Sometimes all trips just happen in the same timeframe. My last four weeks have been one of the most diverse cultural experiences ever:
First a week in New Delhi for our regional conference, as well as insightment research with Indian consumers. It’s great to be in India and see how consumers interact with technology, and to observe what a mobile phone retail outlet really looks like. Of course I also enjoyed some great Indian food, and even some Bollywood dancing.
After that I spend a few days in Korea, meeting clients and resolving some key issues on projects. This included some great Korean BBQ, as well as a nice evening out with “beer and chicken” and some Karaoke.
Following this I flew off to Barcelona for our global conference. Tapas, and a great hotel on the beach were the setting. I could include a short two hour tour around the city to view this great place.
On my way back from Barcelona I made a short 36 hour stop in Holland to meet family and friends - and had a nice dinner of Boerenkool met Worst!
After Holland, back to Hong Kong - and then I was off to Berlin for another global meeting. I’m still in Berlin now and tonight I’ll be enjoying some German beer and bratwurst in a bierhalle.
I’ll be glad to be back in Hong Kong Friday - in time to move houses!
I’m writing this from a taxi-ing 777-200, on the Chek Lap Kok tarmac. This week I’m in Singapore, I look forward to the heat and humidity actually, hong kong is getting cold!
I had the pleasure of being in Macau last week, for a few days of planning for next year as well as spending some offline time with colleagues.
As you may know, the city of Macau currently is the world’s largest gambling center - and recently it beat Las Vegas to this rank position.
The number of hotels going up in this town is simply mind boggling. And although recent financial crisis and recessionary climate has put some stops to the immediate growth, there seems to be no doubt that this place will continue to attract the up and coming middle class mainland Chinese to come and gamble their hard earned cash. With a hinterland of over a billion people it is indeed unsurprising that a city like Las Vegas now has to play second trumpet.
Anyway - back to my trip here. I stayed in “the Venitian” which is a monster of a hotel. So big in fact - that the walk from reception to my room was a good 15 minutes. The below picture is taken in Bellini, which is a lounge bar with live band, and it literally sits smack in the middle of the Venitian’s casino floor.
We used this bar as our base camp while some of us ventured into the casino to wager some bets.
Unfortunately the drinking bills equalled or exceeded any gambling profits so financially this seems to be a zero sum game…
Something really cool is going on in a park near Robertson Quay in Singapore every night. A bunch of enthusiasts play with remote controlled motorized kites. The kites have colorful lights built in to them which makes for an interesting display against the black night sky.
I noticed this from far away while I walked towards Clark Quay and saw different colors of light move around in the sky. Coming closer these Unidentified Flying Objects turned out to be these RC kites.
It’s an interesting concept - the kites make hardly any noise and they seem to ‘magically’ fly around. They can do flips, inverts, rolls, etc - all quite spectacular.
It’s a dusty and smoggy day in Hong Kong - as you will see in the background of this picture. On the right you see the hills leading up to Sunset peak.
I’m waiting next to gate 47 for my flight to Singapore. I’ll be there a bit more often in the coming months - so I better get used to taking this flight.
I’m boarding CX888 to Vancouver - this will be a 11 and a half hour flight.
I can’t recall taking a bus to the aircraft instead of the airbridge so this picture below will be a rare one.
Vancouver is mighty cold and I don’t really have many warm clothes anymore - you simply don’t need sweaters and jumpers in Hong Kong. So this will have to be a matter of adding more layers of clothes.
