These are the chronicle’s of Kevin (my business partner) and my trip to Asia.
Let us begin….
….A long long time ago, approximately 2 weeks ago, Kevin and I started our world wind trip to Asia.
We first took a detour to San Diego for a wireless conference and that is where it began.
About 40 minutes into our cross continent 5 hour flight, it happened. Specifically, it happened in seat 34E, a row in front of Kevin and two in front of me.
Just as we are getting really cozy with the overgrown galoots taking up more than their fair share of seat space, we were overcome, not with Joy, but Joy’s presence.
You see, it appears that some people have difficulty with either flying, or with a certain type of food. What this lady ate, is beyond all of us. But, the smell was so bad, that the young mother, with her 14 month old infant next to me, who both were sound asleep, woke up in alarm, squinted her eyes, and immediately proceeded to pick up her baby from her lap, smell her bottom, to see if she was the unfortunate creature to have had an accident. That is when I quickly told her that the smell was coming from in front of us. To Kevin’s surprise, the guy next to him asked him if he was the one that produced such gut wrenching smell. All fingers were pointing to him actually.
But, that is when the bells above the ceiling started to go off by the person in 34D who began to immediately send an SOS signal to the flight attendants about the emergency.
It is impossible to evacuate a plane in mid-air so the flight attendants did what they could. They put on masks, gloves and proceeded to clean up the mess from the lady that was apparently leaving residue down the aisle. Needless to say, the rest of the trip, we were trying to see if we can break the windows to get some air or trigger the air masks to come down.
After the long, and I mean long, flight there, we get to the San Diego airport and walk out to the car shuttle bus area. That is when we find out that the car company we used for our rental closed its door, about an hour before we landed. The next time the counter would be open, was at 5AM. It was almost 1. We hailed the first of what would be many taxis.
The next morning I woke up with a severe chest congestion. I am sure it was all of the “crap” I was breathing on the plane. Had several great days in San Diego with a ton of meetings, back to back. Pretty good food as well even if we had to cook our own meal at one point, at the “strip club”. No it is not what you think. Only in California would you pay for the privilege to cook your own meal at a restaurant. Needless to say, for those of us that know our grilling skills, we had to go back several times to cook it because it was undercooked the first time and then burnt the last time.
It was then time to leave beautiful, warm, San Diego to make our journey to Hong Kong. We flew from San Diego to LAX. As Kevin got familiar with the Heathrow airport map as we are arriving in LA, just in case we were redirected I guess, we realized that the fun part of our journey was just beginning and the “crap” was behind us. Wait, what if the same thing happens on the flight to Hong Kong. OMG. Instead of 4 hours, 14 hours! Think positive. Think positive.
So we board the plane and are immediately told that it is packed. They’re not kidding. Within minutes, everybody is falling asleep and I am tossing and turning. Uncomfortable as heck, crammed into a seat next to a guy that appears to be practicing the jitterbug or something. That darn leg did not stop moving all flight long. You don’t know the restraint I had, not to put my hand on it and yell STOP!
We arrive, 14 hours and 40 minutes + 3 movies & 2 meals, if you call them that, later in Hong Kong. Wow. It’s 5:50AM. We are tired and we have ALL DAY to stay awake. That is when we check into our, absolutely comfortable, and, cough, cough, spacious room.
I think my bathroom at home has more square footage than these accommodations.
Next day we were off to China where we played laser tag. OK, we were tagged and could not tag back, with Chinese immigration. They are so concerned about the Swine flu that they hold up what look like stun guns to your head to take your temperature. Kind of interesting when you consider that the last time, they were the ones responsible for the global epidemic. No problem this time. All of the birds are gone! No kidding. In the 4 hours going back and forth, we did not see a single bird!
During our meeting in China with the company we were visiting, there was this nagging question that was constantly being asked by our host. “Do you have to go to the washroom?” You see, Candace, our host, is apparently very conscious about our physical well being. She complained to her boss, that it has been several hours and we had not gone to pee. It was almost like an infatuation but pretty funny at the same time. Finally, after the 3rd time, we gave in to her demands and obliged. Show us the men’s room we proclaimed. Where we were whisked away to another building where the lights were completely off, and we had to find our way until we got to the bathroom. Actually, China was uneventful. We then spent the rest of the afternoon getting lost in Hong Kong. Really, we knew where we were, we just did not know how to get back ;-). It is also not polite to ask so we didn’t.
Hong Kong is interesting though. You get to see some great architecture:
As well as leading edge materials used in building construction:
Yes, that is bamboo used for scaffolding. Hmmm. Doesn’t bamboo rot as well in bad weather? What do they use to keep it together, straw or shoestrings?
And some fantastic places to shop for food/snacks.
Dried squid and other sea life forms. Yum.
Couple of other meetings in HK and we were off to Taiwan for an adventure.
We arrive in Taipei in the wee hours. Ok, it was about 9PM and we take the high speed train to Taichung. Very cool. We travel at about 183 mp/h.
We get off and start looking for a taxi. Some guy yells taxi and we said yes. He says, “follow me”. We start to follow him and the spider sense in us says “something is not right here”. We turn around and go down another escalator till we find the right yellow taxi line. Boy - that was close. Definitely could have been the next statistic. We wonder if the stories, of people waking up in bathtubs of ice missing a kidney with a note attached to their necks, is true?
We get to our hotel and it is nice. Much bigger than the previous one, and this one, with a view.
We schlep around in other taxi’s getting to and from our meetings then head off to another part of Taipei the next day. We made changes to our hotel reservation so we can stay closer to our next meeting point. We got another room with another view.
What the heck is this stuff growing around the window?
Our last meeting is in Taipei. Here is the address we followed:
Even the Taxi driver who took us to the place, could not figure out how to get there. We walked around a couple of blocks, asking everybody we ran into to tell us. All they said was, go right down the street, straight ahead. After we walked around the entire block and then some, we finally walked into a building and someone came out with us to take us to the building. Down another alley. Finally, we got there. Our hosts were actually surprised we figured out how to get there. And then followed up to say, it is easy. We are near the train station. Let me see. We got that part!
OK. So we met with our hosts and then we head back to our hotel.
Along the way, we got to see some additional sites in Taiwan. We got to see a river:
Hmm. I wonder if this is why Kevin said, “don’t drink the water!”
Some more mopeds:
And a place where you can take off your shoes and just go for a walk.
What the heck???!?!?!?!?
All in all, it was a very productive and enlightening trip. We are glad to conclude it and come back home, though Kevin can’t wait to come back next month….
Here are some tidbits and facts to be aware of:
Number of planes we have been on: 8
…trains: 2
…taxi cabs: stopped counting after 15
…buses: 3
…hotel rooms: 4, how many were bigger than our breakfast area at the office, 3.
…airports: 9
… meetings: too many to count.
What is just as interesting are the number facts for things that we really did not see.
Number of dogs on the entire Chinese leg: 1 – in Taiwan, scratch that, we just saw another, but it looked like it was on its last legs. This could explain why … We saw this while looking around for a restaurant one night!
Number of cats: none!
Number of birds: 2, flying about as fast as an F14 trying to avoid a Russian Mig.
Things we learned – aka useful tips for Mike and Ross when they get to Asia ;-)
1) Windex can also be used as a hand cleaner/sterilizer.
2) Even the Taiwanese do not like the look of a 1000 year old egg.
3) You cannot assume that all hotels are the same. Some hotels have a reservation’s desk on the 4th floor but the restaurant is on the 1st.
4) Everybody in Taiwan is concerned about the flu. It is not an invasion of privacy to have your temperature checked before getting seated for dinner! It is a little bit embarrassing to overanxiously drop your pants in the process though.
5) There is a shortage of mattresses in Taiwan so they have made up for it with doubling up on box springs.
6) It doesn’t matter how much room you may think you have or not have in a 2 lane road @ a stop sign. There is always room for one more moped.
7) In Taiwan, they won’t accept credit cards for payment, if the charge is only $1.86. They just laugh and say “No. It’s cheap.”
