Korea after 10 years

First of all, my apologies to those who kept coming back and found no new postings for quite a while. I never thought I would be saying this, but I was busy!!! Really really busy - attending meetings, delivering trainings, customer visits, etc..

In addition, I have this individual(s) who takes on different names placing seemingly innocent comments with links to pornographic sites. To that person(s) - FUCK YOU!!. I will continue to reject your comments.

The last time I was in Korea, I landed at Kimpo airport and that was about than 10 years ago. This time, i landed at Incheon airport and it was so FAR from Seoul. My trip did not get off to a good start. My flight from KL was delayed a couple of hours, resulting in me missing my connection at HK (I flew Cathay Pacific). At HK, CP offered to route all those Korean bound passengers to either Bangkok or Manila and hence to Incheon. Of course I rejected that!! You think I have not have enough travel on an airplane??Anyway, after a couple of hours, they managed to get me a seat on another CP flight to Incheon, landing after 10pm.

That's when it got worse for me- I had this throbbing pain at the base of my left big toe. I thought that I may have hit something in the plane. Next day it got worse, putting paid to my plans to visit DMZ. Damn!!! By Monday, I was hobbling to work. I had to politely decline the distributor's offer of a sumptuous seafood dinner and opted to see a doctor. It's GOUT, the doc declared. He gave me a 6 days supply of pain killers and something supposedly for gout. I went on a starvation diet, missing 5 dinners and 3 lunches during the first 7 days. By the end of the first week (7 days later), the swelling had subsided enough to enable me to walk almost normally (no more limping).

The second week, I relocated my work location to Suwon, our office. My counterpart made me offers which I found difficult to refuse - authentic Korean fare. To hell with my gout. I am going to enjoy the food in Korea while I can and get the gout fixed when I am back in KL. Can't say that I regret doing that. Food was great. You need to see that on my facebook.

For some strange reasons, my mind started to play tricks on me language wise.

Maybe it was because I had managed a team of Japanese for some time in the past,. I have this habit of saying - chotto matte  - just a moment please. At least that's what it means in Japanese. NEVER, I repeat - NEVER say that in Korea. In Korean, it means - fuck you!! Jeez!! No wonder I get strange looks from the engineers of the first week.

In my room, I always had the TV on even as I was online, surfng the net. And every so often, I heard an ad for HAND COOKED Tyres. This caught my attention and I looked at the TV.. It was for Hankook tyres.

At least I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Despite the gout flare up.

Kamza Hamnida Sung Han

Really Shanghaied this time

A short trip to Shanghai to deliver yet another training to our engineers. Nothing much out of the ordinary. Got a chance to meet up with a whole bunch of people whom I have not seen for many years (mostly from USA). Like Chas and Steve Beer. Sad to hear that John Stanfield had just passed away.

Training was smooth and completed on time.

As usual - have meals with a few close colleagues. The restaurant we went to was next to Xintiandi (new heaven and earth). Food was okay. This is a tourist trap and prices can be exhorbitant!! The prices above are in renminbi.

Coming back to KL was a bummer for the day!!

First - the taxi had a puncture about 7km from the airport. The driver wanted to limp his taxi to the airport (very near only he says) until we could smell smoke from the tyre as it just burnt from running without air.I am pretty sure his rim is a goner. His spare was not maintained and could not be used. So he called his friend from the airport to come around to send me to the airport.

Then when we arrived in KLIA, I waited for 45 minutes and then confirmed with the luggage attendant that no more bags were coming out. Yup!! My bag had gone missing!! Damn it!! Went to the lost and found to make a report. A few calls on the walkie talkie and they tell me my bag was found - happily going round and round in an adjoining carousel.

Haiz!

Getting busier now

Wow! It's been 3 weeks since I made any posting!!

Was making preparations to deliver an engineer training in Shanghai for the week of 15th March. Then out of the blue, the Singapore training center was desperate for help for the week of 8th March to deliver 2 customer operational trainings. Apparently, the trainer from India was not able to make it due to passport and visa problems. C'mon, it's a Friday and you want me to deliver a training on Monday? Blimey!! Well, I relented and ended up in Singapore in the week where they had a furniture fair and an IT fair in the same week

What that did was to send hotel room rates soaring. But even at higher prices, all my favourite hotels were fully booked. So I had to make do with the one in Chinatown which normally charged us S$160, but was charging S$260 for the duration of my stay. Luckily this is all on company expense and not my own.

The long and short of it was that I delivered 3 days of chemstation training to 6 Singapore customers. 3 more who were supposed to turn up did not - 2 from Pakistan and one more local who had conjunctivitis.

And then there was 2 more days of LC maintenance and troubleshooting class. This time with 9 customers - 6 from India and 3 locals.

This trip, made the acquaintance of 2 new colleagues in the call center. Sad to say, I lost one in the region. He said that his love affair with the company ended that Friday afternoon. I hope he gets around to differentiating between work and personal relationship. Don't blame him though, I had gone through the same turmoil more than 15 years ago.

I went back home on Friday evening and then was Shanghaied on Sunday.

Sigh!

Shanghai for more than 2 weeks!!

This January trip to Shanghai had essentailly 2 objectives

- get trained as a trainer for one of our support products (RA) and

- to deliver a training on another product because the original trainer could not be re-scheduled.

Because of the train the trainer sessions, I arrived on a Thursday to help the trainer get the class and labs setup. In the end, since most of the setup was network related, there was not much I could help with as only 1 of 2 trainers from Colorado turned up. The other one had to abort at the last minute due to burst water pipes in his house (extreme cold winters does that). Rick had only one hardisk with all the necessary labs installed, so I couldn't help him.

In any case, the training went well, despite many gremlins showing up in the lab. DHCP addresses were supposed to be leased for 7 days, but somehow in the lab, the moment you disconnect, you get a new IP address. Perplexing and challenging!!

There was a GC class running in the next room and both Rick and I were invited to their graduation dinner. Most of those students in the GC class were going to be my students during my last week in Shanghai!

During the first weekend, Mao (aka referred to as Chairman Mao for those who know him) took me to the highest bottle opener in the world - the Shanghai World Financial center (SWFC). You had to pay RMB150 per person to go all the way to the 100th floor to view Pudong and it's surroundings. Unfortunately for us, the day was foggy and you really don't get a good view. In fact, Shanghai seems to be shrouded in perpetual fog during the days I was there. I was the 1,984,201 visitor up to the 100th floor. For sure, SWFC is really high. Even the JinMao building and the Oriental Pearl Tower nearby is looked down on - literally. The picture above is what you can expect if the day was clear! One thing I noticed was that due to the expected high number of foreign tourists who goes up the SWFC, most of the girls manning the lifts and customer areas were young and pleasant on the eyes.

The training i delivered was also challenging as many of the instruments are badly maintained. Damn!!! But I managed to deliver what was required and had the class graduation dinner nearby.

As usual, I get to renew my friendship with many people in the factory. There was Lily, who is the GC trainer, Helen, our training admin in Shanghai and of course my Niang.

I am coming again in March!!

Shanghaied in Jan 2010

It's winter.... and not really a good time to be travelling in the Northern hemisphere! Just had about 2 weeks in London and Paris with relatively mild weather (except for 2 days of snow). So when I was monitoring the weather in Shanghai before my travels, i was getting a little bit concerned as the average temperatures was a few degrees below what we had experienced in Europe. On the morning that I landed n Pudong, it was -5 deg C!! Bloody negative 5 degrees C!! Oh oh... Looks like I am in for a cold stay.

(I was staying at the Holiday Inn Express, JinQiao - pretty economical)

But it sure looks like wherever I travel, I bring the sun with me. When I was in Shanghai a few months ago, the whole week I was here, the weather was warmer than expected. When I left, it turned cold again. Same thing in London and Paris. Heh heh heh. So today, Saturday, I was going around Shanghai with just a short sleeved tee, a sweater over that and a jacket just in case.

I promised EC to check out Longchamps prices to see if it is worthwhile to buy from Shanghai.

(The station at Jufeng Road)

So I took the metro (Shanghai rail transit) from Jufeng Road station (line no.6) to East Nanjing Road station (line no.2). Surfing the net, it shows that there is an outlet for Longchamps at West Nanjing Road. I forgot to check the address - it was at 1618, West Nanjing Road!!

So in my leisurely walk from East Nanjing Road to 1618, West Nanjing Road, I almost cramped up my legs!

(a new shop opening on Nanjing Zhong Lu)

Which idiot in Shanghai go and restart the numbers when you cross from East Nanjing Road to Central Nanjing Road to West Nanjing Road?

(A L'Oreal promotion booth outside one of the bigger shopping complexes)

I did not realize this until I crossed the street from Central Nanjing road to West Nanjing Road and saw that the addresses restarted from 2!! Shit!! That walk was longer than our walk from Crowne Plaza in Republique place to Notre Dame in Paris. And that was a pretty long walk too.

The walk was educational to some extent as I normally associated only Central Nanjing Road (Nanjing Zhong Lu) as the shopping area.

(There is a Madame Tussaud's near the beginning of West Nanjing Road!)

That's sort of like Orchard Road on a smaller length.

(Many trees are fully wrapped in gold foil!!?? Why??)

I did not realize that Nanjing Road stretched so far. I have travelled and visited places on West Nanjing Road many times without realizing where I was previously.

The whole stretch of Nanjing Road from East to West is much longer than Oxford Street in London and

(This Marks & Spencer outlet is bigger than any M&S in Malaysia)

have almost all the branded names setup along the way. If you want an idea how affluent the Chinese have become in general and Shanghainese in particular, you can more or less tell from the kind of showrooms that you can see. For example, I saw this Ferrari/ Maserati showroom across from the Porche and Mercedes showroom. This is on the ground floor of the J W Marriot hotel.

You have LV and Prada in one of the up market malls.

(and you do get garish decoration - for Xmas??)

And when I reached my destination - Shanghai Jiuguang Dept Store - it was like deja vu!! The layout was very similar to that of Galleries LaFayette in Paris where we bought a bunch of LongChamps. EC even remembers that there was a Tiffany & Co at the entrance. Trust that girl to know where all the expen$ive places are. Despite a 30% discount, the prices are still higher than in Paris. As the sales lady told me - imported mah..

Just outside, stalls have been setup to sell Chinese New Year delicacies.

(Seems like the shopping mall has a similarly idea as mine. First dress up the Xmas tree for Christmas, then redecorate it for Chinese New Year)!!

I am still wondering if this is a waxed pig or a waxed dog?? Looks about the same size.

Luckily next to the LongChamps store was the JingAn Temple Station (line no.2) so I did not have to retrace my steps to the next Metro station.

On the way back to the hotel, I saw this peddler selling a local vegetable/meat burger. I wasn't hungry, so I did not try this. But his customers look like they like it quite a bit.

Oh!! Anyone hasn't seen the limited edition LongChamp Le Pileage?? It has the Eiffel Tower on the side!!

Shanghai !! Oh Shanghai!!

I was in Shanghai during the last week of November - for work, not pleasure. On the day I was supposed to leave, I heard that Elaine C's brother was tested positive for H1N1 and he was just back from Shanghai!! Not wanting to take any chances of disrupting my plans for the end of the year, I wore a mask all the way from Kuala Lumpur to Shanghai. I only removed the mask after dinner and when I was back in my hotel room. Call me paranoid, but better to be safe than sorry. I had enough masks to last me 2 weeks!

The trip was a training trip to learn up a new instruments that we were introducing. I was on a train-the-trainer as I had committed to deliver the training in March next year. There was this girl that I have known since she was knee high to a grasshopper (okay okay - since she was a baby). She is married now and stays in Shanghai with her mum and 2 kids. Charmaine's hubby works in another province and is home only on weekends (i.e. a weekend husband). The reason they stay in Shanghai is because that province does not have an International school for the kids.

Life is not too bad for Charmaine. She got her driver to pick me up from the hotel, went to her apartment for dinner and then had the driver send me back. 2 weeks before my visit, her Malaysian cousins visited her too and spruced up the place with a lot of live flowers and plants.

It must have been at least 2 years since my last visit to the factory in Shanghai. There were some new faces and a whole bunch of old ones. I am glad they still remembered me. At one time, there were 4 of my previous reports in the same room. It just goes to show that organizational relationships can and will change with time. I also managed to FINALLY meet up with another lady who helps me in my work. Pham - if you are reading this and you want to know who is Helen Sun and what she looks like - tah dah!!!

And Mark P. was in Shanghai a few days earlier than me - conducting interviews for Khoo WK's replacement.

Last but not least - I managed to meet up with my "niang" on the first day before she disappeared to Beijing. Niang means mum in Chinese. How did this lady become my niang? It happened about 2.5 years ago when both of us were on a high achiever trip sponsored by the company. She had brought her daughter along for the cruise from Singapore to Phuket and back and her daughter just took an instant liking to me and stuck to me throughout the trip..

That's how I got a "niang" much younger than me!!

One last comment - Shanghai is not a destination you want to go to now. Most of the tourist spots are under going renovations in preparations for EXPO 2010 which will happen from May 2010. The bund is a mess!! The old temple complex next to the Yu Yuan gardens has half the shops closed for renovations. Even the famous Nanxiang Xiao Loong Bao has half it's capacity as they work on upgrading the restaurant.

Be fore-warned!

SAPK meet in Singapore

Just about a week or so after my last visit to Singapore, I found myself there again for a couple of days of management meetings. I have just been transferred back to the Asia Pacific operations and this was a good forum for me to update myself on the who's who in SAPK.

First observation - while there were some new faces, most of the others that I knew from 2 years ago were still there. Admittedly some were in different positions.

Second observation - things has gotten a lot more complicated in the 2 years since I left AP operationally. Obviously we have gotten more breadth in terms of instrumentation. We also have a lot more processes in place - with more to come. One of the senior managers put this into perspective - we just love acronyms and processes!!

Obviously, I cannot blog about the meeting. I am just glad for the opportunity to reconnect with the people that I knew and the people that I need to work with in my current role.

Cheers!!

Missed me??? part 2

So what else was happening while I was in Singapore?

Coincidentally, Elaine C was also in Singapore at the weekend that I was there. An ex colleague from (Singapore)logistics was having his wedding dinner on Saturday night and many of those who had worked with him in logistics were invited (but not me, since I was not really working closely with him). Elaine was supposed to stay with her ex colleague from Thailand. I offered her and another friend CM to stay with me and both of them accepted since the hotel I was staying in was a lot more central. And it would have been a lot more luxurious and comfortable. In addition, we could also explore Singapore together.

On Sunday, we went to St Andrews Cathedral for Church service. I like the cross that was made of a couple of tree branches. The morning sun caused an effect like a bird was flying across the cross.

Elaine has an aunt who stays in Bishan and we also visited her. She asked us to join her for dinner and we had that at the hawker center in Bishan. There was this stall that had between 15 to 20 people queueing for it's chicken rice/porridge. And all the other stalls neighboring it was relatively empty - essentially swatting flies!. CM just had to find out if the chicken rice was really that great. Honestly..... it wasn't!! Don't understand the fascination of Singaporeans for that chicken rice!.

But the main reason for my presence in Singapore was to help the local training center setup the instruments again after they had been relocated from NUS. The gas plumbing and wiring were a real mess. I named the mess - Spaghetti!! During the re-installation, I found a couple fo instances where the lab could potentially have had a fire hazard. Suffice to say, the quality of work done by the local engineers (and I hope it was the newer ones who had made those mistakes) leaves much to be desired.

Towards the last day of my visit, some of the older local engineers were on hand to help re-install some of the other instruments. I commended one for what I thought was a neat job. He said " I was told to do this to Tam's standard"!!! WTF!!! LOL!!!

Sigh!