I'm in Hong Kong now. It's 3:22 AM Sunday morning. Days become nights and days become blurry in the haze of travelling half-way around the world. I'm travelling with mom and Elaine (sister). They are sleeping right now.
We left for Pearson around 9:15 PM on Sep. 24th. My uncle drove us to the airport. We checked our bags and waited for the boarding call. My feelings about the trip is mixed. The intent was to travel to Asia alone, or at least with a friend who was interested in going and finding out later why we went. But that changed because I was afraid to go alone and because all evidence suggests that I couldn't handle it on my own (language being the principle defficiency). I have to admit that I'm defficient in many ways but there's nothing like a trip with yourself to expose them to the light of day.
We travelled Economy class with Korean Air. Mom asked around and we eventually settled on these flights. A very nice flight. Cheap seats and beautiful flight attendants. That's all I need to say. Red-eye flight so we left Pearson at 11:50 PM Thursday and arrived in Seoul 1:10 AM Saturday. Mostly uneventful. You try and sleep, you eat and then you try and sleep some more. If it weren't for our hostesses I would prefer to wake up in Seoul and have no recollection of the trip. The girls wore a beige jacket over a beige skirt, teal blouse with a scarf tied at the neck. Very elegant. Some wore short sleeves some wore long sleeves, some wore pants, most had their hair tied back but one had her hair short and cropped. Quite a variety. However, they all had their hair accented with a hair clip that looks like the traditional chopsticks. I enjoyed it.
We got to Incheon International Airport at 1:10 AM (local time). We exited the plane and walked to Gate 21 which would take us to our next flight (only our next flight was 6 hours away). This was the perfect chance to catch up on some sleep. I slept maybe 2-3 hours on the flight. But in Incheon it was 1:10 PM (Toronto time) and I was wide awake. With so much time on our hands your instinct is to explore. There were phones, washrooms and closed shops at the airport, a free public internet hotspot and an information desk. Mom and I walked up and down this part of the airport once or twice saying hello to some of the people we met on the flight. With nothing else to do (and not sleepy at all) I got online to see how I could entertain myself. Logged into MSN Messenger and began conversations with Americo and then Martin. Americo was still at work (sucker!) but Martin Kim (is a guy whom I met at D-Link Networks a few years ago) was free. We kept in touch, he left for Seoul in 2007 looking for better work. Well, since I was in Seoul (technically Incheon) I decided to contact him. He was surprised to hear that I was in Seoul. It was like 3 AM at this point but 3AM wasn't so significant compared to the 2.5 years and thousands and thousands of miles between us.
I'm having an aside moment :) Litmus test. Friendship. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to get reacquainted, Martin and I. We jumped right in. He took off from his place in Seoul (I believe he said Non Hyeon) grabbed a taxi and travelled like 40 km to see me. Very cool. All I had to do was exit through immigration, fill out entering Korea form as well as a customs declaration form and then I was in the arrivals section of the airport waiting for Martin at McDonald's.
Anyway, Martin got to the aiport around 5 AM and we talked for a few hours. I was happy to see him. Martin, like myself is single with no attachments. So for him, as well as I, going out at 3 in the morning because a friend calls you up one day is an excellent way of getting to know someone and becoming reaquainted. I know, for me, I didn't feel quite so alone in Asia. We talked about work, women and life since D-Link. He's working for Alcatel-Lucent as a sales-engineer. It was great catching up. It was like old times. In fact, it didn't feel like time passed all that much (not that 2 years is a big deal). He was the same, I was the same, only the location has changed.
We talked til 7 AM and then I had to leave. I'm gonna try and fly back to Seoul during this trip. I know that Elaine and mom haven't expected this little turn of events but I feel that it would be personally an excellent option. A friday/saturday weekend would be ideal (for Martin as well as myself). We can hit some of the nightspots and see what Seoul has to offer. Martin says that I'm more interested in women than he remembers of me (we talked mostly geekspeak in Toronto). It's a part of our reality now. They change everything.
So mom, Elaine and I boarded KE603 bound for Hong Kong. 3 hours flight. We landed at 10:40 AM local time. I watched a movie on the flight that I didn't get a chance to finish. I'll have to download it when I get back to Toronto. It's called "The scam". A Korean film. We passed through immigration and then located our bags and met up with my uncle. My uncle drives an S500 Mercedes Benz. Boy was it smooth. We rode to Shatin (where my uncle, aunt and cousins live) and we got settled in my cousins flat. Had dimsum and then I had to crash. I was so tired. I really didn't sleep much on the flights and without sleeping at the stop-over I was a walking zombie. I slept for an hour or 2 and then got up for dinner with my uncle/aunt/cousin/mom/Elaine. Came back to the flat and crashed again. For most of Saturday it's been a blur.
Showing posts with label Hong Kong. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hong Kong. Show all posts
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Beijing - May 27 - May 31 - Pg1
When we got to Hong Kong and settled in, the first thing we did was travel to Kowloon to look for travel agencies that could book us a tour of Beijing. Since I'll be here for 3 weeks and travelling with my mom it would be good to take a tour of at least one other destination in China (other than Hong Kong).
Asian companies are kinda funny. We located a building that contained at least 5 travel agencies all on 2 floors. Why companies would choose to locate in an area that is in such close proximity is perplexing. You realize later that all companies do this because everything (or just about everything) is a commodity here. Here in Hong Kong the customer rules. The customer will shop for the best price. Price being principally the single most important factor in most transactions. Since an offering is never unique you can well find a better price somewhere else. To me this is kind of strange since time itself is limited. Why would I spend alot of time on something that might only be worth at least 5% (up to 45%) of the value of the commodity? The problem is in location. Here in Hong Kong an address (a street address) doesn't mean a whole lot. I searched for a book store at 299 Castle Peak Rd in Tsuen Wan. It is shop 46A-47A in a shopping centre called Tsuen Nam Plaza (?). I couldn't find it. I walked back and forth on Castle Peak Rd and couldn't find it. How do people find anything here? After spending almost 3 weeks here in Hong Kong I realized that people in most cases don't have a favourite shop and buy exclusively from them. And if your wandering around looking for a good price, what you find may be the best price at that moment, but you won't find that shop again after you make a comparison with someone else's price. That is why shopkeepers are all so pushy to make a sale. They know that once the customer leaves they are gone. So if you like something and you ask them what the price is ... you have consented to the protocol of full negotiation for the product. They get angry if your "just looking" and you ask them the price. And I can see why given what I wrote earlier. They wouldn't be able to make a living if every price for every commodity was somehow published openly for people to compare prices.
We woke up at 4 on Tuesday May 27th and got on a taxi to take us to a bus terminal to grab a bus to take us to the Airport. There are many ways of getting to the airport the bus being relatively cheap. We grabbed the N31 bus at 5 AM arriving at the airport around 5:50 AM ($20 HK). We boarded the plane at 8:15 AM and it took off at around 8:45 AM.
The plane trip took 3 hours and for most of the trip we flew above a haze of smog. I could be wrong but it didn't look like clouds as there was no definition in the view. As we neared Beijing the plane descended below the smog and we could see farmland. It was nice. Good ol' acres of squares lining the terrain. As we neared Beijing I could see buildings and markets and people quite clearly. I was amazed at how close the roads and people were to my vantage point. I wondered how close we were flying as I could distinctly see a road across my view and a bicycle riding up to the intersection. I was thinking this must be how someone arriving in the old Hong Kong airport must have been like. We landed fine and exited the plane onto the airstrip proper where there were waiting buses to take us to the terminal. We got to a terminal and then jumped onto a subway-like train which transported us to another terminal. Here we went through immigration and then jumped onto a waiting bus which started our tour.
Our first stop was to a shopping centre in Beijing. It was a building of 3-4 levels each selling different merchandise. The shops in the centre were organized like many Chinese shops are organized with square units each side by side with at least 2 retail reps waiting to serve you. We were there to grab some food. After a brief lunch the real tour began.
Over 5 days we visited countless sites full of history. These include: Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Ming Tombs, Great Wall, Beijing Hutong, Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, etc. Each one containing artefacts from it's long history as the capital of China. Our first stop being the Forbidden Palace you realize that this isn't an ordinary modern city. The scope is so different from modern cities. In Beijing, roads were not built for pedestrians. In the centre of Beijing was the emperor's palace and all the roads encircle it. Meaning major roads are rings which form squared circles around the palace as it's centre. Each ring is numbered and there are at least 6 rings. Ring 1 being the palace itself and Ring 2 being the first ring outside the palace. Ring 2 is a single road which contains 3-5 lanes in one direction (at most 6-10 lanes in total). The road has 3 lanes dedicated for cars and trucks and 2 lanes dedicated for bicycles and motorbikes. If the road described above also has what is like a collector's lane which allows a vehicle to exit the road (onto a collector) to make a right turn. All the major roads have these collectors. And all of these roads require you to exit through the collector to make a left turn. I'm not describing it very well here but it's similar to the pedestrian walking routes throughout the city of Hong Kong. If you've been to HK you know that pedestrians don't have the right of way. And since land is so scarce walking across the street means that you have to walk up a staircase onto a bridge which lets you cross the road. In like manner our bus in Beijing was required to exit the road onto the collector, turn right, make a U-turn, and then reenter the main road again. Logistically allowing cars to make right turns would slow traffic down to a crawl.
More later.
Asian companies are kinda funny. We located a building that contained at least 5 travel agencies all on 2 floors. Why companies would choose to locate in an area that is in such close proximity is perplexing. You realize later that all companies do this because everything (or just about everything) is a commodity here. Here in Hong Kong the customer rules. The customer will shop for the best price. Price being principally the single most important factor in most transactions. Since an offering is never unique you can well find a better price somewhere else. To me this is kind of strange since time itself is limited. Why would I spend alot of time on something that might only be worth at least 5% (up to 45%) of the value of the commodity? The problem is in location. Here in Hong Kong an address (a street address) doesn't mean a whole lot. I searched for a book store at 299 Castle Peak Rd in Tsuen Wan. It is shop 46A-47A in a shopping centre called Tsuen Nam Plaza (?). I couldn't find it. I walked back and forth on Castle Peak Rd and couldn't find it. How do people find anything here? After spending almost 3 weeks here in Hong Kong I realized that people in most cases don't have a favourite shop and buy exclusively from them. And if your wandering around looking for a good price, what you find may be the best price at that moment, but you won't find that shop again after you make a comparison with someone else's price. That is why shopkeepers are all so pushy to make a sale. They know that once the customer leaves they are gone. So if you like something and you ask them what the price is ... you have consented to the protocol of full negotiation for the product. They get angry if your "just looking" and you ask them the price. And I can see why given what I wrote earlier. They wouldn't be able to make a living if every price for every commodity was somehow published openly for people to compare prices.
We woke up at 4 on Tuesday May 27th and got on a taxi to take us to a bus terminal to grab a bus to take us to the Airport. There are many ways of getting to the airport the bus being relatively cheap. We grabbed the N31 bus at 5 AM arriving at the airport around 5:50 AM ($20 HK). We boarded the plane at 8:15 AM and it took off at around 8:45 AM.
The plane trip took 3 hours and for most of the trip we flew above a haze of smog. I could be wrong but it didn't look like clouds as there was no definition in the view. As we neared Beijing the plane descended below the smog and we could see farmland. It was nice. Good ol' acres of squares lining the terrain. As we neared Beijing I could see buildings and markets and people quite clearly. I was amazed at how close the roads and people were to my vantage point. I wondered how close we were flying as I could distinctly see a road across my view and a bicycle riding up to the intersection. I was thinking this must be how someone arriving in the old Hong Kong airport must have been like. We landed fine and exited the plane onto the airstrip proper where there were waiting buses to take us to the terminal. We got to a terminal and then jumped onto a subway-like train which transported us to another terminal. Here we went through immigration and then jumped onto a waiting bus which started our tour.
Our first stop was to a shopping centre in Beijing. It was a building of 3-4 levels each selling different merchandise. The shops in the centre were organized like many Chinese shops are organized with square units each side by side with at least 2 retail reps waiting to serve you. We were there to grab some food. After a brief lunch the real tour began.
Over 5 days we visited countless sites full of history. These include: Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Ming Tombs, Great Wall, Beijing Hutong, Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, etc. Each one containing artefacts from it's long history as the capital of China. Our first stop being the Forbidden Palace you realize that this isn't an ordinary modern city. The scope is so different from modern cities. In Beijing, roads were not built for pedestrians. In the centre of Beijing was the emperor's palace and all the roads encircle it. Meaning major roads are rings which form squared circles around the palace as it's centre. Each ring is numbered and there are at least 6 rings. Ring 1 being the palace itself and Ring 2 being the first ring outside the palace. Ring 2 is a single road which contains 3-5 lanes in one direction (at most 6-10 lanes in total). The road has 3 lanes dedicated for cars and trucks and 2 lanes dedicated for bicycles and motorbikes. If the road described above also has what is like a collector's lane which allows a vehicle to exit the road (onto a collector) to make a right turn. All the major roads have these collectors. And all of these roads require you to exit through the collector to make a left turn. I'm not describing it very well here but it's similar to the pedestrian walking routes throughout the city of Hong Kong. If you've been to HK you know that pedestrians don't have the right of way. And since land is so scarce walking across the street means that you have to walk up a staircase onto a bridge which lets you cross the road. In like manner our bus in Beijing was required to exit the road onto the collector, turn right, make a U-turn, and then reenter the main road again. Logistically allowing cars to make right turns would slow traffic down to a crawl.
More later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)