cdrum

Over the weekend I finally got around to uploading my photos from Chicago and Seattle (that I took in October of this year.)

I was lazy and didn’t put any captions, but pictures speak a thousand words, right?

Chicago

Seattle

Enjoy. I’ve got Xiamen photos to upload at some point…

This post is several days late. Sorry.

I went to Shanghai on Sunday (Nov. 11) to attend a BCP (that’s Business Continuity Planning, for the 99.99999% of you who don’t know) conference. The conference lasted 2 days (Monday and Tuesday). Normally I’m not a huge fan of Shanghai, primarily for two reasons:

1. Shanghai people are generally rude. At least, more rude than Beijingers.
2. Shanghai is unacceptably expensive. We’re talking approaching prices you’d pay in Hong Kong or even Tokyo for a beer. (Maybe I just go to the wrong places…)

But I have nothing against the city itself (in terms of buildings, layout, etc.). But the airport… My god….
Hong Qiao is a joke

I’ve been to Shanghai 3 times. 5 of the 6 legs I went through Hong Qiao airport (the old one that is now pretty much dedicated to domestic flights). I flew out of Pudong (the new, International Airport) once. (An aside about Pudong: Reminds me of a bigger Beijing Airport Terminal 2 – large, grey, baron)

The main thing I don’t like about Hong Qiao (and I can’t comment on Pudong as I never arrived at Pudong) is the taxi queue. I arrive around 10pm or so Sunday night, and this is what I was greeted by:

That’s an overflowing taxi queue. This airport has one taxi queue. One.

It took 40 minutes to get through this dang thing. (Beijing’s airport had a disaster Taxi queue up until last year sometime when they overhauled it. They now split it into 3 or 4 queues, it moves much faster.)

God… 40 minutes to wait for a freaken taxi. Meanwhile, you’re crowded into this queue, people are smoking all over the place- you can’t breath….

“Enjoying Shanghai”

Shanghai was ok…

Getting Back

I had a 9pm flight Tuesday night back to Beijing. I, being paranoid about missing flights, managed to get to the airport around 7:15pm. I really didn’t want to wait for almost 2 hours so I tried to change my ticket to an earlier one. Lucky for me, there’s a new partnership with the 5 major airlines that fly between Beijing and Shanghai that makes it easy to switch flights, check in, claim baggage, etc. That’s the theory any way.

After being told to go to 4 different counters, I managed to get to a counter where somebody would help me. Long boreing story short, I got on a 7:55 pm flight. Sweet!

Whoa there son, slow down for a moment!

I got on a Hainan Airlines flight. I’ve never been on a Hainan airlines flight. These guys 2 years ago added a multiple-times-a-week direct flight Beijing to Budapest, so they must be legit, no?

Chinglish Prevails even at 30,000 feet

I rarely look at the emergency evacuation brochure as probably if we’d every need to use it, we’d be dead already. But for some reason, I decided to check it out. I just had to take a picture:

Ok, it’s a 737-800. And the title of this brochure is “Just In Case”. As my dutch friend said, this is the “Just In Case Special Edition of the 737-800″. Clever…

Airplane Food is Good!

Normally I don’t complain about airplane food. It’s not supposed to be gourmet. It’s supposed to take care of your hunger. Now, with this being an 8pm flight, I was expecting a somewhat-proper meal. Hey, I got on on my flight to shanghai on Air China… This is what they served:

Some grape tomatoes, a roll, a muffin, and pickled veggies (with 2 slices of some meat on top).

Needless to say I was still hungry… Oh, and to make matters worse, they don’t have beer on this flight. grrr.

Sick People Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Fly

And baby’s too! But I didn’t have any baby problems this time around. No no, it was much worse. My plane had a considerable number of, what I think were Eastern Europeans (or maybe East-Central?) – I couldn’t decipher what language they were speaking… Any way…

I was way in the back – I mean, the last seat. Right in front of the aft restroom and galley. One of these foreign guys was quite sick – Just after take off, he went to the restroom, and his friends, after a while, went to check on him. He eventually emerged, but he looked like shit. They had him sit on the other side of the aisle from me due to the close proximity to the restroom. I thought “crap…”.

Most of the flight, he looked o.k…. That changed as we started to descend. Minutes from touching ground, we hit a little bit of turbulence and he started shifting in his seat a lot. Eventually he decided to run to the restroom – at this point, the fasten your seat belts light was on, so of course the flight attendants went a bit nuts but eventually let him get into the restroom (thank you!). Moments later, he was vomiting with a lot of emotion (this is hard to explain in words… let’s just say most of the plane could hear!).

We touched down… On taxiing to the gate, he emerged from the restroom and sat in his seat. There was no further excitement from him.

I wonder what was wrong with him… Did he drink too much? Was it food poisoning? I just hope that won’t happen again – I consider myself lucky though as I wasn’t used as a projectile vomit target…

My holiday has begun. I left Beijing on Monday at 9am or so (well, actually our flight was delayed due to impenitence in the control tower) . I was pleasantly surprised to experience a super quick checking/immigration/security process – from taxi to lounge in under 15 minutes.

Luckily, the delay didn’t cause a problem in Tokyo for the connection.

I just arrived at Minneapolis airport and am waiting for my connecting flight to Chicago.

The flight from Tokyo was pretty crappy. Here’s why:

Alcohol not FREE

I fly Northwest, so as of sometime last year, no more free alcohol on any Intl flight to/from Japan. (That’s pretty much all their Asian routes.) On top of that, I totally forgot and didn’t change any money to USD or Yen – I only had RMB – and of course the flight from Tokyo to the U.S. only accepts Yen or USD. damn. Had to do it sober.

The negatives of an exit row seat

I normally get exit seats as they have lots of leg room. See this page for the seat map. My seat was 35B. So, the guy in 36A would often slip in between me and the door so he wouldn’t disturb his neighbors in 36B and C. Well genius, you disturbed me.

Oh, and the seat felt a bit slanted – i.e. not totally flat. So it was quite uncomfortable – that on top of the already slightly narrow design due to the tray table being located in the arm rest.

The stupid thing is, I sat in this seat once before (last year sometime) and experience similar shortcomings. I told myself never again. What did I do? I chose the dang seat again. So, word to the wise – don’t sit in that seat!

Asshole neighbors

The guy next to me in 35C was an American, mid to late 60′s. Real piece of work. That means, he’s annoying. Big time. You see, I decided to be social this time, as I usually sit in my seat and not say a word because I hate giving the whole “why I live in China story”. But, when he came to sit down (he was the last one on the plane as his connecting flight from Bangkok to Tokyo was late), he seemed like a nice guy, so I said”Hello”.

Hah. I learned my lesson. He immediately said “Hey, you’re a big guy, I don’t want to share my seat with ya – make sure you stay on your side.”. O.k., he said it in a slightly positive way, but, I’m sorry… You just don’t say shit like that. Period. So, I decided not to say a word to him the rest of the flight. Asshole.

As this was an exit row, the flight attendants have a bench to sit at during take off and landings. Well, Mr. A-Hole was pleasant to them, talking about what their travel schedules were, how long they’ve been with the airlines, etc.. You know, useless conversation points. He then proceeded to mention to them, in a comical way, what he told me about staying to my side of the seat. This guy’s a freaken comedian. I looked at him, smiled, then rolled my eyes and went back to watching whatever was on my ipod.

For the record, when he was asleep, I noticed he encroached on my side a few times. At that point, he reminded me of Senator Craig – you know the gay Senator (who claims he wasn’t propositioning the undercover police officer, and that no, he isn’t gay), coincidently in a men’s room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the very airport we were flying to. Must be something in the water?

Any way, from the eavesdropping I did, he apparently travels to Bangkok twice a year to see “friends”.  Sure… I bet he’s a sex tourist, probably one who targets underage lady-boys.  Sicko.

Done with that crap, for now…

Any way, my next flight is first class – free upgrade.  But, it’s only an hour, so…

Went with some friends to Qingdao this past weekend for the opening of the Annual Qingdao Beer Festival.

I have pictures on my flickr site, here’s the link .  Saturday, the day we went to the festival, rained heavily all day.  It sucked.  Beer was expensive.  Food sucked.  Entertainment sucked.  The festival was a “miss”.

The 3RMB bags of Tsingtao, however, now that is what makes Qingdao worth it!  Oh yeah, the beaches, too.  Qingdao was a “hit”.

Wow, that was a lame-ass title.

A special “Thank You” goes out to Ms. Foo for handling the tickets for our trip to Qingdao. The true master herself in planning for budget travel has succeeded once again! What, did you really think our sorry butts would actually handle the logistics ourselves? I didn’t think so…

Train ticket and plane ticket together, including tax, comes to CNY 808. That’s a little over US$100.

The hostel we’re thinking of staying at is also quite cheap – a double room is CNY 160. Nice.

My October trip is confirmed. I’m leaving on the 8th, first stop is Orlando, Fl.  There for a week, then swinging up to New York City for 3 days or so.  Then off to Austin, TX.  There for a week.  Then back to Beijing.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t add Seattle to this trip as I wanted to.  Hopefully next time.

For those of you interested…

• Wednesday, August 23 – Late evening flight to Lombok, via Singapore
• Monday, August 28 – Fly back to Singapore
• Wednesday, August 30 – Evening flight back to Beijing
• Thursday, August 31 – Early Morning arrive in Beijing
• Sunday, September 3 – Morning flight to Detroit, via Narita and LAX
• Wednesday, September 13 – Early flight to Austin, TX
• Wednesday, September 20 – Morning flight to Portland, OR
• Saturday, September 23 – Afternoon flight back to Beijing, via Narita

I’ll try to post during my trips.  While in Lombok, I may not have much access to the Internet.

Lombok?! Where’s that? Lombok is an island due East of Bali, in Indonesia. It is considered the “un-spoiled Bali” due to its similar attributes to Bali, yet considerably a lower level of tourists.

Melanie and I have booked airfare on Singapore Airlines, and their regional carrier Silk Air.  (See Silk Air’s info on Lombok).  We are now looking into options for lodging.

Will leave Beijing late evening, Wednesday, August 23, and return to Beijing early monring, Thursday, August 31. 4 days in Lombok, 2 in Singapore on the way back to Beijing.

It’s been a while since my last post. The road is fixed, took a bit longer than 3 days, but still quick!

I am celebrating Chinese New Year in Singapore with Melanie and her family/friends. I got ~S$ 140 in red packets (hong bao). (That’s about 700 RMB).

Nice!

Enjoying the food and clean air, will write in a few days.

This was a busy weekend for me. No, I didn’t go into work.

Cheap Flights

I decided to finally make a trip home for Christmas on my own dime (the previous 3 times I went to the US were for business trips).

Northwest is having a deal to fly from China to Washington DC (any of the 3 area airports) for RMB 5500 (~US$ 679), round trip. Not bad!

So, Melanie and I will be flying to Baltimore on the 22nd of December. We return to Beijing on the 29th, we haven’t decided what we will do once we are there – we might make a trip to Detroit or some place else. Will certainly visit DC.

Aiyi

This weekend, I took another step of being here long term. I (finally) got an Aiyi. An Aiyi is a maid. She will come twice a week from now on. She did the initial clean yesterday, Sunday. When I returned home, I didn’t think I was at my place! Once thing that did tick me off though, and it is pretty much my fault, my DVDs are no longer in alphabetical order. Shit.