July 1, 2009
More On HKDL
The details keep coming about the investments Disney is making in Hong Kong Disneyland. Some of my favorite nuggets:
- Disney is investing $452M, or a little less than half of what they're spending on the rebuild of California Adventure.
- For the money, the park is getting 30 new attractions and three new lands. Physically, the park will grow by roughly 25%.
- Two of the new lands - "Grizzly Trail" and "Mystic Point" will be unique to HKDL; the other, "Toy Story Land", will also open at the Walt Disney Studios in Paris in the coming years.
- The Shanghai Disneyland project is a big catalyst, here; that project (while still unofficial, it's the worst-kept secret in Disney history) is expected to go live in 2014. Shanghai is going to be huge, and will give HKDL a real run for the tourist dollar in the same way Disneyland and Walt Disney World compete here in the states.
Blue Sky Disney has the best roundup (and commentary) on the project (and some thumbnail-sized artwork); personally, this all sounds like great news, and gives me an excuse to nip off to Hong Kong in a few years' time.
Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated July 1, 2009 5:52 AM.
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June 28, 2009
13 Days In Asia, Part 3
(If you're new to this thread, Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here. Enjoy!)
- I woke up at 6:30 AM on Tuesday morning and felt ... great. I seemed to have put the jet lag behind me. It's always a good sign when you don't wake up and feel like your eyelids have 2-lb fishline anchors attached to them.
- One of the nice side-effects of traveling so many time zones away is getting a break from Microsoft e-mail madness. By the time I get to the Beijing office at 8, it's 5 PM in Redmond and the work day is pretty much over. Thus, I can pull out my MacBook, plug in to the network, and slurp down all of the previous day's e-mail traffic in one big gulp. This is incredibly nice: rather than being randomized during the work day with the continuous ping-ping-ping of new e-mail, I can take time, read a whole thread at length, and respond (where needed) with a little more thought. Once the mail's been dealt with, the rest of my work day is free for creative work. It's heavenly.
- (The dirty little secret of e-mail, I've found, is that many problems solve themselves when you're not looking.)
- For our Tuesday night outing, we did dinner and shopping at a local touristy hutong (as a point of reference, this place is the home of Plastered, the t-shirt place where I got my "Kung Pao Chicken" tee the previous year). There was a lot of pedestrian traffic, and the place was wall-to-wall with Westerners checking out the stores and each other. Our group walked the length of the district in a slow stroll, just enjoying the evening and marveling at the spectrum of goods and people that happened by us. It made me wish that we had more of these kinds of districts in Seattle; I'd certainly frequent them.
- A note on air quality: as you've undoubtedly heard, it's not great. We take our clean air in the US (and especially Seattle) for granted, and it isn't until you visit someplace with a serious pollution problem that you see how different things can be. Nighttime brings it out, too - as the dusk rolls in and the streetlights come online, you can see the air in the light beams, all the particulate matter swirling and churning and, ultimately, winding up in your lungs.
- (By the end of the week, a few of us had an ongoing tickle/irritation in the backs of our throats from all the gunk in the atmosphere.)
- Side note: most, if not all, of the streetlights I saw on the trip are using compact fluorescent bulbs.
- One thing not to miss in Beijing: foot massage. Brooke and I went for massage on our last trip, and had raved about it enough that the group wanted to give it a go on Wednesday night. We hit this swanky, gleaming, high-tech place - think Gene Juarez, but two or three notches higher. Ten of us are shuffled into one of the rooms, plopped down in reclining wicker chairs, and summarily have our feet dunked into wooden buckets that contain scalding hot water. After about 5 minutes of oohing and aahing and teeth-gritting, the pain receptors in the foot give up the ghost and in files this squad of masseuses who take their positions on small stools next to the feet of the recliners. They then proceed to spend the next 90 minutes warping, mangling, twisting, pulling and smacking (!) our feet into a substance resembling silly-putty, at which point they dunk said feet into a second wooden bucket of semi-warm water and smile kindly at us. During this process, I found myself twisting and writhing in my recliner, trying to remember to breathe and alternating between the feeling of "wow, that's great" and the unrelated feeling of "OH MY HOLY GOD PLEASE SAVE ME"
- (In all seriousness: it's fucking awesome.)
- "Lost In Translation" moment: after our feet were pulled from the scalding water (but before the crazy massage process), the group of us are trying to figure out what kind of entertainment we want shown on the room's oversized flatscreen TV. The entertainment catalog, the remote control, the TV and the people working in the room are all Chinese. The MacBU'ers, generally, are not, with the exception of our colleague Hao. Poor Hao is doing his best to translate for us about our options, and we finally settle on watching "The Dark Knight" ... only to note, as our feet are being pulled and pinched like taffy, that there is absolutely nothing relaxing about this movie. Each one of us us is getting more and more amped up, and we agree that it's got to stop. Hao steps in, we kill the movie, and then we try to find something mellow to listen to. The music selection is mostly Chinese pop standards and some classic American tunes - think Neil Diamond - at which point the cornball appeal of the English songs overwhelms all common sense and the MacBU'ers break into a spontaneous sing-along with whatever's on the stereo. (I swear I am not making this up.). We do a couple of rounds and get a resounding round of applause from our Chinese foot masters, all of whom are bemused beyond belief at how silly we are.
- (This really did happen. And it made perfect sense at the time.)
- Thursday was an all-day meeting for the Program Management team; we spent most of the morning in conference, and then took off and caught a boat to the Summer Palace. The weather wasn't very cooperative (gray and overcast and threatening to rain), but we did get a chance to walk the grounds, drink in the vibe, and snap a bunch of photos. It's experiences like this that remind me how young the United States really is.
- As the afternoon progresses, the weather gets worse, and eventually the small drops of water we'd been feeling for 20 minutes convert into a full-blown rain-out. Our group is near the north end of the Palace, so we head out the gates and see about grabbing a taxi. There's seven of us, and we quickly learn that the taxi situation isn't promising: the rain pretty much means that everyone wants a taxi; on top of that, we're in a part of the Palace where cars are discouraged and there are no parking or waiting spaces for taxis.
- There are, however, pedicabs.
- Pedicabs (or "Cycle Rickshaws") are basically bicycles with two back wheels and a passenger seat. They're everywhere in Beijing, and are generally one-man owner-operated businesses. You tell the guy where you want to go, he pedals, you pay. Pretty simple. They're not fast, sturdy, safe, or fashionable, but, at least at the moment, there's a half-dozen of them by the Summer Palace with tarps on the tops of their passenger sections.
- A bright idea is hatched: we will use the pedicabs to get to the nearest subway station ("very close", we're assured), at which point we will be able to easily meet up with the rest of MacBU for the evening's entertainment. Our Chinese colleagues quickly negotiate a deal with the pedicab guys, Yuan changes hands, and we're all split up into different vehicles. I have my own; other folks are doubled up. There's a lot of back-and-forth chatter that I don't understand, and then, suddenly, we're under way in the downpour.
- Things start off well enough - the pedicab moves at a fairly constant rate, and the guy pedaling clearly has Quads Of Steel to do this job all day long. We're hugging the right-hand side of the (narrow) road, and the occasional car zooms by with just a few inches of clearance. It occurs to me that I have zero protection in this thing - the cab is basically a cheap metal frame that's been attached to the bike, the rain protection is some tarps and plastic sheets that have been attached to the frame with twine, I'm sitting on a small bamboo mat that rests on the bare metal of the cab, and there's no gearing or anything to help the driver scoot out of danger if need be. It's about as bare-bones as it gets.
- The rain gets worse. It's coming down in sheets and buckets, and I'm watching the pedicab's wheels get increasingly covered in the water that's flowing down the street in a wide, flat river. I can no longer see or hear anyone else from MacBU; I send a couple of text messages to different colleagues, hear nothing. It's just me, the pedicab guy, the rain, and the roar of the now-increasing traffic next to us.
- The ride continues. It seems to be taking forever to get to the "nearby" subway and it suddenly dawns on me that I'm in the middle of some random part of Beijing, all alone, and completely incapable of communicating with the one guy who ostensibly knows where I need to be. I begin to wonder how this is going to end, and if I'm going to possess both my kidneys when it does.
- The pedicab makes an unexpected left, then a right, and suddenly we're thick in the middle of some very heavy traffic ... and I realize, in a flash, that we have a) entered a freeway of some kind, b) are going the wrong way down the one-way road, and c) because we're hugging the right curb, we are facing the fast lane. Trucks and buses are whooshing by us at 100km/hr, horns are honking like crazy, the displaced wind from oncoming traffic is shaking the pedicab, the rain is hammering us, the pedicab driver is as serene as a Hindu cow and meanwhile I'm about to have a full-on panic attack before, suddenly, it all becomes incredibly funny. (I think, at one point, actually giggled.)
- We bike this way for a good five minutes and then the driver decides to make a left-hand turn - across all five lanes of traffic - to get off at an exit. More horns, more crazy-fast drivers swerving around us. I'm so beyond caring at this point that I just try to snap good shots with my iPhone that I can share with Elaine, should I make it home.
- Two minutes later, we arrive. I've never been so happy to see a subway station in my entire life. A few of my team are already there, assure me that they, too, have seen their lives nearly end several times in the last half-hour, and the group of us huddles together under the subway shelter and keep vigil for the rest of our party, who arrive in dribs and drabs over the next ten minutes.
- It might be the stress talking, but the Beijing 10 line is the nicest, cleanest, sleekest, most modern, gorgeous subway on the planet. Really. I can't recommend you ride it more highly.
- The entertainment for the night is karaoke, and we're at a hip joint called Cashbox Party World. Beer is on the table when we arrive, and, after getting some food and a few pulls on the beer, we settle in for some serious (and seriously stress-relieving) singing. Everybody sang, and it didn't matter what - ABBA, Simom & Garfunkel, "Flashdance," Queen, you name it.
- And not that you asked, but: "Bizarre Love Triangle", "Mr. Brightside", "Hungry Like The Wolf", "1985" ... and Schwieb and I closed with "We Didn't Start The Fire".
All told, it was a hell of a day.
Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 28, 2009 4:56 PM.
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June 25, 2009
Hong Kong Disneyland To Double In Size
So says Reuters. They're spending HK$4Bn on the park, and construction is slated to start within the year.
Awesome news - I've had zero interest in seeing HK Disneyland, due mostly to its small size and lack of anything unique, relative to the other parks. Hopefully this will give the Imagineers a nice, blank canvas to work with.
Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 25, 2009 3:54 PM.
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June 19, 2009
Storm 90, Lynx 62
A good, old-fashioned, Key-Arena-home-court-advantage ass-kicking from start to finish. What a terrific way to end a (very long) week.
Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 19, 2009 8:47 PM.
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June 15, 2009
13 Days In Asia, Part 2
(If you're just tuning in, Part 1 can be found here.)
- Given my late arrival and the wonders of jet lag, Sunday was pretty much lost. My trick with far-flung travel is to try and acclimate to the local clock as soon as possible, take the pain sooner instead of later. That said, the actual process of taking the pain routinely drops my IQ by a solid 30 points or so - I just feel slow, stupid, and thick. Hence: I hide out in the hotel.
- I've fallen in love with Skype. (Yes, I know I'm the last guy on Earth to use it.) After kicking 10 Euro into my SkypeOut account, I manage to reach Elaine on her cell through my MacBook. (Honestly, there's nothing nicer than hearing the voice of your wife when you're time-shifted by 15 hours.)
- Nifty Skype trick: set up an ad-hoc WiFi network in your hotel room, join it with your iPhone, and use Skype on your iPhone to call whoever you like. It's like the world's most high-tech cordless phone. If you're on a Mac (and you are, right?), just plug in to the hotel's Ethernet jack, open System Prefs, switch to the "Sharing" pane, and turn on Internet Sharing. Bingo! Instant DIY wireless network. Rock and roll.
- After dicking around all day, I go to bed at ~8 PM and proceed to sleep for 10+ hours. Glorious.
- Monday is the kickoff for a pretty busy week. There's a gaggle of MacBU'ers in town for the week, and, as is wont to happen with large groups, we're being managed and herded en masse. Our days are broken up into a variety of sessions and meetings and such, with regular breaks for lunch, tea, and so on. The evenings are generally dinner, entertainment, and a bit o' tourism. I glance at the schedule, notice how packed it is, and realize that any hope I'd had of getting ahead on a project or two is pretty much shot. It's 13-hour days, all the time.
- (On the other hand, they are taking us to karaoke on Thursday.)
- I am struck, as always, at how a Microsoft office is a Microsoft office is a Microsoft office. I've seen 'em in Redmond, California, London, Germany, China ... and they're all the same. Same basic desk/phone/chair aesthetic, same feel. It's comforting, in an "oh, hey, no problem, I can get my work done over here..." kind of way ... but it's also a little creepy.
- My coworkers start streaming in to the office. Everyone's got a good travel story, and a few have some really interesting swine flu anecdotes. Schwieb, for instance, had a guy on his flight with flu-like symptoms when they landed in Japan. The Japanese health squad marked all the seats five rows ahead of and behind the guy, held those passengers for advanced screening, and dismissed the rest of the plane. Yowza.
- We have Subway for lunch. Apart from the cheese (a little light on the lactose) and a few of the toppings (more veggies and pork than I'm used to), it's the same damn thing you'd get in the states.
- (Weirdly, I don't spot a single Subway restaurant for the entire rest of the trip. KFC, by contrast, is everywhere.)
- Monday-night dinner is at a pretty nice restaurant with an in-house variety show. There's a bit of Chinese opera, fan dances, a magic show. The magic show's kinda low-rent: the guy doing the magic is clearly still learning the ropes, and his bored female assistant came out in grungy street clothes (she wasn't listening to an iPod or chewing gum, thank God) to bring various props or hold this or that item. I felt a little bad for the guy.
- (By the way, I am now completely incapable of watching a magic show without hearing "The Final Countdown" in my head.)
- The evening entertainment did contain some AMAZING stuff, including a face-changing artist (totally incredible, must be seen in person), a hula-hoop master, some kung fu, and a balancing act (this tiny, 4' 11" woman manages to throw around a 400-lb pot with her feet).
- After dinner, we taxi over to the Olympic grounds to see the Bird's Nest, the Olympic Tower, and the Water Cube. The structures are incredible, of course, but what makes the night feel special is the wind, blowing and gusting, which brings out people flying kites (at 9 PM!), merchants selling kites (and Olympic tchotchkes), and people from all over the city just strolling and pointing and enjoying the mild weather.
- We subway home (and yes, it made my day). The government built a little, four-stop baby subway line (the 8) specifically to handle the Olympic traffic, and is now in the process of expanding it. It's totally modern, clean, and every bit as nice as any other major subway I've been on. It's on par with the 14 line in Paris: quiet, fast, and with glass walls separating the platform from the tracks (and keeping trash and debris from blowing down the tubes themselves).
- So there I am, waiting for the rest of the gang to get through subway security (all bags are x-rayed), when the 20-something security guard notices my "Kung Pao Chicken" t-shirt and immediately wants a picture. I'm flattered (I mean, I'm wearing it because the China team thinks it's hysterical), and agree. She asks me the same two questions everyone else does when they see the shirt: 1) "Do you know what that says?", followed by 2) "Can I get a picture with you?". This turns out to be something of a trend for the rest of the trip, and not just with me - one of my colleagues has long blond hair, which is also popular with photo-seeking locals. Crazy.
Back at the hotel, I drop into my bed, exhausted - and hopeful that I've paid my jet-lag taxes and can wake up reasonably refreshed (and time-zone-synched) in the morning.
(It's not gonna happen, but at least I've got 8 hours before I get the bad news.)
Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 15, 2009 8:08 PM.
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June 13, 2009
Disneyland Paris In Google Street View
More Google/Disneyland Paris love: last month, it was the DLP+Google Earth experience; today, it's DLP+Google Street View. Details from the Google blog:
So, last October, as the last few rays of sunlight remained high enough in the sky, Disneyland Paris opened its gates early to our Street View car to capture some of the magic at street-level. We drove up Main Street USA (outside of Paris!), through Adventureland, and around Fantasyland and even in Walt Disney Studios Park.
This is, for a Disney geek, pretty cool stuff. And, of course, I immediately clicked over to Discoveryland to see Space Mountain 2.
Man, I'm needing a theme park fix right now.
Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 13, 2009 4:51 PM.
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June 12, 2009
Disneyland's Matterhorn Turns 50
Sunday, June 14 marks the 50th anniversary of the Matterhorn at Disneyland:
The ride, officially known as the Matterhorn Bobsleds, rises 147 feet - the tallest point inside Disneyland - and can be seen from miles around. It's a 1/100 scale of the actual Matterhorn peak in the Alps at the border of Italy and Switzerland.
The Disney version opened on June 14, 1959 - four years after the park's grand opening. It opened the same day as the Monorail and the Submarine Voyage, the three new rides marking the park's first major expansion
This is the sort of news that makes me wish I lived a little closer to Southern California.
Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 12, 2009 1:35 PM.
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June 9, 2009
"Up" In 3-D
I don't want to spend a lot of time doing some kind of half-assed movie review for a film that's getting 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, but Elaine and I caught "Up" last night at the Neptune, and it's absolutely fantastic.
My friend Jeff called it a "masterpiece", and he's totally right. Elaine and I went for date night, and came out of the picture on a high. I just can't say enough good things about it.
This was my first mainstream 3-D experience, and it was pretty good. 3-D's been a kitch thing (red-green paper glasses) or a geek thing (IMAX goggles) for, like, ever; I was expecting motion sickness and/or disappointment. Turns out the new glasses are no bigger (or heavier) than a pair of cheap sunglassses from the 7-11, and the film doesn't try to play up the 3-D angle too much. 3-D becomes something extra, like THX sound or a big screen; it makes the film a little better, a little more vibrant.
I've always associated the Neptune with divey, low-budget, midnight "Rocky Horror" screenings; the fact that they've got a 3-D system was a shock, to say the least. Landmark's clearly put some money into the place over the past couple years, and that's a Good Thing.
The one drawback to seeing "Up" theatrically is that you have to sit through trailers for some absolute junk - "Ice Age", "G-Force", "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" - flicks that are being marketed to kids, but aren't remotely in Pixar's league of filmmaking. Ugh.
PS - If you go see the film, pack tissues. You'll need 'em. (I did.)
PPS - Seriously. Go see it.
Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 9, 2009 6:24 PM.
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June 8, 2009
A Quick Word About Street Food
 So Elaine and I have become a little obsessed with "street" food - basically, buying hot, fresh, cooked food from a small vendor (usually a cart) on a sidewalk or squeezed between two buildings somewhere.
Recently, we caught the "Vancouver" episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations which featured Japadog on Burrard. This got the two of us thinking a lot about hot dogs - really good, really flavorful, sauerkraut-encrusted, mustard-drenched ones. (Chili optional.)
Yelp is your friend: "Dog In The Park", they say, is the place to go. So we did. And we love it.
"Dog In The Park" is located at the northern tip of Westlake Park, just up from the See's Candy and facing Westlake mall. It's about 6 feet of fronting, has a single, electric grill, and serves some awesome dogs. (I'm hooked on the Louisiana spicy one myself.) We've been evangelizing the place, and it seems to be taking root - Richard's been going a lot of late, and took my in-laws on Saturday. Rave reviews, all.
Give it a try. And if you know any other good hot dog places, well, post 'em in the comments.
Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 8, 2009 12:07 PM.
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iPhone 3GS
Awesome ... and ordered.
Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 8, 2009 11:42 AM.
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