May travels- Final leg - Fukuoka

Fukuoka, a.k.a. Hakata is located on the South Western tip of Kyushu island and is physically nearer to Korea than Tokyo. Unfortunately (for me), Malaysian Airlines does not fly there. So I ended up taking a flight from KL to Singapore Changi and then a past midnite flight to Fukuoka. Not sure why travel desk arranged for me to spend up to 7 hours in Changi airport, so I ended up admiring the orchids in the garden within the airport. KLIA also boasts of a similar garden within the terminal, but it is out of bounds to travellers. Changi has the garden in an open space and many travellers were seen taking photographs amidst the orchids and other greeenery. And there is an O'Briens outlet in Changi - but for my Muslim friends, I don't think it is halal. I am sure the crispy turkey ham that Malaysian outlets served was originally pork bacon in the O'Briens outlets outside of Malaysia.

The team meeting that I had in Fukuoka went well. All the team members participated actively, providing animated discussions and seeking clarifications. But what the hell, a picture paints a thousand words - so here are a few thousand words to show where my team went - mainly Shinto shrines. First thing we learn is that before entering Shinto Shrines, you need to wash your hands and rinse your mouth in the watering whatchamacallit strategically placed outside the shrine. We visited 2 different shrines and at both, there were statues of a bull placed near to the entrance. Was this a precursor to the stock market? Merrill Lynch in Wall Street copied this and added the Bear? Who knows?

Also visited a Hakata museum ( Hakata Machiya Folk Museum to be precise) and some of the statues there are so lifelike. Don't believe ah?? see here and here. heh heh

Last but not least, my Japanese colleagues brought us for seafood. He says, the seafood is very fresh. But you wouldn't believe how fresh!!! We had most of the seafood sashimi style and when they say fresh, they mean fresh!!.

When the squid was served, it was so fresh that when you poked at it with one end of the chopsticks, there were muscle spasms (maybe even from the diners!!). The poor thing was looking at us eating parts of it's body. We had 3 different types of fish served sashimi style and for 2 of them, parts of the head and tails were still moving. The red headed fish looks like one ugly toad. Its mouth was still gasping open and close. The gills was still trying to flap. If you could understand fish language, it may probaly be saying " why are you eating me? put me out of my misery"

The darker color fish (supposedly a snapper) tail was still waving about even as we took slices of it's body, dipped in soy sauce and wasabe and savoring it's exquisitely fresh taste. Some years ago (like more than a decade ago), there was a hue and cry when in Malaysia, a restaurant served up fried fish where the head of the fish was still alive. If we had served what I had in Fukuoka, in Malaysia, I am sure many animal right activists would probably be so disgusted as to bring the press in to build up vocal opposition to such a practice.

Before I end this blog, I would like to highlight one practice in Japan that should be emulated by all countries and everyone - the culture of recycling. Waste are sorted by recyclable categories. People actively walk when they can and use bicylces to move around if they could. Bicycles are made by famous automobile manufacturers like Peugeot, Chevrolet and would you believe it - even Hummer. That's the civilian version of a Humvee.The Hummer is a dream possession of many a nouveau rich in China. So I would like to end this blog to show my Chinese colleague with his dream hummer!! Aixin - buy one and bring it home. You will be the envy of many Chinese.

May travels- the third leg - Penang

Fatigue starting to set in....... Finding it hard to write any significant things about Penang. Not sure if it because familiarity breeds contempt or I am truly wiped out by the things that I need to get done while I am in Penang. I am inclined to think that it is the latter!

Arrived in Penang and checked in about 9pm on Sunday night. So not much could be done. No mood to go out for supper with the other participants. Eat too much already as it is. Next morning, had to wolf down breakfast and get ready for the transport that takes us to the Penang factory site. The Six Sigma Green Belt classes will start at 8am everyday. It also ends between 4.30 and 4.45pm most days. I had also been skipping lunch everyday to catch up on my work during lunch. The same transport takes us back to the hotel in the evening.

You probably think that at least I had the nights to enjoy local food and durians!. Unfortunately, that is not the case (on most days). Monday rained and so, a group of us decided to eat in the hotel's restaurants. Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I had teleconferences, one starting at 6.30pm and ending at 8.30pm and the second started at 9pm and ended at 11pm. So on Tuesday, I ate in again - groan!!. At least on Wednesday, I had enough time to go across the hotel to eat local Char Kueh Teow and then get a bath before the teleconference started. Thursday was the only truly free night I have, but by then I am already pooped. Could hardly keep my eyes open during class on Thursday. And I go home on Friday. Such a boring trip.

The only other thing that I can write about is the hotel that I stayed in - Northam Suites. Some years ago, when it was still new, it has great decor and environment. Sadly, today, the decor looks run down and the rooms , while still okay by most standards, are no longer what I remembered them to be. Main problem was due to the timber floorboards they have installed. They are lifting and geting warped, such that when you walk across some of them, you get the feeling that there is a bubble struggling to get out under your feet.

I suspect that most of the water damage to the timber floorboards was due to the jacuzzi that is found in every room. If you put some bath shower foam into the jacuzzi and then operate it, within 15 minutes, so much bubbles gets generated that they overspill onto the floor. And then the guest probably walks all over drippping wet and cause water to seep onto the timber floor boards. One more important reason not to install timber floorboards in Malaysian home. Malaysia is just too humid.

And the bed that I got - pseudo King size. It was actually 2 singles placed side by side. Sure, many hotels do that so that they have some flexibility in accomodating people who stay together but sleep apart. But Northam also provides 2 pieces of blankets laid one over the other to make it look like a King size blanket.

One thing that I was glad for was the free internet access. Let's face it - there is no free lunch. The internet access was part of the room rate package we got. As long as I do not have to fork out extra, I am happy.

Enough said about Penang trip - boring. I got home on Friday evening and will be flying to Fukuoka via Singapore on Saturday evening. Watch this space

May travels- the second leg - Shanghai- extended

Before I wrap up my travels in Shanghai, I thought that I'll give members of my team and colleagues in Shanghai, a moment of fame in this blog. For the first time ever, we had concurrently scheduled 4 training classes in the Shanghai training center. So I had 4 of my trainers with me during my visit. Here is a couple of the class photos. I should also show some of the pretty lasses found in our factory in Shanghai. Here is S.H.E. of Shanghai. Selena, Huang and Ella!!

The night before I departed, it was only fitting that I had a dinner with my team and extended team. Hongming picked Dynasty restaurant and I must say that although it was a little pricey by Chinese standards, the food was good. Among the selection in the starters was a sushi dish. Yoshio, from Japan swears that the wasabe was a lot fo stronger than he ever had in Japan. We think he is probably Korean and not Japanese, seeing as how close Fukuoka is to Korea!!

Before I close on this blog, I would like to share with you and interesting place in Shanghai called Duolun Road. It was previously in the Japanese concession area before the second world war. Many distinguished poets, political persons and other people who had contributed significantly to Shanghai society had stayed there at one time or another.

Most of the buildings on this street are old, and definitely the architechture is not of Chinese origin. There was one shop which we entered which epitomised the nature of the street. The street is selling a lot of antiques (genuine or otherwise) and curios. This particular shop was owned by a teacher who had been collecting clocks his whole life. He had clocks dating back to the Qing and possibly Song dynasty. I asked him - who invented the clock? The West or China? He thinks China did - at the very least, the concept of clocks must have originated from China, he says.

Anyone knows that answer?

Next stop - Penang for Six Sigma Green Belt training.

May travels- the second leg - Shanghai

Reaching Shanghai after a 30 hours flight including transit stops all over was a relief. Could get a nice hot shower, plonk onto bed and grab 40 winks to refresh. And that was all I managed - 40 winks betweeen 2.30pm to 4.30pm, despite having slept about 5 hours on the flight over. My bio-clock must be rebelling at the stress that I am putting it through that it is not sure if it is day or night. No worries, I had promised to take a couple of colleagues out for dinner. One was from Santa Clara, California, USA, who came to Shanghai to help deliver a training. The other was one of my subordinates based in Shanghai.

For dinner, we went to Jade Garden in Pudong - generally acceptable food and then the rest of the evening, we went to the bund to take in the sights of Pudong from across the Huangpu river. Did you know that Shanghai is more or less divided by the Huangpu river, resulting in the western part being called Puxi and the Eastern part, Pudong (you know .........xi is west and Dong is East). And that was how Pudong was called what it is!!! Ta da!

I have always tried taking photographs of the scene from the bund over the years but has never been satisfied with the results. It is quite often foggy/misty. And of course in the past, the cameras (both film and digital) were not as advanced as the ones today. I bought a Panasonic Lumix FZ30 end of 2005 and it has served me well. For once, I am quite satisfied with the shots of the Oriental Pearl Tower (Dong Fang Ming Chu), the tallest tower in Asia and the third tallest in the world. As you walk from one end of the bund to the next, the view of the tower changes.

Near the center of the bund, you get to see the tower and the base struts, with the convention center to it's left. This is the same convention center that hosted the APEC meeting a few years ago. As you keep walking to the left of the bund, the convention center becomes the foreground and you end up with a view of 5 spheres - 3 from the tower and 2 from the convention center.
The view from the left end of the bund is also quite good to capture the glitz on the bund side.

Next day, I took my Santa Clara colleague to Yu Yuan Gardens, near the old temple and again, we were there long enough to experience the sights in day and night. The outlines of the buildings were lined with lighted bulbs at night so that in photographing them, the silhouette is striking. Here is a collection of day and night shots of the same buildings.

The first set is of the shops with a Starbucks outlet in the middle for reference.

The second is of the shop with the Chinese name on it.


There were the usual collection of local handicraft stalls to help the tourist to part with their money (willingly). One of the ideas with a low investment outlay was the one they took from Hong Kong. They put a tree in the middle of the the square, put in gold coloured leaves and get tourists (and maybe some locals) to write good wishes on a piece of paper and throw it up the tree. If the good wishes remains in the tree, your wishes will come true. All that for a cheap RMB5 for each wish. Look at this tree - I am sure the person who thought of this idea had a wish to make lots of money with little efforts. It sure looks like is is paying off. I wish that sTupifieD becomes Cleverified soon.

We managed to get a table at the famous Nanxiang steam buns shop (Xiao Long Bau). This place has got to be seen to be believed. At the ground floor, there is a long queue lining up to buy the buns for takeaway. One has to queue for almost half an hour to get the buns, but the people in the queue don't complain. Once they manage to make their purchase, they just sit to the side and wolf down their purchase.

If you want to eat-in, there are tables on the First and Second floor. Here's the catch - to eat-in on the First floor, you need to ensure that you make a minimum purchase of RMB50 to 60 per PERSON. If you want to ensure you have a seat (as the First floor may also be full), you can go to the Second floor and pay a minimum of RMB80 to RMB120 per PERSON. As my colleague in Shanghai say
- Ground Floor is Economy class
- First floor is Business class
- Second floor is First class
Now that is what I call a differentiating factor - same food but different package charges.

Walking around the Yu Yuan Gardens, you have to marvel at the rock collection in the garden, amongst other things. There was also a shop inside the gardens that will rent out Imperial costumes so that one can have one's pictures taken as the Emperor and his family. One lao wai family did just that. So that is what a foreigner looks like if he had been the Emperor of China!! Ha ha!

May travels- the first leg- extended

As I leave Delaware for Shanghai, I found time for more photos, more time to explore the airports that I was transiting in and more interesting places. So before I start writing on the second leg, here are the sights of Delaware to Shanghai.

Philadelphia airport (domestic) was nothing to shout about. Pretty run down and haphazard way of getting people to check in. If you have the misfortune of carrying a lot of baggage with you and you need a trolley - they are not free!! You have to pay US$3 to get one. For check-in, they had self service kiosk stuck between the regular check-in counters, thereby creating congestions at checkin. For once in my travels to the US, I was "selected" for a full body pat down and everything on me was tested for explosive residues. The guy doing it was quite apologetic, explaining to me that because my boarding ticket had SSSS imprinted n it, I was selected for the checks. It was over in less than 5 minutes in a glass walled room.

Chicago O'hare airport was a lot more interesting this time. I had a layover of 4 hours, so I explored every part of the departure terminal. You know what? Every single arm of the departure terminal had at least a McDonalds to meet craving passengers needs. Alongside these McD were Hudson newspaper outlets, Starbucks, The great American Bagel and Bakery and a host of many other food outlets. I even found an O'Briens. Sadly, the menu was totally different from the O'Briens we get in KL. Where was the Crambo? The Triple Deckers? Sure, they had made to order sandwiches, but they sure didn't look the same. In fact the menu they displayed were totally different from what I am used to.

In my travels, I always keep an eye out for business opportunities that I could start if I wanted a change in my work life. Sort of a backup plan in case things dont work out or if I get so fed up with the work routine or travels. In Chicago's O'hare, I found a couple of interesting food outlets. One was a Oriental food outlet with the name Manchu Wok. Looking closely at it's menu and the food that it served, it was nothing more than a "Chap Fan" outlet with the novelty of fresh dishes being cooked almost non-stop - and I personally think that this was more to do with the volume of business they were having. The Manchu Wok that I saw had a queue that stretched across it's neighbour's outlet. Mind you, the neighbour was McDonalds! And the 'chap fan' was not cheap. Fried rice or white rice with 2 dishes will set you back US$6.79. A third dish combo will cost US$7.79. I guess that is considered as CHEAP if you are drawing US$ income and take into consideration that this is an airport.

The second outlet which was doing roaring business was a place called Burrito Beach serving Mexican Grill. Lots of Hispanic type of food. A little observation here - I almost thought that there were a lot of Indians (as from India and not native American Indians!) taking a liking to Hispanic food. Then I got confused as they started conversing in Spanish. Voila - it hit me that Indians who can master Spanish could probably pass off as Hispanics. I can almost swear that a couple of them were Gujeratis or Rajestanis.

Before I end this post - let me share with you what an O'Briens steak sandwich looked like. It is like a piece of steak wedged between a sort of a bun. If I had known, I would have ordered a McDonald's burger. Sigh!!