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Published: July 25th 2009
Been a while since my last entry...not that life hasn't moved on...the adventures continue! There've been a few good reasons/excuses for not writing every week like I'd planned. Primarily, the unexpected and inconceivable passing of Brian Johnson a couple weeks ago. Brian was the one guy that has been involved in every single project I've worked on since I moved to England in 2001 - in fact it was his influence and connections that got me the job I have now. I last saw him only a few days before heading to Singapore - we had lunch at a great pub on the River Thames near his home-hard to believe he's gone. I can only imagine what his wife and 2 daughters must be going through...I'm at a loss for words...
When Bill Clinton was president, the phrase that became semi-famous was 'Compartmentalisation' - the ability to multi-task and to separate different aspects of your life so as to move forward without actually resolving each issue you face in a given day. Well jobs do tend to make you do this and work was there to distract me from this shocker...
I managed to get myself an invitation to
present the status of my current project to the Asia-Pacific region sales team at their quarterly conferences in Shanghai. Free trip to China - and with the meetings on Friday and Monday, a great excuse to do some touring in China. I was last in China a few years ago on that amazing train from Chengdu to Lhasa - that was a great holiday to be sure - but since I've started working with the APAC team here, I keep hearing about the wonders of Shanghai and Beijing - so I was pretty excited to say the least.
Shanghai is only a 4.5 hour flight from Singapore and is on the same timezone so when my flight landed and I negotiated a taxi to the hotel, I was ready for a beer and a good chinese meal :-) The team did not disappoint, as they had booked the entire group of 15 or so people from the China office in for dinner at a local restaurant. I had completely forgotten the Chinese customary private dining rooms for dinner. It seems so strange to go out to a restaurant just to sit in a completely private room just for people
Train to Hangzhou
First Class for a few quidto serve you dinner - but for a big party, it is certainly the way to go. I was sat next to the head of Sales and Marketing (the big boss at this event) and was the subject of much 'will he or won't he' as they tried to get me to eat weird foods and drink 'customary' seriously high alcohol content wines...by the end of the evening, I had passed their tests and eaten/drank everything they could throw at me and made several new friends but my poor showing while trying to sign Karaoke to Michael Jackson was surely an embarrassment for them! Luckily I've still got a few old-school dance moves that I could distract them with!
The presentation the next morning was uneventful and Thursday evening's party had tired me out so Friday I relaxed before an early start to a day of touring on Saturday. I got one guy from the Singapore office and one from Shanghai to let me tag along on a journey to Hangzhou. I am SO grateful that they did because travelling in China without a native speaking guide is a challenge to say the least. You quickly learn never to
Train Station in Shanghai
Lots of people everywhere! leave the hotel without several hotel cards which tell taxis how to take you home. For this journey, I got the real local flavour - local buses instead of tourist buses and great restaurants that I would never have thought to walk into in a million years on my own. Hangzhou is a popular escape for Shanghai residents - and its not surprising why - with a beautiful lake, clean (smog free) air and some amazing buddhist cave wall carvings in a big old temple (well a replica of a real old temple which was destroyed during the cultural revolution) - there are lots of signs talking about how great it was that when the new china was formed in 1940 or whenever, that the gov't protected the buddhist carvings and rebuilt temples to encourage free practice of religion...rubbish really but at least the buddhas are still there and there were lots of people there praying - albeit in a very different style than I remeber from Tibet.
I can't believe I've written this much and not yet mentioned the weather - well 1 mention of the smog, granted...but yes the air in Shanghai was filthy and smelly -
but mostly it was hot - really really hot - 39 degree celsius hot - 100 degree farenhight hot - damned hot... and the benefit of this is? Well it feels positively temperate in Singapore now. I don't even have the air con on today! Its unheard of!
So next week Mike Parker is coming out from London so I'll be working hard early in the week to try to ensure I don't have to think about work when he's here. It'll be great to have a guest - and Carla and her bloke will be out here at the end of August - so when are YOU coming????
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Susan
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What on earth did they make you eat? I love that first big reclining Buddha...what a wonderful jolly guy! I'm really enjoying reading your posts. Susan