what a sight

I was on the roof of the Macau APT tonight with mom and dad. I realized what a monstrosity Hotel Grand Lisboa was! Look compared to the apartment complexes next to it. Can you image the residents of the apartments facing this thing at night? All the flashing neon lights in front of you! Yikes.

BTW, I took this with a Samsung Galaxy S mobile phone. It's a geek phone and I am growing to fond of it. Compared to the iPhone 4, I am "cord free"!!!! And it's half the thickness of the iPhone 4. And.... It's lighter! Much lighter!!!! Right now, I am getting all my emails on all the accounts there. I am downloading my podcasts directly from the webpage to the Beyond, a podcast player from this Samsung phone.

BTW, this phone is Android-based. It by Google. The OS is getting mature. Scary though is the packaging from inside out looked exactly like iPhone 4 packaging. Even the screen layout, the colour of the icons for each program.

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view

It meant to be a very nice pic; when I looked across, the sky was clear and the view was so sharp. Too bad the iPhone 3G S has a "crappy" sensor. The iPhone 4 would have taken very nice image for sure.

The bridge was the second bridge connecting Macau and the Cotai Strip. This bridge was just next to the Macau Ferry Terminal.

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done

Finally, we are ready for business! Why? I got the officially endorsed training required to do the tax reporting online and issuing official tax receipts.

Just want to share the location.

All Offici@l offices were so huge that they took up acres of valuable lands - no matter how poor a pr0 V!nce was. To do this important thing, here was the location. An industrial small complex with cheap big signs and printed characters on the wall announcing the training room. That's for ALL busine$$e$ on this side of the city. The other one was way out on an outer island where most taxi drivers were from.

The second picture with the back of the white van parked. To the right of it was where I picked up all my "goodies" to.

What an operation!

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A380

Saw this in Shanghai Pudong airport yesterday on my way out. Look, an A380!!! Wow... That many passengers between Emirates and Shanghai!!

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collection

I have to carry a keychain so to speak to manage every single account and sub-account with HSxC. And even within a company, I cannot manage anything that is NOT my name; that is a company credit card issued to another name. I have to get another fob issued to that person. Seriously.

Look at the site comparison too. The HxBC is just totally unorganized and in your face advertising with the red colour. And then you look at the SCB, so nice and calming. And the login panel was exactly where you are expected, top left corner where it is prominent. And I don't need to carry any FOB around. Account is tied in with your mobile number. Any transaction that needs to be done, an almost instant SMS with a one-time code is sent to the mobile. I enter it. Transaction through, done.

And the Summary for the account was the first thing I see once logged into the SCB site compared to HxBC that has more advertising and you have to hunt for the most important thing a user wants to know - how much do I have!

Switching is not far from me here I think.

pilgrimage

Receiving payments from clients is the primary goal of a company. We are getting close. One last step to.

Because there are so many "leakage" from t@X rep0t!n-G here within the H@rm0ni-o-U$ country, better process is needed. I am going to be trained on operating a pre-90's spec desktop machine (a requirement) with local language this coming week. This machine will allow me to issue official tax receipts to collect payments and at the same time being tracked of my honesty. Every company has to do it. No escape.

For the entire population of 23 millions people, there are only two locations that service u$. One was in the outer island to the North-Ea$t and the one $outh-West in town. The map was the $outh-West one I am heading.... for the 3rd time. It is not that far; the closest subway to my destination is about 1.5K away. Taxi through and through. 21 minutes? Nope.. More like 45 minutes to an hour due to our ever increasing consumptive power of gas powered 4-wheelers of all kinds. The more expensive, the better ;-)

After the map, the$e are the 3-page !nstructi0n$ for me.

The first page was the process flow in obtaining the machine$. Ye$, machine$. Basically !t wa$ a two-$tep proce$$. Fir$t, I needed to report to the location to pay for the machine$ and training. The two other $heet$ were my $hopping li$t which I selected my item$ and paid for them - Mandatory for some item$. Then I headed home. Patiently waiting for the Le@der$ calling me back for a $econd time to attend the training.

If I were to use my own desktop computer for thi$, I would have carry my box (desktop) to the reporting centre during my first visit. The technician checked out if the computer and the operating system would be compatible. Yes, the spec were: 1) Desktop with RS-232 port and a parallel port and 2) valid copy of Chinese version of MS operating system. Notice, RS-232 port and a parallel port, these were phased out by other better technologies since the mid 90's. Then on my second visit, I have to carry back the same desktop for the technician to install the tax software. I lack my sessions with my PT so I opted for a new set of everything.

For my first visit to the reporting centre, I spent:
- tax terminal to record my issuing through the RS-232 port: 1,580
- an HP desktop specifically for the tax software talking to the terminal and to print: 3,380
- the dot matrix machine to print the official tax receipts: 3,580 (cost more than a desktop :-( )
- software to export the invoicing details to excel: 580 (the comment section on that line said, eventually, the tax department will require this detail reporting and it's great for your accountant. OK)
- practice tax receipts: 10.00 ( the official blank tax receipts will have to be purchased at the tax bureau)
- ink for printer: 180.00

My final spending for the reporting: RMB 9,300.00 or so plus my round trip taxi rides of about RMB 120.00.

Wednesday visit for my training, I will have to spend more. I need to get a car to haul all the computer equipment home by myself. I am looking at about RMB 400.00

bulllet train

Was I doing a "Fast-pass matching" in Convesant term looking at the heading from Bl00M beeeerg news online article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-02/beijing-shanghai-bullet-train-targets-flyers-fed-up-with-delays.html   I would say, "Yes, I did".  What the term "Fast-pass matching" is to form your opinion about a person or a thing in less than 5 seconds even though you might not know the whole story.  This attitude causes conflict and potential of creating value.  

In this instance, this article, I am not sure I failed per se.  The article editor seems to be a Westerner living in Asia, I think he is based in HKG.  

Anyway, what I saw was a cursory reporting and lack insights.  Maybe because the article is only related to finance hence other "issues" are not of concern.  Ah.. I see how I am moving up in the Conversation Meter now...  

Couple points I like to add to this article are:

IMHO, the speed slow down is not directly proportion to the affordability of the ticket for the public.  Rather, the party secretary in charge of the railroad was arrested for bribery associated to railroad expansion at the princely sum of 100 million RMB.  Immediately after that, the entire nation railroad network was under "safety check".  Preliminary said "ok".  The speed slow down could have been due to that.  Ripping the rail lines up and fix them properly?  Ummm.....  Vibration from passing trains can do a lot of shaking.  Overtime.......  you can draw the pictures.  So hurry come try the new train now!!!

Since the start of the new class of train, the schedules for "D" class and "T" class of services were slowly eliminated.  Migrant workers just cannot afford the new train ticket pricing.  To build a consensus, have to provide a "showing" of FOR the people.  

Started on June 1, everyone who buys a train ticket must show valid IDs.  23 types were endorsed.  Before, WE the Westerner just like everyone else here can just walk up and purchase ticket.  I was so amazed in March that we could just walked up to an automatic ticket boot and get bullet train tickets in less than 2 minutes.  No waiting time, no long lines, fast and convenient.  Then, being a suspicious A$$ H0   le that I was I wondered about flow tracking - the human kind.  It was a big hole.  Sure enough, we now have.  Everyone must carry ID and the tickets are printed like airline tickets here - name = ID number = photo.  Opppsss... I should not have think it out so loud.  On the surface, it was to fight ticket scalpers and fake tickets.  That was for sure, I agree but the bigger picture was "intelligent collection" ;-)   O right, for us Westerner we need to call in advance to book our tickets and then walk up to the ticket counters to pay and pick them up.  Convenient huh? 

Over the last few months, I see more of the tightening rather than relaxing.  On the surface, there were some forms of that but underneath that layer, more restrictions.  This type of policy I can understand, a vast country with everyone on micro-blogging, mobile SMS messages and a still innocent thinking, someone needs to control the message flow.  I don't fault the policy.  This country is going through a transition culturally, technologically and morally.  Let see how things shake out.