlon over the weekend. No, I am not participating, I am
logistic support.
We are going to take advantage of this trip and stay up there longer
to hike and all. It's very beautiful up there.
I tried using the two major online Chinese news sites to watch; they
were promoting live webcasts; right. Too many viewers. Too few
bandwidth. I gave up. Obviously, they did not partner up with CCTV,
the national TV body who did the live Olympic webcasts.
Have to wait for another 300 years to see it live.
The air outside is thick and heavy. And every time I pass by a car or
a bus, the air becomes thicker and hotter. I can boil water with so
to speak.
The tap water, I have unplugged my water heater tank, because the cool
water side is so warm you can take a hot shower. That's how hot it is
here!
It's 6:00am and I couldn't open my window because the heavy hot air
just rush into the apartment. Doesn't help the building across the
street has white paint and is another concrete slap.
The name of progress here is actually killing them.
BTW: Twitter is bL0ckeD again.
OpenOffice, the Sun version that is free. Well, I had some head ways
until I tried to do the auto-sequencing for the invoice number. Not
so easy! Someone had a complete instruction how to setup an invoice
system but no auto-sequence number. I dug deep. O... I have to use
the database from OpenOffice for that! What?
I found an up-to-date instruction that I could, repeat could, get.
But when I click on "subscribe online" from this major LINUX magazine
website, it said " sorry we cannot process, please call .....". A
bloody long distance call.
The reason I want to use OpenOffice is that it is free and cross-
platform, more stable than MS-Office. I can distribute this to other
people. But.....
No wonder we are not getting ahead as quickly for Open Source to the
general public; only the "geeky" types.
Next I am going to try iWorks, the Apple version of MS-Office.
1) 9:30am Taxi from home at Macau to Macau ferry terminal
2) 9:40am Gone thru Macau resident immigration check point
3) 9:45am Darn it, no 9:45 ferry; have to wait for the 10am and it's
late coming from HK.
4) 10:00am Boarded the Tri-cat ferry. Full! Wow, Summer holiday.
5) 10:10am We are leaving for HK. Calm before the tropical storm.
Sunny, hot, calm sea...
6) 11:10am Dashed off for the 3 stories hike up to the HK
Immigration. Good design. Dumb. And e-Channel for me. Not quite;
sorry it does not apply here at this sea immigration check point.
Hey, not so with your Internet website promotion. Should be easy and
seamless. Macau is putting in e-Channel with passport scanners; why
can't you guys get your act together to do the same; you have just
installed the new e-Channel equipment. Piss me off.
7) 11:30am Very slow thru. The other day, dad got hauled off to a
room. "We need to update your file". He has gone thru HK immigration
numerous time, what so different this time that he needed his file
updated? I can see there are lots of "John Smith" in White Pages but
with his Chinese name on the Macau ID with the exact spelling? Easier
to win lottery.
8) 11:45am Hot walk from Shang Wan to Central Hong Kong Airport
Express station. Passed by my favourite hotel, Four Seasons, probably
won't stay there ever again. Price is totally inverse with the
economy. Just like some of the Index ETFs.
9) 11:50am Checked in at Cathay.
10) 11:55am High speed train to Airport. Communicated with Chairman
Lo in Chinese SMS. Finally forced him to use the new Nokia I got him
3 months ago. He now can write Chinese on the screen. Iron-wife
lamented that "there goes the legacy of Chairman Lo Cantonese
English. It's like a language within a language". For example, he
texted us on our anniversary wishing that he was there again on the
island. The phrase "cat island" was what he used to refer Maui. The
reason, he couldn't spell "Maui". Maui in Chinese sounded like "Cat"
"island". Hence that phrase.
11) 12:15am Arrived at airport. Did not seem a tropical storm is
coming. Sunny, calm sea, hot of 35C.
12) 12:30am Thru security and Immigration; this time, I COULD use e-
Channel.
13) 12:31am Heading to the lounge. Not too busy. IC. Trying to cut
back huh Cathay. One fridge said under repair. Right. Typical
Chinese approach. The food offering is getting close to Air Canada
lounge. Drink selection was cut by half. Have to check out the other
Cathay lounge next time. This one is close to Dragon Air
(subsidiary). Gate 62 has the main Cathay lounge.
14) 1:00pm Ready to roll; prefer to walk around for half an hour
before flight; to stretch my legs. Busy in the airport. O a new
Clive Cussler; what? HKD221.00. That's about CAD 30.00. I could get
this from Costco for CAD11.00. Right, I am NOT in Costco; no where
near one! No leisure reading. Come to think of it, when was the last
time I read something leisure. Answer: Almost a year ago.
15) 1:30pm At the gate. Switched out my HK SIM for China SIM. Yes, a
guy with five SIMs. Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Canada and China.
Used to have AT/T as well. ;-)
16) 1:40pm Boarded. Load of empty seats. OK, why did the agent put
me next to someone? Come on, come on, close that door so I could
move. Ha... Finally.
17) 1:55pm Door closed and I excused myself politely. Two seats, good
working service. BTW, I had a Biz seat. Less chance of being
quarantined. The guy sat next to me, he got an upgrade and his wife
had to seat in the back of the bus! How gentleman of him NOT to give
that seat up for his wife? I did when we went to Delhi from HK. Iron-
wife got my biz seat because I got bumped. O well. Not my problem.
18) 2:00pm Pushing off. Wow. Right on time and no Chinese Air
Traffic Control holding us on the ground. Maybe they felt sorry for
us about the incoming Tropical Storm to HK.
19) 2:30pm Lunch being served. Rush job. Good food though. Rice
with veggie and two big slaps of pork. That's the last of my meat
eating holiday. Haha. Red wine was good. Leman, red.
20) 3:50pm How time flied. We descended. Air quality was good.
Wow... Just like on Monday when I took off. I could see over 33 KM
away back to the edge of Pudong where those two tall buildings stood.
21) 4:20pm At the gate; now wait for the mask men to show up for
temperature control. What? They are not coming. We are off the plane.
22) 4:34pm Lining up to get thru the health check. No, they don't
poke you. Just checking the health form making sure we all filled out
properly.
23) 4:40pm Thru the health check; people fill the form yourself!!!
The Shanghai service is too nice. They filled the forms for these
dumb people.
24) 4:45pm Thru immigration, friendly and fast.
25) 4:50pm Luggage is here. Grabbed and dashed.
26) 4:55pm Met my drive on the departure level. Off we go... Much
faster than he parked and met me at the Arrival and paid for the
parking.
27) 5:00pm Started texting people just like every single Chinese. Hee
hee...
28) 5:10pm Setting in for the ride. No rush hour traffic; perfect.
Normally, I would have taken the Maglev and then No 2 line subway.
But the subway systems have been having a lot of problems. Outages
and all. I wanted to have a nice end to a trip. Private car, RMB
250.00 (CAD 35.00); a bit on the expensive side if you look at it from
the Chinese point of view but from North American point of view going
for 35KM or so from airport to home, that's cheap.
29) 6:00pm Home.
30) 6:15pm Checked my emails, unpacked and heading to the gym.
31) 6:45pm Darn it, I forgot my runners!!!!! Heading home; sweating...
33) 7:00pm Forget it, not heading back. Work on my fingers instead on
the keyboard. Hence this blog.
This is a day in my life flying 2 hours and 5 minutes internationally.
This storm comes really fast.
This week, the HK index has gone up 1,000 points. Rumour has it that
the big investors are trying to push the market up to 20,000 points.
Today's close is 18,805. Between last week and this week, the graph
is a sharp V. Scary.
Look at the center of the picture; the workers are construction a
concrete meridian. To the right side of the picture, is the new fence
they elected. Doubled the wide of the side walk. Now. With this
narrowing, how on earth can emergency vehicles cut thru? Drivers have
no place to "scope" over like before. Also the new wide, wider
construction vehicle like the fork lift will not able to pass. And if
a huge forklift is required for construction or a fire, expect a 7-KM
traffic jam.
Wonder who the dumb asses approved this little project. And who's
relative "recommended" it and who has awarded the "silly" contract for
the work.
This 12-years old kid goes to work with her parents during holidays
and study. No babysitting service here. Both parents work as
cleaners in a big shopping mall in Shanghai. Summer she sits in the
stairwell to studdy. Winter, she sat in the staff office.
1) I cannot use a non-own credit card to pay for my insurance
premium! Can you believe that? What I meant was I cannot use my CIBC
or any to pay for the annual premium at AIA! I need to use either its
own credit card or cash! That is when I pay at the cashier counter.
But with my own agent I can but she got charged 3% of the value! And
she has to pay out of her own pocket for that and MUST get her boss to
approve it? Huh? So I did the next best thing, take out cash from
the bank. It was funny! At the AIA cashier desk, she counted the
cash as expected and then she had to record every single serial number
of each paper money and had me sign them! What the bloody Hell?
2) Thanks to HSBC I could not do any online banking wiring or transfer
due to its policy of daily limit. But the daily limit doesn't really
work for me. I had to be at the bank myself to withdraw. Guess what,
it was faster for me to get Queen of Macau to get me round trip ferry
tickets to Hong Kong from Macau. Headed to Hong Kong, walked from the
Ferry Terminal to Central where HSBC located, had the guy counted out
my money, signed and left, head back to Macau and deposited to my
other bank! Hey, that was what I did!!!! My initial amount of online
wiring still not showing up after a day!!!!
O yeah, this HSBC bank should be renamed to HBSC bank (Holly Bull Sh!x
Cxxxt) bank. I have just found out, I cannot withdraw my own money
without some sort of fees! 1) USD5,000 or more, USD7.56 fee. 2) AUD/
NZD/CAD withdrawal are limited to 1,000.00. 3) Cheque writing from
HKD issued by the bank is HKD100 in fee. 4) Purchase investment such
as shares being hold at the bank has a monthly "holding" fee attached,
HKD 250.00. 5) Online wired transfer is HKD 120 per.
This #2 line takes me from my apartment all the way to the Maglev
station. From there, a 8-minute 412KM/h ride to the airport.
Normally, took me about 32 minutes door to door compared to an hour of
heavy traffic road way.
Normally, we could have taken a 5 1/2 hour overnight flight directly
from Delhi back to Shanghai; unfortunately, China Eastern only flies
twice weekly. So we were out of luck. Hence we had to do an
overnight to Hong Kong, an hour and a half later, from Hong Kong to
Shanghai. I have to say, everything was like clock works. For once.
Boarding at Delhi airport, man never seen boarding so early before a
flight. Our flight departed at 23:45. We started boarding at 22:30
or so. I could believe it as the Indian locals have a way of
boarding. Everything there were so "slow...". They would be
absentmindedly putting stuff on the overhead bins or just stood around
in the aisle or just plain "ignorant" blocking the aisle. The Chinese
made the locals looked really bad. I think it was just the nature of
the people in Delhi. At our hotel at Kempinski, the staff was so
helpful, efficient and very aware of customer needs. I was very
impressed.
O I digress here, with our package at the hotel, all the food we ate
at the Spectra restaurant was free. Yes, absolutely FREE except
alcohol. NO ONE told us at check-in. We discovered this at check-out
time. Some of our food bills were not on the final tally. That was
when they TOLD us!!!! Man, I was robbed!!!!! In order to separate my
food bill with Audrey's "official" work, I paid with my credit card!
I could have had the lunch buffet for free! Also, all the room
service we ordered because we were so tired by the end of the day, we
could have dragged ourselves to Spectra rather than paying! Gee. O
yeah, and then there was this late check-out. They kept insisted on
me paying the whole day rate after 5pm. That was after asking couple
times on separate occasions. Then we found out Audrey's co-worker got
a late check-out of 8pm without any surcharge. Now, that was
interesting. I finally laid it out to them. Then 30 seconds later on
a phone conversation, my wish of late check-out at 8pm without
surcharge was granted. Gee.
Ah, back to the plane ride. I believed the seat for me from Delhi to
Hong Kong was thin. I couldn't get comfortable. I should have
ordered a double Scotch before "heading" to sleep. I am now a walking
zombie, even with my version of "brew Java".
The Dragon Air flight, the seat cushion seemed to be thicker. My
tailbone was very happy. A recent fall accident may have bruised it.
Sit, sit, sit, that was what we did from 23:00 yesterday to 13:30 today.
Haircut time, will be sitting more. Another hour.......
