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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 at June 15, 2009 8:08 PM. Posted to MSFT | Travel.
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