2010 Asia Trip, Beijing Day #1 Afternoon

I feel kinda lame. This is the 2nd time on this trip that I ate KFC in China. I couldn't find anything else between my hotel and the subway station so I got a fish sandwich and some fries. There is a Walmart in the other direction so maybe they have a food court. I checked out the Sogo department store; typically they have food in the basement but here they only had some sit down restaurants which looked expensive, and a Subway sandwich place.

I went back to sleep after breakfast and got up around noon. My friend had to work today so I thought I'd take the subway to the CCTV building and take some photos. My hotel is near the junction of subway lines 2 and 4 so I walked towards Xuanwumen station.


As I mentioned above, there is a Sogo department on the way. The neighborhood outside the department store is a bit rundown but inside, there are lots of luxury brands. The contrast is a bit disorienting.


Entrance to the Xuanwumen station. I think this is a newly constructed entrance since it has escalators up and down.

The subway was pretty crowded. To get to the CCTV building, I had to take subway line 2, transfer to line 1 (the oldest and non-AC line), then transfer to line 10. I ended up not taking line 10 but walked the several blocks from line 1.


Subway map. There's a few stations added since I was here last year.


Station display on a line 2 car. Line 2 follows a circular route so you have to make sure you're traveling in the right direction.

Getting out at Guomao station, I followed the 3rd Ring Road north. It wasn't hard to miss the new CCTV building.


The building was pretty impressive even from a few blocks away.


Less impressive was the building next door that caught fire due to illegal fireworks a couple of years ago.


Closer view of the "big underpants" as the locals call it. I thought it was open for use already but the building was surrounded by a tall wall that make it look like a construction site. Maybe they're fixing the burnt building.

Public transportation is cheap and convenient but takes forever to get anywhere. I was tired from going half-way across town just to take a few photos so I returned to my hotel. Since I didn't have lunch, I picked up something at the KFC downstairs.


KFC... there were lots of other stuff than fried chicken on the menu, including lots of desserts. I had to ask for fries to be included in my combo... the default is some kind of corn salad thing.


On the way back to the hotel, I saw a huge banner hanging on the hotel building. I'm not sure what it's for but Hennessy is a brand of cognac. Did they sponsor a concert? I recognize Sammi Cheng (HK singer and actress) and Seo In Young (K-pop singer that used to be a member of Jewelry).

The cleaning staff just knocked on the door asking to clean the room... while I'm still in here. I told them to come back in an hour but she told me to contact the front desk instead. Not sure why she can't come back later on her own.

GFW Issues

Hmm, the FbVPN connection dropped out on me and now I can't connect again. Is this just bugs in the firewall/blocking software or are they actively blocking VPN access? I tried 3 or 4 times unsuccessfully to reconnect but had to resort to using the VPN from work to connect beyond the GFW.

2010 Asia Trip, Beijing Day #1 Morning

I'm back in Beijing for the third time in the past couple of years: 2008 with NewSong NOC, 2009 with my family, and now by myself. Actually, this is my 4th time here... I came for two weeks and gave some finance seminars back in 1998. It took about a minute to connect to the VPN this morning... I thought I was cut-off behind the GFW.

The flight last night from Hong Kong to Beijing arrived early. The schedule said the flight was 3 hours and 30 minutes but in reality it was only 2 hours and 35 minutes. I know airlines sandbag their schedules so they don't appear late but the pad seems to be much larger for China flights. There weren't too many arriving flights so I was third in line for immigration and my bag was already on the carousel when I got to baggage claims. My friend was there to pick me up and she drove me to the hotel. She is still a new driver and not very good with directions. Even though there was little traffic and she drove slowly, it was a pretty scary ride. One time she stopped in the middle of the 2nd Ring Road to read the overhead direction signs, then cut across two lanes to take an exit. Maybe drivers here expect that sort of stuff but I thought we were going to be rear-ended several times. Sigh... she offered me to drive when we left the airport but I think that's probably a worse option.

Check-in at the hotel took awhile even though I was the only person there. First the girl behind the counter spoke really quickly and mumbled so I didn't know what she was saying most of the time. Since I am staying 5 nights, I paid RMB198 for a "gold card" that gave me 12% discount and free breakfast. It's supposed to be cheaper and I was too tired to verify but I just check the math this morning and it doesn't seem to add up. Anyway, after 10-15 minutes, I finally got my room key and found that they didn't clean the room after the last guest. We call down to the front desk and after 20 minutes, some guy and one of the security guards came up to clean the room. Typical of China, he kept saying that the room was cleaned after the last guest and someone must have used the room, while giving me a suspicious look.


View Larger Map

The hotel is located next to a Walmart and the room is really really small. There is basically just enough room for a bed and the entry doubles as the bathroom area. At least there is a sitdown toilet. It's also supposed to be a non-smoking room but in cheap hotels across Asia, that's more theory than practice. The bedsheets are okay but the room definitely smells of smoke... either from previous guests that ignore the no smoking sign or from the room below.


Hotel room. I'm standing against one of the walls using the widest lens setting on my camera and still can't get the entire room into the frame.


Shower and toilet. At least there's a divider so the toilet doesn't get all wet after each shower.


View outside my window. I think this is facing west.

I'm staying because my friend made the reservation. I'm not 100% sure but I think I'm paying ~RMB300 per night which is more than the Shenzhen room (much nicer)... maybe it's more expensive in Beijing. If I come again, I think I'll spend a bit more for a better hotel. I've yet to experience the breakfast yet so maybe that will change my mind.

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Just got back from breakfast and I'm not impressed. I had low expectations so at least I wasn't disappointed. The room was small... there were only 9 tables. There were some hot items, some buns, porridge, bread, and some cold dishes/fruits. I only got a few buns and watermelon. For some reason, the orange "juice" tasted like Tang and was warm... eeewww!

There was a wireless connection downstairs from the hotel. The signal was weak but I was able to check email on my Android phone while eating breakfast.

2010 Asia Trip, Hong Kong Airport (again)

Wahhh! I'm going to be so sad next time I travel to Asia. My Cathay Pacific elite status expires next month and since I haven't traveled that much this year, I don't have enough miles to renew. No more showers in the Hong Kong lounge. :(

Last night, dinner was only me and John. We walked around for 10 minutes behind one of the Sogo department stores while he tried to find a specific noodle shop. Just when I had enough of walking and sweating, he found it. It was pretty good and each bowl of noodle was ~NTD110 or ~$4. Since we got a late start, we finished around 10:00pm and I just went back to the apartment and slept. I think the warm weather wears on you if you're not used to it.


The noodle place also served a lot of dishes but I think everyone just got noodles. We also got some Shanghai-style steamed buns.

Traveling is tiring. I feel like I've been on the go the entire day. I left my friend's apartment ~11:00am this morning. I grabbed some lunch in the underground mall and took the MRT to Taipei train station. There I bought a ticket on the HSR train to Taoyuan and then took the shuttle bus to the airport.


Lunch: hot and sour soup + 10 dumplings (total = NTD80)

When I walked in to terminal 2, I couldn't find my flight on the board... strange. I finally found the Dragonair counter and they said that my flight was canceled, and they need to get me on a Cathay Pacific flight. The only problem was that the CX flight departed from terminal 1. They swore they can get my bags on the flight and since the terminals are connected, I can clear immigrations in terminal 2 and walk to my new gate. I looked at the time and my flight was boarding in 7 minutes. When I went through the immigration counter, the border agent looked at my boarding pass and said I was at the wrong terminal. I told him what happened... he shook his head and said I had a long walk.

I made it to my new gate and the flight was boarding already. Instead of a Airbus 320, the Cathay flight was a Boeing 777-300, the same type that they use on transpacific flights. The flight was only ~70 minutes and they served us a ham/cheese sandwich. Since I need photos for my blog, I tried taking a picture of the flight attendant with my Samsung phone. I was trying to be discreet but I guess it was kinda obvious... she wasn't very happy and yelled at me to delete the photo. That camera is very slow so I didn't get anything in the picture anyway.


Ham and cheese sandwich... blah.


I asked a flight attendant (the one who's picture I didn't take) for some water and she gave me this. It was only 100mL and a total waste of packaging.

Arriving early, I took a shower in the CX lounge and now have about 2 hours before my flight to Beijing. My friend in Beijing says she will pick me up at the airport and bring me to my hotel. It's only ~5pm and I'm ready to sleep again.


Hong Kong International Airport. Almost every gate has a plane parked.

I just heard an announcement for KA824 to Chengdu. This is the flight I took a week ago. They moved the flight to gate 524 which is a remote gate... poor suckers. My flight leaves in 40 minutes from gate 30... I hope they don't change it. Time to leave the lounge and back behind the GFW again.

2010 Asia Trip, Taipei Day #3 Evening

Today has been a relaxing day. After updating my last post, I went back to sleep until John called and woke me up for lunch. Since he wasn't too busy today, we went and had lunch at the food court in the basement of Taipei 101. I also ended up doing laundry this morning. Since my friend does not have a dryer, I had to hang everything on a drying rack. Taiwan is much more humid than California so some of the heavier cotton stuff is still damp.


View from living room window. The apartment is on the sixth floor. Looks like another hot and humid day. I guess the rumors of multiple typhoons hitting Taiwan wasn't true.


Washer... but no dryer.


I took a taxi to Taipei 101 since the MRT doesn't have any stop nearby. The fare was NTD95. Currently there is a free shuttle that runs from the Taipei City Hall MRT stop to Taipei 101, and they're busy constructing an additional MRT line on XinYi Road.


Looking up at Taipei 101. I think I have 3 or 4 photos already from this vantage point.


There is a multi-level shopping mall attached to Taipei 101. There are some pretty expensive brand stores: Chanel, Omega, Rolex, Tiffany, etc. Downstairs from the entrance is a Roots store... yay Canada!


In the basement, there is a food court (typical of malls in Taipei). I ended up ordering a bowl of noodles from this place since this was probably my last chance to eat Taiwan beef noodle soup before I leave tomorrow.


I splurged and got the "premium" bowl for NTD188; the regular bowl was only NTD133. Sigh... I think the extra cost was for the other cow parts that I don't eat: stomach and tendon. Probably should have went with the cheaper bowl.


The food court filled up quickly. John said that the people in the office are pretty punctual about lunch. In Irvine, people take lunch at all hours; I see people in the cafeteria from 11:30am to 2:00pm. Here, people are gone at noon sharp. Also, as we were finishing our lunch, people start hovering around our table, ready to claim it when we leave. In the US, people will probably ask us if we will be done soon, and stick around or move on based on our answer. Here, people stand real close to our table but pretend to be doing something else. Just ask! I felt like asking these two girls if they wanted our table, and even to sit down first since we had two empty seats. That probably would have freaked them out though.


After lunch, we walked by a place that sold 豆花 with various toppings. I'm a purist so I got a bowl (cold) with peanuts for NT40. It was good. I remember when I was young that street vendors would carry containers on their shoulder with bamboo poles and sell 豆花 door to door at night. There was also a stinky tofu vendor that would come around as well. Yum! I don't think I can live in Taipei... I'll just be eating stuff all the time.


After lunch, I stopped by the office to check out where John was sitting. We occupy some of the 5th and 6th floor, plus the basement of this building. I brought along my badge and it opened all the access doors I tried. Since I was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals, we didn't go the the main entrance on the 5th floor. I didn't get a chance to see some of the inappropriately (skimpily) dressed female co-workers. I'm only dressed like a bum since everything else was washed and drying.

I walked back to Taipei 101 and caught the free shuttle back to the MRT station, and got back to the apartment at around 3:00pm. Since the laundry was still damp, I took a nap for ~3 hours and now I'm waiting to have dinner with John before heading off to Beijing tomorrow.

Free Drinks at Work, Taipei Edition

While visiting our Taipei office this afternoon, I stole some drinks out of the refrigerator. It was mainly different types of tea. In Irvine, other than the cafeteria, we only have cans of soda... I like tea better.

2010 Asia Trip, Taipei Day #3 Morning

This is really a continuation of the previous post; I kept falling asleep while writing the post and it was getting too long anyway.

I'm not sure if I'm still jetlagged but I got up at ~6am. My parents gave me the phone number for my aunt in Taipei. Even though I call her 小姑, she's only ~4 years older than me. I called her up at ~9:30am and it was obvious that I woke her up.

Her: hello (in Chinese)
Me: Can I speak to xxx (her Chinese name)
Her: Speaking (or something like that... I couldn't understand what she said)
Me: Umm, this is xxx (my Chinese name)
Silence...
Me: I'm visiting from America
Silence...
Me: I'm xxx (my dad's Chinese name) son
Her: Oh! blah, blah, blah...

I was worried she wouldn't remember who I was since it's been 33 years since I left Taiwan. Happily, she knew who I was and we arranged to meet for lunch near another MRT station since she wasn't too familiar with where I'm staying.


Small lane outside my friend's apartment. The entrance to the 忠孝敦化 MRT station is a the end.


忠孝敦化 MRT Station


Map of surrounding area. They built an underground mall extending to the next MRT station. My friend's apartment is next to the circular park thing near the bottom of the map.

I got to the designated MRT station a few minutes early. Since there are multiple exits, I waited in the central area wondering how I was going to recognize my aunt. I think because my dad has been sending photos, she recognized me right away. Good thing since I don't remember her at all. We ended up walking to another department where the clothing company she's working for has a retail outlet. It was hot and humid (again) and I was sweating (again) when we got to the Japanese restaurant in the department store.


My aunt ordering food. The waitresses were really really polite... much different from my experience in China.


Roasted cuttlefish and cheese baked on some sort of Japanese potato-like vegetable.


Roasted fish

She ordered a lot of food and we ate for over 2 hours. She is an interesting person and though I couldn't understand what she was saying sometimes, we had a lot to talk about. She treated me to lunch (~$40) and then went back to her store where she asked me to pick out a shirt. Since it was an Italian brand and the style was contemporary, I thought most of the stuff was too flashy. I tried on a few t-shirts and shirts, and even the 3L (equivalent to XXL?) was too small. The clothes were really expensive too. The last shirt I tried on was ~NTD7000 or $200+... dang, that's more then the price of my most expensive Tommy Bahama shirt. I'm sure she gets a big discount but still... anyway, I couldn't find anything that fit so I said that I would go home, lose some weight, and she can get me something next time I'm here. Afterward, we walked around a bit, got some iced coffee, bought some pineapple cakes for my trip to Beijing, and said goodbye.


We walked by the Grand Formosa Regent, which is part of the Four Seasons hotel chain. Cheap rooms start at ~$400/night.


Small coffee house. Two glasses of iced coffee cost NTD330 or ~$10.

I got back to the apartment at ~4:30pm. Even though my friend was leaving for SFO that night, he suggested we go see a movie. We quickly got a taxi downstairs and saw a showing of The Expendables at 5:15pm. The price for two tickets was NTD540 or ~$9/each... pretty similar to US prices. The movie was directed by Sylvester Stallone, featured cameos by a bunch of people, including Arnold, and sucked really really bad. I wasn't sure if it was bad on purpose or Stallone was trying to make a good movie. For dinner, we went to a Japanese style BBQ place, very similar to Gyu-Kaku back home.


Grill with Japanese charcoal. The waitresses would occasionally replace the wire grill with their hands. We got a bunch of different style of beef, staying away from internal organs.


The group next to us ordered these huge prawns.

The restaurant was pretty small but had two groups with white guy-Chinese girl couples. John (co-worker) and I noticed this last night too while walking around. Not sure what, if anything, they find different about dating a foreigner in Taiwan. Possibility to leave the country? A chance to practice their English? Dating someone from a culture that respects women more? Once again, I'm disadvantaged because I look like an ordinary local person... without the man purse.

Okay, one more day left in Taipei... what to do?

2010 Asia Trip, Taipei Day #2 Evening

I like Taipei... the only drawback is the frigging weather. I walked around outside a bit today and each time I ended up sweating profusely. People must take a lot of showers here.

The "work" portion of my trip was completed in Shenzhen. The only PMI related task was to bring some sample materials from Chengdu and give it to our manufacturing partner here in Taiwan. Other than that, all I've done is hang out and eat/drink stuff with friends/family. I'm staying with a friend who is on an expat assignment here in Taipei though he just left about 5 minutes ago to go back to the US for a week.

The flight from Shenzhen was pretty quick though turbulent at times. International flights, including my flight to Taiwan (ha!), departed from a small terminal next to terminal A. It was a bit confusing. Similar to Chengdu, we had to take a shuttle bus to our plane even though there were plenty of open gates with jetways at the terminal.


Helicopter landing at Shenzhen Airport


Terminal A of Shenzhen Airport


China Southern served lunch even for a 90 minute flight. It was the worst airplane food I've ever tasted.


Girl next to me on the plane. She had these weird bumps/scars on her arm... not sure if it was some kind of body modification. She ate all of her lunch... maybe I'm just too picky.


Engrish?!

After arriving at CKS Airport (not sure if it's still called that... DPP/KMT keep changing the name), I got my luggage and took a bus (NTD30) to the Taoyuan HSR (high speed rail) station. From there it was only NTD155 and 20 minutes to Taipei main station, and another NTD20 to take the MRT to my friend's apartment. It's much faster than bus or even a car if there's traffic.


Taoyuan HSR station. I think they're building an additional line to the airport so you don't have to take a shuttle bus to reach the train anymore.


Northbound platform. It looks like a regular MRT station in Taipei but much longer.


HSR train. It certainly looks fast though they never displayed the speed inside the train so I didn't know how fast we were traveling.


Train diagram on the seatback tray. Each train has 12 cars with one for business class and three with general seating. Since it was Saturday, the general seating cars were pretty empty. Leon said the train fills up during weekdays.


End of the line at Taipei station. It was only two stops away from Taoyuan and all underground from Banciao station into Taipei.

I remember looking at a map of Taipei train station and it had 8 levels or something. After getting off the HSR train, I had to go down another level to get to the MRT lines. Taipei station is a transfer point between the blue and red MRT lines so there were a lot of people.


Instead of paper tickets for single trip purchases, they now issue these blue plastic tokens. You hold it next to a sensor pad on the turnstiles, similar to the electronic fare cards, and deposit it into a slot when you exit at the destination station.


My friend lives right next to one of the MRT stations. Next to the exit where I was waiting for him, there was a lady selling food. There are lots of street vendors everywhere but I didn't see any chengguan beating people up like in China.

After meeting my friend and unpacking (he let me stay in a spare bedroom in his apartment), I contacted PMI's sales rep and arranged for him to pick up the material sample. Since there was road construction on the main street, he stopped in mid-traffic and I ran over to hand him the sample. It felt like a drug deal. :)

Since the friend I was staying with had previous dinner plans (he asked me to join them but since they were having spicy hot pot, I passed), I contacted a co-worker who recently transferred to Taipei, and we went to Shilin night market to get something to eat.


At the front of the building with all the food vendors, there was a huge line with >100 people. It was the line for a "chicken steak" vendor where you get a deep fried piece of chicken for NTD50. I had it last time when I was here in 2005... it was so-so. Not sure why the line was so long while other "chicken steak" vendors didn't have any lines.


We got some drinks (mango slush... they use real fruit here) first since it was so hot. Next we got some small dishes (tapas?!): oyster omelet (蚵仔煎), fried tempura (甜不辣, not the same as Japanese tempura), and stinky tofu (臭豆腐).


We walked around and had a few other things, ending up with some shaved ice. One of the more unique stalls was serving Mexican food and the guy running it was a foreigner. He didn't seem to get much business though. We stopped by and chatted for a bit (in English). He has only been there for a month.

After stuffing ourselves, we walked around a couple of side streets with mainly non-food vendors. There were portable stalls set up in the middle of the pedestrian walkway and occasionally they would pack up and take off with the merchandise. These were "illegal" stalls and a system of lookouts would warn them whenever the police showed up. It didn't seem like the enforcement wasn't too serious though.