Biz-news

Some news from Shanghai Business Review

10 foreign firms with tax arrears
The State Administration of Taxation (SAT) has asked ten large foreign enterprises to conduct tax self-examinations and pay any overdue taxes, including Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Panasonic, Siemens, McDonalds, HSBC Bank, Foxconn Technology Group, General Electric, and Wal-Mart Investment Co. The self-examinations should cover subsidiaries at all levels of these companies, all items related to taxation and their status from 2006 to 2008. The move lasts from Dec 18 2009 to June 30, 2010. The ten companies should submit their final reports to the SAT before July 5, 2010, and send a duplicate to local tax authorities. Companies would have to pay overdue fines and forfeits if their self-examinations fail to pass SAT's further review.

Foreign investors: Go west
According to a Ministry of Commerce statement, China is encouraging more foreign investment in its central and western regions, developing local labour-intensive industries that meet environmental protection requirements. Foreign investment is also being directed to industries involving high-end manufacturing, new and high technology applications, modern services, new energy, and energy conservation and environmental protection. China is currently the world's second-largest FDI destination, up from sixth place in 2008.

Japanese carmakers hike capacity
Japanese car giants are increasing capacity in China to meet surging demand in the nation. Toyota's January production in China rose 204% to 67,337 vehicles, compared with a 157% increase to 98,183 vehicles in the United States. Hondas production in China rose 68% compared with a 39% rise in North America. Its local venture with Dongfeng Motor Group Co will invest RMB1.15bn (US$0.17bn) to build a second plant in China that will begin production in the second half of 2012. The Tokyo-based carmaker will also increase production capacity at the venture's existing plant in Hubei province to 240,000 vehicles this year, from 200,000. Mazda Motor Corp aims to sell 220,000 vehicles in China this year as its third-quarter vehicle sales rose 68% last year.

Another 104K

Yes, another one. Butt is really really sore. Every bum, every crack
on the street just made butt jarring pain from the bottom to the top.
It was a "dry" day to cycle, meaning no rain. Been raining here for a
while. Wind was a killer! I started with kinda empty tank. Thighs
just have too much lactic Acid built up causing a bit of fatigue.
With going and coming we faced the wind, made the trip harder. I was
spent. I just couldn't move faster. Last week I could, not this
week. Strange though I felt fine everywhere else. Since iron-wife is
training for 70.3 Ironman race in two weeks, we went to the gym after
we got home. YES, the gym. I didn't realize I could still run. She
was running, of course but need lots of distraction. Fuel, fuel,
fuel... Not enough. We had power bar and Gel. Still.... 5000+
calories. So I stopped my run after 1/2 hour and distracted her
(while she was still running) with the Olympics Men's curling final.
Had to do some explanations about the game to her. We watched till
the last rock was thrown and the cheers. That was pretty much the
time she ran for 1 1/2 hours.

Today being the Lantern Festival here (Chinese Valentine's Day),
everywhere was busy. Fire crackers and fireworks. WE ate early!
Like 430pm. From this morning at 6am till 3pm, we had Gel, Gatorade,
water and the noodle. After the gym, we hit our veggie restaurant.

Now, we are all moaning from the soreness after a day of "work". I
actually had problem getting up from the day bed.

Same drill this weekend. It will be tougher as I will be running a
mini-training camp for iron-wife before Haikou (March 14th). I plan
on an overnight trip to get the mini-camp going..... Stay tune.

White Tiger

This is a very funny book to read if want to understand India's class struggle as well as what "really" is India: http://tinyurl.com/ydkdukc

This is tinyurl, what this means is that I have "shrunk" the long winded link from Amazon for this specific book into a very simple condense link to be posted.  If someone has any long website name, you can shrink it using tinyURL website and have a "custom" web address for your info to give out.  www.tinyurl.com

spy guide

So you want to use Microsoft services huh?  Read this article below.  Things you never thought of but it's there as I had mentioned before. 

What you should know

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35607452/ns/technology_and_science-security/

crunches

Never in my life had I ever looking forward to do crunches. I did
this afternoon. My PT made me work hard today, brick circuit. I was
spent before I started the session, my muscle had no fuel left, was
running on fume. So 35 minutes into my session, I could not lift any
more weight. Brain issued command, command converted to electric
current thru my spin, to my arms, then no movement. Yikes. I pushed
and pushed and finally DONE! I was hoping to use this session to
purge certain words from my brain after reading them: "outrageous",
"staggering". Crunches. Yes, my final set of exercises. Had to sit
on my butt, raised my legs off the ground and cycle for a minute.
That was tough, I rather do plank. After the minute was up, I had to
do crunches; that 30 crunches was a God sent. I had to do 3 sets in a
row. When I was done. I WAS DONE! Normally, I would walk. Not
tonight. We took a 10-minute taxi ride to our friend's place. She
called earlier in the day and wanted to cook for us. Bonus! Home
cook meal. She made us come to eat then kicked us out. That's the
type of friends I like. Ha!

Now, just finished laying out my bike gear for tomorrow's 100K right
again. I have Gatorade this time. Hopefully, I won't be cramping up
like the last two rides. Weather expected to be cloudy with a high of
16C. We start early. 5:30am. Will still be dark. Traffic light.
Want to bypass that HongQiao airport construction site and the Zoo as
early as possible. Those two places are maddening to ride thru.
Tomorrow is Chinese Lantern Festival so will be nuts out there! Hey,
I can have the nice gluten balls with sweet fillings tomorrow evening
and won't feel guilty. After burning 5,000 calories, I think I
deserve that!

beat...

Totally tired. Long day. 5am up and dealt with another client's
issue from not listening. 6am, ironed my dress shirt, 615am, iron-
wife rushing me out the door w/ her to gym. Worked out. 7:15am,
showered, shaved and inhaled my Starbucks b'fast. 7:40am, walked to
client office. It's big. It does power, shipping and all.... we
were to train a team of Chinese employee with a Western manager on
effective communication. 8am, We went to the conf room for setup. We
stripped the tables away and make every sat closer. Rule 1, tables
with them sitting at each end, just a road block.

All 14 participants. I had to say, it was quite impressive to see the
employees so involve, so hungry for knowledge, and so willing to help
each other. There were lots of "ah-ha" moments. And the course
design by us (spent all day Thursday putting it all together), were
geared to provide them theories, tools and hands-on practice to bridge
the gap. I had to say, didn't see much gap there at the end of the
day. It was quite satisfying to see people improved over an 8-hour
period. Traditionally, new employees in Shanghai switch job every
year or so, this company's employees stay... some over 18 years. That
has to say something about the dedication this company does to its
employees.

4:35pm, course done. We were heading out, looking for a taxi to cross
HuangPu river for a potential client biz meeting. The manager who
participated the course and was the main driver for the course, picked
up his mobile and talked. 30 seconds later, his driver with the Buick
mini-van appeared. "Take it" he said, "just tell the driver where you
need to go". Wow, what luck! I kept forgetting there's another
little nicety working with Expats. We made it there right on time!
If we were to take a taxi,if and when we could get one at 4:35pm,
would be a miracle. We were on time. This client, another multi-
national. The building we were in, this company owned, 30 stories or
so. Just across the street from the two tallest buildings in Shanghai
and two of the top tens tallest in the world.

An hour meeting, switched gear from teaching to biz meeting.... Then
dinner ....

8:00pm. Home.... Sore from Arthritis (weather prediction for
tomorrow: humid, cold and wet).... Tired from everything today.....

Tomorrow rest day. Gym in the morning, Internet portal consulting,
more gym... and then this good friend of ours volunteered to cook for
us and will have her assistant bringing food to our apartment!!! How
good is that?

Sunday... 5:30am.... Another 106K ride.....

Live stream

Trying to get to NBC or any other North American official streams of
the Olympics is totally useless. Always with this message: " Content
only provided for American audience only". I thought this is an
International event? Wouldn't more clicks equal more revenue to TV
conglomerate? Like Page Views revenues, clickable ads, etc... Umm...
I must be missing something. Some rules from the TV programming gov't
bodies.

I did try CCTV online; but it uses a streaming technology plug-in that
is not known to me. I don't want to do a G0OglE saying the C0mM!es
h@cked me. I can use my gym's TV but I don't do my schedule sticking
to TV programming.

In the end, I relegated to the Live Analysis, the text version, on
NYTimes for the Canada vs Russia hockey game. Go Canada Go. 7-2.

The Olympics seem so far away for me it might as well to be on a
different planet.

only in China

This picture was taken by a reporter who happened to be at Chongqing
railroad station. The kid was hauling his grandfather's body to a
waiting car outside. What happened was his grandfather passed away in
Guangdong province about 3 days ago. Because the family was poor, the
grandson bring the body back via railroad as a passenger.

dumb ass

This happened today around 830am about two blocks from our apartment;
some dumb ass missed the bus; he stood in front of it half way down
the bus stop to block it and demanded the driver to open the door.
This obvious caused problematic traffic jam during rush hour. He left
the scene 5 minutes later without boarding the bus. Brain power? Zero.

Carl's Jr

Do you know Carl's Jr, the US burger joint is opening up the first
Vietnamese store this April? And do you know Carl's Jr is pushing
into Asia and into China and looking for franchisees. New
franchisees, of course, will have to get to US for training and all.
How do I know that? Because sitting one table over in Waggis just
before lunch, the US representative from Carl's Jr was in deep
discussion with this Chinese national about franchising. Hey, buddy,
you don't talk about those things in a place like Waggis!!!! With
music blaring and table so close together, what the hell were you
thinking? Unless of course, this was part of the marketing plot to
make people aware that yet another US burger joint is coming to China
to make an already obese next generation much worse.

bummer

Mark & Spencer across the street has stopped selling things I like to
have once in while like Portuguese sardines, tomato soup and the
occasion indulgence of chicken wings. (Shhh.....). Anyway, those
items were gone, gone, gone. On the shelves were more craps and more
frozen deep fried craps. Well, there goes my quick Western vices
fix.... :-(

less intrusive

Remember a while back I complained about Ch!n@ Telec0m intercepting
traffic and inject its own IPTV advertizing taking up almost the half
of the screen. Well, it did it again but this time, less intrusive
but still sucked! This is a screen shot of it - bottom right corner.
It crapped up slowly as my Lead-post page being rendered.

double the time

Flight from Delhi to Shanghai is a bit difficult. The Chinese airline
that has direct flight does not fly on Thursday's. So we had to
backtrack. And NO Air India.

Our backtracking started on Thursday morning at 5am. 6:30am we were
at the airport and the Singapore airline counter. But then, no one
understood that I could get into China with a special ID; that caused
a bit of time, not arguing with them. Just explained to the ground
staff. After 10 minutes, they let me go. Whew... I wasn't mad as
these people have not seen enough of a special Chinese ID card
specially 'crafted' for Macau and Hong Kong borned people. Then the
traditional Indian immigration. Totally sucked. Rather than having
the immigration counters facing the people so you can make lines, the
counters were placed side-way. And not enough room for lines. So we
got this chaotic scene of people didn't know which line and where to
line up. After 3 minutes of this "Sh!t", I had enough. I noticed
there were another side of counters not being heavily used. I sent my
scout tracking to the other side and sure enough. No one used and so
I went. I even waved at some Australians to come over; but they just
looked and ignored as if I were some idiots. This happened once too
at Hong Kong Skypier. All the lines were taken up by Chinese tourists
and their tour guides. I knew and ran to the front of the counter and
showed my tix. 5 minutes, check-in done. Then I saw some Brits
lining up "behind" the Chinese tourists and they were complaining they
need to get checked-in. So I told them. And guess what they did,
they shrugged me off as if I didn't know what to do. Well, I had my
boarding pass and they didn't. Idiots.

Anyway, back to the line up at the Indian Immigration counter. 5
minutes, we were up with these lazy, egotistical and didn't give a
"f*^&^ck of you" attitude "officiers". Took their sweet time and then
this guy kept asking me what I was doing in India and why I went to
Shimla, blah, blah, blah... One thing I need to remind myself -
respond clearly and friendly. Don't get frustrated. These guys were
looking for a way to do "you know what". After some exchanges, I got
my "get out of jail" stamp. I moved on. Then the security line, same
line-up chaotic scene. Sure was good to be sitting in the plane
taxing out to the running for takeoff. As the landing wheels lifted
from the ground, I almost broke out some Champaign. OK, I didn't have
any.

5 hours and 10 minutes later, we arrived at Changi airport in
Singapore. I looked over to Audrey and said "welcome back to
civilization". That same night after watching Avatar with a friend,
he asked me the same thing - "How does it feel to be back to
civilization?". When we got off the plane in Singapore, we were
subjected to additional "Security Check" for flights coming in from
India. Wonder "why"?

Our flight from Singapore to Shanghai was scheduled to depart at
1:15am. After all the Singapore immigration and all, we hopped on to
a taxi and headed downtown to Athlete's Circle. Had to get some stuff
for iron-wife's Haikou race on March 15. I was annoyed by the staff
in the store. Didn't know what's what, chaotic. Six people and 4
were like deers staring into headlights. Hello? Customer Service.
You should know what you are doing..... After 20 minutes with our
stuff purchased, we left. Iron-wife thought I was low in blood sugar
and so I was grouchy. No, I was annoyed with the service.

Funny happened at the Raffle Place subway station. We were heading to
a friend's place for dinner before Avatar. As we stepped onto the
platform, load and behold, he was standing there too! What were the
odds?

Avatar was good - animation and action. It kept me interested in my
seat. O speaking of seat, the theatre was lined with individual plush
seats. The seats were like those in an expensive European home.
Comfortable, firm. Too bad, no enough leg rooms for me. Movie
started at 830pm and it was over by 11:15pm.

We sprinted to catch a taxi and 15 minutes later we were at the
airport. And by 12:30am, we were boarded our home-bound flight. 4
hours and 46 minutes later with a plane packed with Chinese tourist,
we arrived Shanghai. One more funny thing, we bumped into another
friend's entire family, Aussie/Brit expats with their kids heading
home after Chinese New Year holiday in Singapore.

Tired.... Tired... and cold. It was -2C when we arrived in
Shanghai.....

price

Last night at Delhi. We met up with iron-wife's friend and his family
for dinner. We settled at a restaurant in the Ambience mall just next
door to the Kempinski Leela. This restaurant is considered as
"formal" dinning. Six people in total. We had about 5 dishes. Saag
Paneer, an Aloo dish with yellow gravy, Dal, nan, prathata, rise. O
yes, a nice tomato soup with Indian spices. The grand total was Rs
2,314.00. I was like what? That was for six people. Just the two of
us at Leela was Rs 3,500 with two dishes. Granted I usually had a pre-
dinner drink, that went for Rs 650.00. Good thing though with our
hotel room package, the dinner as long as we eat at a specific
restaurant, it's free. But still, what a difference in price between
the hotel and the mall separated by a thick concrete wall.

I have enough of Indian food now. Ready for some home cook Chinese
meal in Singapore tomorrow night. Friend of ours, his mom and sister
will cook for us. Clean, less saltiness and food that we can sink our
teeth into rather than heavy gravy and liquified veggie. And of
course, less consumption of the fattening "Gee" (butter) Indians love
to cook with.

shimla to delhi

Just to make everyone understand the distance we traveled yesterday by
car; here are the maps. From Shimla to south of Delhi to Gurgaon.

From Shimla to Delhi, we took NH 22 from the north continuing down
south connecting on NH1. From Shimla, we started south toward Solan
to Chandigarh then straight south on NH1 thru Karnal, Kundi thru New
Delhi at the heart of it. No ring road to bypass traffic. Like I
said, from Shimla to outskirt of Delhi took 5 1/2 hours. From north
of Delhi to Gurgaon about 75 K, took over 2 hours.

The Internet access is patching here so I posted this blog via email;
hopefully the formatting comes out OK.

Leela

We got upgraded to a one-bedroom suite at the residence side of the
hotel. Take a look. Quite modern. But as usual, still have
intermittent power outage and not sure why the Internet access was
much much slower than July when we were here. I got the intermittent
on again off again Internet access. Frustrating. Guess I will surf
the TV channels with one of the two Sony 43" LCD TVs in the suite.
And maybe lots of Gin and Tonic. Just maybe.

Shimla 2

Discussing over the place of Shimla with iron-wife over dinner last night, we pretty agreed that no reason to return. Nothing special. Things crumbled. And in your face type of poverty. The propaganda machine really makes this place sounds so wonderful and lovely but in the end, maybe we expected too much from friend's recommendations, from the Vancouver taxi driver telling how beautiful the place was, from Google images and from Shimla tourism website. Nah.... Nothing special. No need to visit. Maybe when the snow covers the garbage littered on the railroad tracks and the hill sides then maybe it's good to see the snow lying hills. But then, it will be too cold and maybe no more flights coming in due to snow. Bare in mind, the runway is short. And I mean short and it is built on a mountain top. Good drop on either end of the runway.

Maybe an Oberoi cruise instead.

Kingfisher 2

Wow, what a fast refund from this airline. After the residence staff called the airline, I got an email receipt of the refund right away for the canceled flight. Take that Air Canada! ;-)

Kingfisher

Kingfisher Airline. We took that to Shimla and were suppose to get
back with the same airline; however, a "mechanical" problem canceled
our flight. So I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the Shimla
airport, basically a small outpost with one room with a divider
separating Arrival and Departure halls. And only a concrete table for
the arrival bag handling. Reminded me of the Turks and Cacos airport
years ago.

The airline check-in experience at Delhi's domestic terminal was quite
something. As soon as we arrived, a personal porter with the airline
greeted us, really. And we only flew econo class. He took our bags
and took us to the counter, waited with us and ensured our bags had
proper tags including carry-ons to ensure a "smooth" ever bureaucratic
"at gate" security check - That little stamp to indicate that your
carry-on have been scanned and danger free. After we were checked in,
he just walked off quickly without asking for a tip. We tipped him
anyway. That was good that some services here started to train
employees NOT to ask for tips. The tipping actually has become such a
turn off and borderline of harassment.

We went thru the security line and all those previous blogs and
pictures you all seen.

After we were bused to the twin propeller plane, I was well prepared
what lied ahead. Umm.... tire pressure seemed to be a bit low. Then
after we boarded the flight, a 2 x 2 configuration. I laughed. One
of the overhead compartment was broken. The fix? Rolls of masking
tapes to tape it shut! Cool. We took off boringly. Good thing.

On board, the snack was a vegetarian sandwich. Beat that Air Canada,
Beat that United Airline, Beat that Delta airline. It was a panini
with corn and other salad veggies and a small bottle of water!

When we landed, we landed hard! I guess no one were expecting the
runway was high up on a mountain top. Big thummmm... When we left
the plane, we were greeted by no more than 4 Kingfisher ground staff;
all smiling, all greeting us, all with happy faces, all were slim!
Beat that you North American airlines!

Luggage unloaded quickly. We grabbed our bags and left with the
Oberoi driver. What a treat without the constant harassment of a
Delhi hotel driver. The Oberoi driver left us alone to our thoughts
and the views ahead. The only two sentences he uttered were "Can we
start our journey now?", "are you comfortable with the ride?". OK, a
third sentence "our hotel on the right. What a pleasure! Unlike the
Kempinski Leela hotel driver. Constantly trying to get us to do
something with him, tried to be chatty, tried to make his life story
about "I have to work hard so my liver is not that good". Right.
And you are driving a BMW 325 top of the line here buddy.

OK, back to Kingfisher. I had an inkling feeling that we had a less
than 25% chance of flying out of Shimla back to Delhi. Why? Virtually
There website for my file suggested the flight status "not confirm".
I couldn't get pre-assigned seats from Kingfisher website as it said
"no plane scheduled". My A-brain kicked in before we left for Delhi
and had prepared. In India, you have to have plan B and plan C. The
reason I selected Oberoi wasn't just because it was a 5-star hotel; I
wanted to ensure we can be taken care of in case of flight
cancellation for plan B travel plan. True to form, we were taken care
of with a cost, of course. But that was minor compared to the Indian
travel headache. The return trip took over 8 hours, first two hours
in windy hill road at times with width only one car could pass. Iron-
wife because sick-wife from the tight turns for 2 hours. Anyway, on
Saturday before we left I double-checked with hotel about flight. He
knew the flight was canceled so I told him to organize my transport,
we had options: 1) car directly from hotel to hotel or 2) a 4-hour
ride to another town to catch a train to Delhi. No thanks on option
2. Been to Delhi train station. No way. No announcement of arrival
and a place of more poverty than I want to see again. More things to
go wrong and more things to organize for Delhi's pickup. Option 1 it
was. and Rs 17,000 (CAD 390) later.

Right now, I have Kempinski Leela receptionist handling my Kingfisher
refund. We are staying at the residence level. Got all the
services. The staff is so well trained. Friendly, hardworking and
efficient. I don't mind. But once you step out of these hotel
shelters, you are on your own. Like a small fish in a shark infested
water. Be wary, be very wary.... And be streetsmart and a GSM phone
that works in India and the hotel phone numbers programmed in.

View from hotel

These are the views from our Delhi hotel at Kempinski Leela, it is just about 10K from the International airport and is next door to the Guargon's, Ambence Mall.

This is a 4-level, 1Km long mall


Skyline from hotel window at 8am. No wonder all International flights arrive in wee hours of the morning.


Traffic jam at 830am

NH1

The nation hightway #1. Please, don't exaggerate of the "grand" project. It was such a crappy road, not even funny. The first picture was taken from our car, the second was on the side of NH1.

That's as wide as the road will go. 2 lane of traffic to allow anything from donkey carts to tutu to different sized of lorries, to Suzuki Swifts, to 4x4's all fighting for the 2 lane road. And drivers practice being a pilot directing a plane to runway taxing by following the "dotted" line rather than staying IN THE LANE! Many times, we had to slow down because there were oncoming traffic towards us in the wrong direction because the driver wanted to get to somewhere. All I could say was utterly chaos.

We were on NH1 because Kingfisher cancel our flight from Shimla back to Delhi. We started at 6am, made it to the outskirt of Delhi by 11:40am or so. But then, took us till 2pm before we reached our Delhi hotel in the South. Traffic. That was all. And tolls. Some were blatantly a rip-off. One we had to pay had only a small sign on the road; then we made a sharp left turn, all I saw was broken road with potholes that needed a 4wheel drive to conquer. Then the toll booth was totally falling apart with no maintenance. And the approach to the toll booth was not paved so that I saw two big ruts just as deep as my knees. Then after we paid, we were stopped by these inspectors to check the ticket that we just bought about 10 feet away. He checked the ticket and then stamped it. We were on our way again. Pathetic was all I could say. O yeah, forget about signs. It was more an afterthought. I always complained about the US highway signs, well this place took first place.

Coming here is just like "how much these people going to rip me off?".

Shimla (Simla)

Shimla is the current spelling; but in the old days, it was spelled as "simla" with the "H". It is the state capital of HP and during the colonial days, Shimla was the country capital. Imagine moving the capital in the Summer and then move back to Delhi area in Winter time?

This is the local bus depot; early morning when I took this so not much of congestion with beat up buses. O yeah, there are a demonstration going on so the famous shopping street was not open. Police with riot gears on standby.


View of the downtown core of the old Shimla as we walked toward it


View of old Shimla as we walked back to the hotel. The Oberoi we stayed was way to the left far away.


View of old Shimla from our hotel room balcony.

hotel

This is the inside of Oberoi Shimla; taken from outside of our door. This hotel is old. Just gone thru a renovation. Pretty nice. The only things one has to remember: 1) don't let the balcony door opens as monkeys will invite themselves and ransack the place. 2) Wooden floor so you can hear people from upstairs; it reminded me of our visits to Boston and in the morning, we could hear kids running around. And 3) Not that good of noise insulation as with any India quality work. The bottom of our door had a huge gap.

Other than that, the hotel was excellent. Very efficient in making guests comfortable. We ate at the hotel restaurant every meal as didn't care of the food outside. Let's face it, pretty crappy. Not going on a rant but if the Indian gov't can have nucle@r @rsenAls and a rocky that can put a man to the moon, for pete sake, make where close to home better!

Seems every time I am back here, I get more frustrated. Forget about rolling with the punches. If one does that, you are screwed. You get no where.

But do I want to go back to Shimla again as everyone said it was such a beautiful place? All I can offer was "Bull $hit". This place was not that spectacular. I walked on the other side of town rather than the tourist side. Man! People's living condition, the local buses (an entire broken front end with no bumper, radiator exposed and no headlights!), the garbage, the beggars, the back-breaking human "cargoers". Remember, Indian "propaganda" is worse than the C0mM!es. And the BS excuses, just "don't lie". Hill station? My ass. It's more like an over-run human habitats with garbage everywhere (on the side of the hill). Going? No.

congested

Congested with all types of planes from different discount domestic airlines.






Took this picture too late. 30 seconds ago, there was also a pile up just like on any of the Delhi's street. All sorts of service vehicles just like to go whereever they wanted; no rules.

DEL (domestic)

DEL, airport code for New Delhi. We were off last Friday (12th) to Shimla via the domestic terminal. Took KingFisher airline subsidiary. Let me tell you, the service up till passed check-in was good. After that.... well read on in the next post; but first, here are some pics from inside the domestic terminal.

This domestic terminal is new but I think it has already overflow with capacity issue. You can build but size it properly!!!! This is going to be a typical Indian municipal development.

People were lying up for flights. The gates were at a lower level. We need to walk down there; but there was no TV monitor screen to tell you flight statuses or gate changes. Walk back up buddie. And that was what we ended up doing because our gate for the Shimla flight was changed and no one knew where including the airline staff.


These two pictures are from within the waiting area passed security.

3.9

That was how much it cost for a local b'fast. SGD 3.9 (CAD2.90). That included a Chinese doughnut (left, filled with a fermented tofu), a curry puff (right, South East Asian dish) and a cup of hot soy milk made fresh from soya beans (background). So there you have it! This is cheaper than a nice cup of triple-shot skim milk latte from Starbucks. Incidentally, the coffee tasted better in the Starbucks here than in North America. Ummm... I thought there is a standard.

lobby view

Here's a view of the lobby looking up. Festive for Chinese New Year:

inside view

Here is a view from the elevator heading to my floor:



Here are the views from inside Pan Pacific. Cool looking.

Looking up from the hallway


Looking down from the hallway

Night Market

Thanks to my SaskTel friend who was in Singapore couple days before I arrived. He took these pictures at the China Town night market in Singapore. Crowded and festive in preparation of Chinese New Year. You can see dried Chinese sausages and dried duck meat as well as lanterns. Saved me a trip heading down to the crowded area. ;-)

Morning view

As promised, here is the view from my hotel balcony at Pan Pacific during day time.

SIN again

Wow, I cannot believe that I have not been back to Singapore for over 9 months. Finally made it today. We are staying at the Pan Pacific. Got upgraded to a private balcony and these are the views we are seeing now. By far the best from any hotel we have stayed so far. We are overlooking back to downtown area where the famous lion head spilling water and the Fullerton Hotel. The flywheel is from another angle from the balcony. Not that interesting. I'll post a day time picture tomorrow.

Today we walked for about 15 minutes from our hotel to city hall - all underground! Too hot outside! We would have cooked. 32C with very high humidity. I reflected that in North America we walked indoor due to the cold and snow; here, due to the heat and must have air con full blast.

One thing that bugged me. Our MRT cards expired. Need a new one. Fine. But the SIN gov't does not recycle the old cards. We asked the ticket office to recycle, the agent gave them back to us and said "throw them to the garbage bin". That's just sick! RFID cards. Totally valid. Why replace? There does not seem to have a business reason at all.

75

That's the magic number I want my weight to be at in Kg. Less weight
for me to bear with Arthritic bones, less muffin top to show and
better when doing jumping jacks. Ha!

iPhone again

After spending time with the Nokia N97 for over 3 months, I have to
fall back on using iPhone as my main phone. It's more compact and
easy to use. Every app I don't have to "relearn" to use it. The
Nokia was nice but each app was developed by a group of developers or
individual developer. The buttons and behaviour are not standardized
like the iPhone apps. That was the most frustrating part for me. I
have to remember the behviour of one app from another inside the N97.
Don't get me wrong, the Nokia N97 is a nice piece of mobile device.
It has longer battery life about 5 days between charge, good fast
mobile browser that websites recognize and render information
accordingly, bluetooth connection to sync with my Mac's iCal and
Contact, bluetooth access to my picture on the phone which has a high
quality 5M pixels camera, a touch screen that tilts, and a "self
destructive" setting that wipes the phone with a specific text
message. But the annoying of sometimes hanging, the Chinese pinyin
user interface, the English input prediction, the ever buggy wireless
connection for email app and wireless Internet web browser... All
those functions that I rely on mostly. The N97 has failed me. And
this is suppose to be an iPhone killer. Ummm....

Granted the iPhone has it short coming too. Namely, shorter battery
life. Need iTune with a USB to sync. Annoying. But when I am on the
move, I want the ease of use and not trying to debug each app I use.

O well, I tried getting away from using iPhone as my main one; but in
the end, I give up. I am using one again. And this time, I am using
an Apple endorsed "unlock" one. So no need to do all sorts of
jailbreaking and all. Eventually, Apple will put some extra code in
future iTune updates that might disable a jail-broken phone totally.
So now, I can update as I need to without the fear of "will it work
after update?"

Eating slowly

After today, I guess I will start a new campaign in China. Eat slowly
no matter how hungry you are.

I did a takeout lunch at iiit today. One of our regular lunch places
after a workout with our trainer. The curvy black object on top right
corner was a metal hook. I bit into it! I was hungry so I was
"wooofing" down my sandwich. Good thing! I spitted it out
immediately. I was at home so I couldn't call back and notify the
store; but I did email the store with this same picture. Ouch!

http://www.iiiit.cn/

how can you compete

with this promotion from Starhub, a broadband/Mobile service provider: http://www.starhub.com/promotions/broadband/99756.html

If one signs up for home broadband, local phone line and Mobile
broadband for SGD 81.32 (CAD 62.00) per month, the company will give
you a 32" LG Full HD TV!!!! Even for CAD 100.00 for all the services
still cheaper than in Canada!

Shimla

We are off to yet another A&D excellent adventure. This time a Hill
Station just north of New Delhi called Shimla, about an hour of flying
time. Here are some pics from this town: http://images.google.com/images?q=shimla%20india&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi
and here is the link about Shimla: http://www.shimlaindia.net/attractions/index.html

Sorry about the links not being "clickable". I mail this out rather
than signing into my blog site, C0mM!es you know.

Anyway, this will be fun - with snow. Yes, as if I have not seen
enough in Regina these last month or so.

The hotel we will stay there is called Oberoi Cecil. Here's the link: http://www.oberoihotels.com/oberoi_thececil/index.asp
Apparently, this is a five star hotel with exceptional service.
Will report more once I have the experience.