Tiki In Shanghai

Over and Out... or Something

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 09:26:00 +0000

Last couple of hours before leaving China. I have tons of things I could write about but don´t know what to choose. I have posted 50 pages before this one. 50 pages is far from enough to express what has happened during these months. So, how should I be able to cover it all in this one. =)

At least I can say that it has been a very interesting and different experience. Feelings changing from loving to hating and back to loving this country, pending back and forth. Some things I will never get used to. Some things will be hard to live without. Last couple of days, passing places in taxi or by foot, I already feel that I am going to miss this place, that store, this road, that restaurant, this kind of food. Why haven´t I been here before? Oh, that place, never again.

2 or 3 weeks back home in Sweden, then Japan. I love that country. Wherever I am, I always miss being in Japan. I feel that Japan is my home as much as Sweden is. It´s great to actually have 2 places to call home. =) One thing will be a little bit hard though by moving to Japan from China. I´ve gotten used to live on 23rd floor in a 114.7 square meter big apartment, 18 minutes walk from the office. If I am lucky I will get a room one sixth of the size and at least one hour by train from work. If I am lucky. =) I hope the apartment gods in Japan are on my side. Well, as long as there is a kaiten-sushi restaurant, udon-ya or maybe a yakitori-ya close by I will survive. =) Cocoichi kareehausu would be nice too. Or what do you say Kuma? =) If you don´t know what all that is, don´t worry. I will show you from Japan. =)

I´ll try to get a couple of hours to sleep now before I have to leave and... sleep on the airplane. =) So, until next time!

Btw, I got my wallet and camera stolen last day. So I might not be able to show you any pics from Sweden. It´s not that I am going to buy a new camera in Sweden when going to Japan so soon.

See ya´ll!

the Morning Mayhem

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 09:24:00 +0000

I hate mornings. After snoozing for an hour or so, you really have to lift your head those extra centimeters, and then your body to get into upright position and try to get your body mass all the way to the shower. I've found a way around that, but it only works sometimes. Roll over to either side until your legs falls down on the side of the bed, then your practically sitting upright. But most of the mornings my brain hasn't started to connect so I am not able to do that very complicated movement. Further, I am not very talkative in the morning, and I don't have breakfast. I wish I could skip the mornings and just fast forward 2 hours or so.

Maybe it is because I never go to sleep before 3am? But that wasn't any problems during the military service. Doing some totally unnecessary exercises until 2 or 3am, crashing into bed, and then bam!, before you knew it an officer had kicked the door, entered yelling like a pig, the floor is shining, the beds are made (drop a coin on it and it bounces up again), you've had your 30 second shower, shaved, had your breakfast, Corporal Hahus had his head polished while we only had them shaved, reveille sounded, morning exercises (BRAK) done, everyone lined up in attention having the clothes and shavings (And for a certain corporal a shining cueball of his) inspected, all before 0600. But at that time I never had any problems with that. I think I'm getting old. =)

It's not getting better when I get outdoors. Yes, it's warm enough to go to work without having a coat on. That's great. But the minute you step outside and the 17 minutes it takes to walk to the office (Or 18 if you keep walking Wu ding Road East instead of turning Chang De Road south, depending on the traffic lights) is like Ragnarok has hit us big time. Why? Well, first of all, all these drivers, bikes or taxis doesn't matter. I am pretty sure they are trying their best to disobey as many traffic rules in one time as possible meanwhile trying to run over you.

Number two is the lack of bicycle brake maintenance in this country. Whenever somebody hit the brake, it like you are trying to strangle ten piglets at the same time. The sound is horrible. And it's not that the go all the way to the crossing and the stop. Nopers, they start to brake like 20 meters before the crossing and, if no traffic guard on post at that crossing, slowly making the way out in the crossing, inch by inch, until the lights turn green.

Thirdly, if not being deaf already, everywhere you hear people reach down as long as possible in their throats and noses, clearing whatever with a loud "hrrhrhhrggerrrrrggghhhh" and lets whatever they find out on the street.

So, thank god the iPod is invented and this morning I was accompanied by F.I.R, Zhang something something, a little Offspring and some Gyllene Tider on my way to work.

Well, enough complaining. Evenings the conditions are the same but it never feels that bad. It's just that I am not a morning person.

the KL

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 09:21:00 +0000

Whilst sitting in the mess of my apartment trying to figure out what goes to Tokyo, how it goes and where in Tokyo does it go, which goes back to Sweden, carry on, checking in or handing it over to the Chinese postal system risking 90% disappear, I recall that I haven't written about KL yet. Yay! Don't do today what you can do tomorrow. Leave the packing behind and off we go! But first, this:

clearance
My last week at the office is kind of an anticlimax after all the workload hovering over and coming down on me. Not that I complain, having too much to do is a great deal better than having nothing to do. Well I shouldn't say nothing. Today I filled in one form and signed one paper. Or, filled in almost one form and signed one paper. I have to save something for tomorrow. =) Tomorrow I am going to call Nippon Express and ask how much they charge to take a load of books and some clothes to Japan. Wednesday I am going to check if my last payment has made my bank account happy. But I think most of it will go to Nippon Express. Thursday is not planned yet but I think I can use an hour or so on Wednesday to come up with something. Friday I am going to return my computer, which I have been living together with for so long now.

the Rolling Stones
Martin just called me and told me that Rolling Stones are playing in Shanghai, April 8, and there were still tickets left! Damn it, hope they'll come to Japan too. I've seen them once, 1998 (I think it was) in Gothenburg. Tickets all sold out, 60 000, but Seb's dear mother had somehow gotten hold of some tickets for us, we drove up in Per's parents car (Or was it Johan's? Don't remember.) found a camping that overcharged us big time, got attacked by some scary looking Stones fans with a PET bottle full of what I assume not was water, although it looked like. Whatever, we ended up in the very front of the front, standing less than 2 meters from Keith and Mick. Priceless! I have some other very interesting concert experiences, Aerosmith and Offspring in Tokyo amongst others. The Japanese has very special habits when it comes to it. But I'll save that for later. Remind me, ok?

KL
the City of Junge and Two Towers
Ok, lets give KL a chance to express itself and explain how wonderful city it is. Departing the airport after a quick jump from Singapore with the Skyhopper (Of course the boarding started 50 minutes before takeoff and the gate was closed like 20 minutes before. Be late and get fined, or something. Well, Singapore is Singapore. But at least we where on time. =)). Getting into a taxi that probably overcharged us. Then heading out for the highway, and for 80 K's nothing but mountains and jungle. A jungle of only one kind of tree, some palmlooking round, low kind of a tree. A typical KL jungle I decided it to be. Suddenly the twin towers (or Petronas Towers) emerged, out of nowhere. The lack of high buildings in KL, made the 452 meter steel and glass phallos symbols look very, very tall. Maybe because 452 meters of steel and glass in the middle of a jungle is a pretty impressive sight. I was awed, but still somewhere in the back of my head, I can but think of Jin Mao tower in Shnaghai being the coolest building ever. Well, now we've seen 3 out of the 5 tallest buildings in the world, Taipei 101 and Sears Tower still left (I am not going to say anything about the 10 tallest buildnings in the world. That'll just destroy all the fun.)

the Bell Boy
Arriving at the hotel, before the taxi had even came to a full stop, the shortest bell boy in the history had opened the trunk and unloaded our baggage. Not that we had much, but some paper bags with our winter clothes, plus a little extra luggage from the shopping in Singapore stacked on him made the shortest bell boy in the history also look like the funniest bell boy in the history. After checking in, he refused to let us help him with some of the bags and headed for the elevators. The elevator arrived and we went in, except for the bell boy. He waited for another elevator and was on his way into that one , but finally after the elevator guy (Yeah sorry, I don't know what the proper title is) had tried to get his attention 3 or 4 times, he finally entered and we went up. At our floor, the bell boy managed to get out of the elevator without further incidents, but having taken less than ten steps, whoops, there goes one bag on the floor. Trying to pick it up, bam! He drops my suitcase, you know that kind with an extendable arm to pull the suitcase with, and the extended arm hits the marbled floor. I bet the sound echoed all the floors down to the lobby. Finally, we convince him that we actually can manage to carry some of our baggage by ourselved. Still persisting, but he hands over the 2 paper bags. Relieved we hope that he will survive the last couple of meters, but appearantly he doesn't know how to steer the suitcase so again, bam!, into the wall. Well, he didn't give up this time either and finally we could get into our room. I thought that he had fought so hard so I gave him some Ringhits or whatever they call their money in KL. I don't remember how much I gave him, but afterwards I got to think that my mind was still in the Singapore $ times 5 to get RMB, instead of Malaysian Rhingits (No actually I don't have a clue how to spell that, and I am to lazy to check it up =)) times almost 2. So I might have given him 40% of what I first planned to give him. Anyway, he looked happy, maybe because he got away with his performance and still getting a few of those Rhinghit things, or maybe by brain had adjusted to Malaysia and I gave him too much. Or whatever =)

Btw, my apartment room number in Shanghai is 2301. Our hotel room in Singapore was 1032. Our hotel room in KL was 2103. Coincident?

Shar Keow Teow or Woet Woek Rash
Heading down to a local restaurant to try some Mee Goreng and Roti Canai, we we're studying the menu while eating. Since the Malaysian language is like Arabic to me I did a little test on Emiko. In my best Malaysian I pronounced the a meal in 2 ways, the correct way and backwards. For me, it was no difference. sonded the same to me. Emiko didn't get it very right either, maybe because of my accent, but I think it was flawless. =) Well, I'm not going to tell you which one is right. You go find it in KL, I'll give you the address if you want the same restaurant. =)

McDonalds free delivery
McDonalds has free delivery service in KL - McDelivery. Never seen that before.

the Taxi Tour and cheap smoothies
For a few Ringhits, we hired a taxi driver that took us to all famous places around KL. Old buildings, monuments, parks, butterfly farms, some caves guarded by a giant golden godess and 472 steps up in the mountains, tin factories, silk factories, you name it. Whatever the guide books says about KL - been there. Believe me. So I am not going to write about that. One is because it's 2am, I am tired. Two is that you can read about it in the guide books. =) One place that is in the guide book we didn't go to, the Petronas Towers. You had to stand in queue at 8.30 in the morning to get one of 1372 free tickets handed out every morning. Then you had to stand in line again to get up in the towers, and even then you didn't get more than halfway to the top. Nope, instead we had some smoothies at the bottom of the towers in the giant mall. Smoothies that cost the same in Singapore as in KL. In Singapore$ vs. Malaysian Rhingits. That is, in RMB, the same smoothie was around 40RMB in singapore, 16RMB in KL.

Hmm. If I come to think of anything else about KL, I'll come back to that later. Now I wanna sleep. I'll try to upload some pics but I think they're to large for that so I might need to work with them tomorrow evening and upload them them.

Until then, g'night ya'll!

Ming, Qing, feet and Tom Cruise

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 04:21:00 +0000

the business men
Our ad agent, Sean, started his ad agency 6 years ago. He has also a burning interest in antiques and has a small antique store in Beijing. Last weekend during my trip to Beijing, I had time to go to visit his store. Really cool stuff, but finding out that I know nothing about such things, he gave me a short lesson. Now I know to tell the difference between a Qing and Ming vase. At least if they stand next to each other. =) His antique store is located next to a club, Club Mix that we later went to, and by the time we were finished in the store (around 11pm) the DJ got it going pretty loud next doors, and the vases were jumping around to the beats of Snoop's Drop it like it's hot. Sean didn't seem to be bothered at all, but I was kinda afraid that this vase or that statue would fall over just when I passed it. Well, the vases decided to survive for another evening, and I was a little bit relieved when we held the bottles of Heinis instead of those expensive pieces of cheramics.

Although Sean owns 2 companies/stores there is one big down side about being self employed in this country. The last day before I returned to Shanghai, we had plans for the evening, that we had to cancel because of a late night visit by some "business men", appearantly regulars. Rumours you hear are true. More than that I can not say. By the way, we are soon going to have a governmental election back home in Sweden. I wonder if the red wins.

Laika
Laika is a Siberian Huskey. 7 months young. Laika is not allowed to live in China. Laika is too big and very dangerous. Laika has been threatened to be killed because of the regulations. But Laika lives with Sean and is beloved by him and his neighbours because Laika is the most beautiful and friendly dog.

Together with Heidi, Sean and some other guys (friends of Heidi's from her time at Nestle) we took Laika for a walk in the mountains (Or hills maybe, theyre not more than a couple of hundred meters high. Anyway they are called the Fragrant Mountains (Xiangshan)). There I saw a very interesting phenomena. It was like taking a foreigner, say a very blond one, for a walk in a city in China, you pick whichever you want. People are staring, pointing and taking pictures. A lot of people are also afraid and takes long detours to get around the dog (this usually doesn't apply to the foreigner) or they just freeze or hide behind a tree until the dog has passed. What I wonder is, are the big dogs not allowed because people are afraid of them or are people afraid of them because they are not allowed (and therefore people are not used to them)?

Sean has by the way a very cool jeep. Riding with it I almost felt like being back in the good old days on Fraser Island, Australia, the biggest sand island in the world with no roads but a lot of jungle and beaches, where Caroline, Alexandra, Kuma and I for 3 days changed our Camry -01 for the coolest wheels I've ever handled, The Land Rover. Check it out HERE. We had to share it with a German couple, 2 British girls and a VB (Victoria Bitter) loving British David, but as long as I got to drive it didn't matter to me. =)

Speaking of cars, I saw this car on the way to the airport. Don't remember the maker, some Chinese, but the model was CA7180T2E (I am not sure whether the 2 after the T was a 2 or 4). Very smooth and easy to remember. It's almost like the E-type, Mustang or Fit (Only if you know the Japanese way to pronounce it and know enough Swedish you will find this model name amusing. Sorry.) I wonder if I haven't taken a flight with number CA7180 (China Airlines). =)

Fish head/crocodile meat/duck tounge-hot pot
Some more things to add to my list of strange things put on the table. Fish head: Nope, not very strange actually. I've had it before. But this time is the first time I've had a taste of the eye, by mistake of course. I don't eat eyes and feet (I don't eat mushroom either, by the way, but that's for a totally different reason).

Eyes? it's just so yuuck. You are supposed to use eyes to search the street in front of you so you don't step in some phlegm, chicken bones, skewers or whatever people normally leave on the streets. No? Ah, now I remember, in Sweden you normally don't do that. =)

Feet? Well, first of all, for the same reason that you should never, never, never, ever put your bag down on the streets in China, not even indoors (I've even seen people letting their children, well, "let go" in stations or on the subway and then just letting it go), these feet may have been in contact with above mentioned slimy mucus (I don't say that I have tried human feet, but...). Secondly, feet are just bones, cartilage and a little fat around that. If you are lucky you find some meat deep inside all that. In the case of chicken feet, you don't. Anyway, I've tried some different feet, pig feet, soft shelled turtle feet, dog feet, chicken feet. It's all the same. It tastes feet. (But I still have that Harbin silk worm cocoon with silk worm topping my list of things to never have again. Feet has an honourable second place though)

The crocodile meat? Pretty good. Like chicken but with a hint of crab.

Duck tounge? Well, if you see it you'll have your doubts. It's not like the nice thin sliced gyutan (ox tounge) you get at a Japanese yakiniku (barbeque) restaurant. Nope, here you get the whole kit. Imagine your own tounge. From the tip of it down below that bell looking thingy dangling around in the back of your mouth. Stick your fingers down a bit further and then rip and you'll get the whole package out. Now it didn't taste especially bad, but it wasn't good either. It's just that there are other things I'd prefer to this. And there are a lot of ducks having to give up their tounge to fill that plate we were served. As soon as I get it out of my camera I'll show you.

Schweden here I come!
Tomorrow I have exactly one week left here at 29th floor, CITIC square, Shanghai. My work is practically finished. I've hade my last review meeting and next week will be spent killing off time. Although I have some preparations to do before leaving this country, heading for Sweden for two weeks or so and then flying to Tokyo.

How about the weather back home in Sweden? As for Japan, I think that I will be in time for hanami (Sitting under the cherry trees and watching the flowers snow down over you. Have you seen the final battle scene in The Last Samurai? I think it's in the cherry blossoming season, but with the difference that the cherry flowers are floating down over some very wounded Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe instead of friends sitting on a blanket eating, drinking and singing karaoke.)

Well, March 15th I am getting on the plane and March 16th I will go straight to the closest store from my mum's apartment (Which would be ICA Express at Statoil) to buy a bunch of "Röda ferraribilar" (Martin, thanks for the half time load of those you brought to me from Sweden. It helped me survive for a while longer. Same goes to you, Mum and Mika. =) ) Some "real" bread with Swedish cheese, a genuine Swedish pizza or kebab or mum's grilled chicken wouldn't be that bad either. And her lasagna. And, um, oh, there's a lot. Two weeks suddenly seems very short...

HK plate frenzy

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 04:19:00 +0000

For the ones that though 33000RMB for a licence plate in the December auction in Shanghai was expensive: the HK madness.

Also read that out-of-towners are banned from the elevated roads in Shanghai during rush hours. Last week they caught and fined a bunch of the poor guys. =)

Cheney, try to get some taxi drivers instead!

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 04:18:00 +0000

After working Sunday after coming back from KL, then Saturday, Sunday the following week, this weekend felt pretty short. Please, give me one more day off work. =)

I bet you all know about Mr. Vice-President Cheney hunting down one of his mates in the woods of south Texas. The day after I read in China Daily the following: " Whittington was about 27 kilometers away when he was hit in the cheek, neck and chest.. That's a darn fine gun you've got there, son! I remember from my military service that our rifles used had a effective range of 400m, longest shot possible was around 2.7-2.8km, but you´d barely hurt somebody at that range. 27km is indeed a very impressive range. =)

The weather here has been fairly strange. The day I came back from Beijing, it was 17 degrees (around 60F). Two days ago it was snowing here and they say that it's going to be around 15-20 again some time this or next week.

As I maybe said before, I was going to Beijing and Qingdao last weekend. Mainly for a market research, but also for a meeting. Qingdao is a very beautiful city, ocean to the east and mountains to the west, and in the eyes of Chinese, a small city with a population of only 2.9 millions and therefore not too crowded. Since it is close to the ocean, the seafood is great, ff course served with Qingdao beer. I was a bit surprised that they served tea too. I thought Qingdao only had beer =)

We also went to Weifang, the home of kites, which was pretty obvious because everywhere you looked you'd find a kite shop, and in March an annual international kite festival is held. Susan, who accompanied us from a market research company actually bought 10 kites. I guess it was as gifts, but maybe she likes kites very very much.

You know I don't like the traffic in Beijing. Same goes for the taxi drivers. They always try to rip you off. This time 4 times in one trip. First one, from airport to hotel. Arriving, she wanted 100RMB, when I asked for the receipt it said 73RMB. 30 minutes later in the taxi from the hotel to the office, the driver wanted 99RMB and the receipt said 2010-00-00. A normal ride from the hotel to the office is never more than 50RMB, and how am I supposed to use a receipt with that date? It all ended up with a lot of argueing and us forcing him to stay and wait for the 1 hour I was in the office and take me back to the hotel, giving me a new receipt and a cheaper return ride. The total sum ended at around 120RMB, a bit more expensive than normal, but good enough. Next time was another 100RMB for a 70RMB. Later, in Shanghai at the airport, the usual "taxi drivers" trying to blow some foreigners off that follows you all the way from the exit to the taxi stand of course followed me and insisted that I should use his taxi. After trying with a no twice and ignoring him for 50 meters, to get rid of him I stopped and asked him how much he wanted. 150RMB was the quick answer. Since the normal fare is around 45 RMB I simply replied with a "Haha, you are crazy right? I'll give you 40RMB and I need a receipt.", and suddenly he was gone. Never been easier to get rid of those guys. Now, maybe 20RMB here and 30RMB isn't very much money, compared to the cost of taxis in other countries, but it adds up pretty fast, and you get pretty fed up with always having to assume that people are trying to screw you.

Oh yeah, Friday morning, when I was about to leave for the airport, a guy was waiting outside our main door in the building. I opened the door from inside, and since I was closest to the door, the door was opened in an outward direction, I had two bags and not the forget that the one who actually was in the middle of opening a certain door was me, I assumed that I could go out before he went in. Well that was as wrong as anything can get. When I was in the middle of the door opening procedure, this guy runs the 2 meters between us to try to squeeze into a 10 cm opening to my left. Since I was turning at the same time, and since I couldn't even come to think that he should try to get in there, I was taken by surprise when he pushed me in the back to get in. As a result a dropped my bag. Since I am neither very talkative nor friendly early mornings, all I could get out was some not very nice things in Swedish. Without a word he just went into the building. Man, it's not that I was going to stop you entering the building. Well, no harm done I thought, but arriving in Beijing trying to log in to my computer, half of the keyboard didn't work. You see, that was when I came up with all the bad things about this idiot that could had been more useful a couple of hours earlier. At least it could have been worse, borrowing an USB-keyboard from IT in Beijing during those days made me survive until I came back to Shanghai and IT guy Allan saved the day with a very big screwdriver. Thank you Allan, appreciate it.

Arata, who came as an exchange student from Japan to my Swedish university in 2004, arrived together with his girlfriend Keiko from Tokyo today. Hey Johan, your room in our apartment here is very frequently used. =) They're leaving on Friday already, so the schedule is tight, but I am sure they'll do fine! Arata told me that David and Carl, who studied Japanese for one year in Linkoping, for whom I (together with Kuma and our senpai Peter) held a two week long introductionary course in Japanese right after returning from Japan in 2004 and who also knows Arata, happens to be in Shanghai too (Which I didn't know until recently =) ). Aint the world small! =) And, something that has nothing to do with David and Carl, but a little bit with the small world thing: Keikos office in Tokyo is pretty close to my office there, which I will transfer to in April. We'll practically be neighbours over there. =)

Finally, I've been served hot orange juice for the first time (and probably the last time I'll try to drink such a thing) in my life. Nothing I'd recommend, uhuhu.

Nope, no KL yet

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 07:00:00 +0000

You know, the pictures took one and a half hour to upload last time and by the time they where uploaded I wanted to sleep so, no KL trip story yet. Maybe tonight, or maybe after the weekend. Tomorrow I'll fly to Beijing, and on Saturday to Qingdao. Back in Shanghai on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, I have uploades som pics from Harbin (Finally!) and the ones from the Maglev. Seee previous posts for those. And to this one, me in a funny hat =)

The City of Lions

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 06:59:00 +0000

Fines and toilet awards
Singapore, the cleanest city in the world. Spit and it will cost you one months pay, chew a chewing gum and it's doubled, bring a durian (probably the worst smelling fruit in the world) on the sub and you'll get kicked off. Is it true or is it just a myth? Well, we saw awfully many " Don't xxx, fine x000$ " signs (replace x with whatever you want", and even one person that spit on the street.... He didn't get caught though... The toilets? well, the cleaning personal did get very close when you were... doing it... with their mops and well, cleaned. And, the first page in the first newspaper I read in singapore Intl Airport - "The South West District of Singapore is handing out the 'Clean, Dry and Sparkling Toilet Award' to the cleanest toliet in the district ". Only in Singapore =)

the MRT
Singapore has a pretty convenient transport system, the MRT. Indeed very clean, has a lot of fine signs, but the most impressive: the tickets are cards in credit card format. You pay a (Singapore) dollar deposit for it which you get back after the ride. Very environmental friendly, but also very irritating. The machines are very slow and sometimes it has to think for 30 seconds, up to 60, when you insert the card for your cash. Now, 30 seconds is not a very long period of time, but when you have 10-20 persons standing in line, 30 seconds turn into several minutes.

Chinatown
You never get enough, you live in China and still going to Chinatown. Same thing when we were in HK. =) It was a little odd though. Since it was during the Chinese New Year, all Chinese were (probablly) tired and stayed home when we went there. So, not one single person on the streets, shops closed. Just as when we visited Chinatown in HK, buildings didn't feel "China". Chinatown in Yokohama feels a lot more like China than these ones. =)

Night Safari
A cool thing to visit in Singapore is the Night Safari, take the MRT to Ang Mo Kio and change to bus 138, get scolded by a very angry bus driver yelling "Only EXACT change" meanwhile handing over exact change. We were not sure where to get off, but we saw this korean guy with a guide book, and a guy that looked very much like he was heading out in the wild, so we figured that if we got off where they did... A huge sign saying Nigh Safari and 20 paper animals in scale 1:1 where these guys got off, made us pretty sure that it was the right place. =)

A show with some animals, and a tram ride around the place took you very close to the animals, 1 meter from a tapir, 10 meter from a giant rhino, hyenas, lions etc. All this accompanied by this girl telling us where and what everything was, with the strangest English accent I've ever heard. We have it recorded if you want to listen to it. =) The last 15 minutes of the ride though, this Russian lady started to talk on her mobile phone with an incredibly loud voice, so that was all we could hear for the rest of the ride.

the Mix
Singapore has all kind of people, of which the main groups are Chinese (75%), Malays (15%), Indians (8%) and... ehh. the rest. So, of course all the fine signs has to be in 4 languages (and all other signs too of course). Ehh... No more to say there...

Sentosa
Sentosa is an island south of Singapore. It is like an amusement park, with artificial beaches, museums, Underwater World, a fort, a Merlion (see Merlion) and other stuff. You pay an admission fee and then you can take a bus, taxi, walk or use cable care to get there (it's only 500 meters). We chose the cable car and therefore had to stand in line for 30 minutes or so. A couple of hour later, we decided that we had had enough of Sentosa. Not that we didn't like it, but we had seen what we went there for. The Underwater World was pretty ok, but I must say that the Underwater World we went to in Mooloolaba (which by the way has a restaurant that serves the best chicken burger you can get your hands on in this world) in Australia 2 years ago was more impressive. The Merlion was cool though.

the Merlion
The Merlion is a hybrid of a lion and a mermaid. He....she....he....um, it has a lion head and mermaid body and reaches 37 meters. I am not sure about what it stands for. Singapore means the Lion City so I can get where the lion head comes from. But the mermaid? Well, it is an unusal combination and is much more impressive than the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, which by the way has been voted as the third most disappointing tourist spot in the world. Sadly I don't remember number 1 and 2.

the Indians
I am not very updated on the customs of the Indian people, but all groups of Indians were mainly men. 5 - 10 men on vacation together. Very seldom you see any ladies or children with them. And also, it seemed very common for the guys to walk arm in arm or hand in hand. Well, if you leave all the girls at home... =) Btw, I was asked by one Indian guy if he could get a picture of me together with him. Later we met them again and then a friend of his wanted a picture too. The third time we run into them I was getting a bit bored, but that time they only wanted to shake hands and be friends. Phew. =)

the Rest
We did some other things and visited some other places but if I am to write about KL before I go to sleep I'd better stop here. =) So, next post about KL and a bell boy who did all mistakes a bell boy can do within a period of 5 minutes. =)

Hsppy new dog year!

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 06:57:00 +0000

20 minutes till we have to board. Not much time to write! Now at Singapore Airport, which btw is huge and has a bunch of great places to shop in.

What about Singapore then? Clean, expensive, hot and do anything and you get fined. Oh, and there is a lot of shopping. The whole place is a big shopping center, except for during the Chinese new year, when all stores are closed. It happened to be CNY 2 days out of our 3 here, so not too much shopping, which is good because you don't spend too much money. =) Bad because we both like shopping. =) Anyway, a lot of other things to do at least, but I don't have time to write about that now. Well, we managed to not get fined during our stay here, instead the hotel overcharged us one night, making a fuzz over it being very unfriendly. Especially Mr Sha'ari. So, my advise to you is, keep away from the Elizabeth Hotel.

Well, gotta run. In less than two hours we'll arrive in Kuala Lumpur. =)

Seeya!

431km/h

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 06:56:00 +0000

First of all, before I started to write this one, I uploaded 18 pictures to my last post. 3800 seconds later (Not the fastest and broadest band here at this hotel), which is a little more than one hour, not one single pic is uploaded. It's not the first time it happens here at resdagboken.se. (If you guys read this, FIX IT!). I'll try again when I have returned to Shanghai on Thursday. Meanwhile I'll try to upload two pics to this post.

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At last! The sun decided to once again shine upon Shanghai and its 15-20 million inhabitants. Despite the “Monday morning”-syndrome and 9 degrees in my apartment, I could wake up and run to my shower with a smile on my face.

11 am, meeting four from our customer in Harbin, our Harbin Key Account Manager in Harbin, Heidi, my boss, and Sean, our ad agent, from Beijing at Hong Qiao Airport in Shanghai we headed out for a market visit hunting a certain type of package our customer is interested in.

First leg, Shanghai – Zhangjiagang. Get onto a small bus, and 3 hours later, with a hurting certain part of your body you usually sit on we arrive in ZJG, and guess what, this might be the first “small” city in China I’ve been to that actually is a small city, only 860 000 living here. Other cities we’ve been to that they (Well, my colleagues and probably the rest of China) think of as small, has 2, 6, 3, 4 or whatever millions and every time they think have a good laugh asking about the population in my hometown in Sweden (Hrmm.. 10 – 15 000? =) )

One night in ZJG and then the bus to Suzhou. More room in this bus, and only for 2 hours. Both Suzhou and ZJG are nice cities. Streets are wide, so you can actually walk thee streets without having to push your way through. People are pretty nice to, except for at the supermarkets. I think this might be the worst visit to a supermarket I’ve done. It is also the first time I’ve nearly been killed by a shopping cart, three times in the same store. One lady actually hit me because I was in her way. If you thought the Christmas sales back home were terrible, you should see these people prepare for the Chinese New Year. But as long as I didn’t get in their way, it was pretty fun to watch.

Later when arriving in Hangzhou (Where I am now), when waiting in the taxi lane, there was some kind of commotion in the front. There was this couple trying to sneak in from behind that was caught by the guard and then it all started. The guard and the couple yelled at each other, ending up with the guard manhandling the husband, pulling their shopping bags. The wife is halfway to the taxi (that waited 20 feet away), but finds out that her husband isn’t with her. Returns and starts to pull him in the arm. The husband though, is now more interested in hitting the guard and less interested to get into the taxi. So now the wife, almost crying, has to do whatever is in her powers to stop him. This could have ended pretty badly if it wasn’t for this third guy sneaking up from somewhere else (He was not in the queue) trying to get into their taxi. With one leg inside the taxi, the guard notices him and, maybe because he was fighting a losing battle, he runs after the new guy and pulls him out again. While scolding him the couple sneaks into the taxi (Or, the wife pulls and pushes the yelling husband into it) and can finally leave. The new guy? He has to wait in the end of the line for another taxi, just like everybody else (or… some of us). The guard seemed satisfied with the outcome; at least he stopped one guy. =) Meanwhile enjoying this spectacle, I noticed that on the other side of the taxi stands four or five persons had to push-start one of the buses, just to watch it stop after 50 meters, run after it and push it again. Somehow, that bus didn’t sound very healthy and I wonder if it stopped in the next crossing. =) Well, Hangzhou bus station is the place where it all happens.

One more day of market visiting, and then we’ll return to our home towns. Hope that it’s still sunny on SH on Thursday.

I found some photos from when I went to the Airport with the Maglev Train a couple of weeks ago. It is the world’s first commercial Maglev train, 30 km in 8 minutes and tops 431km/h for about 48-50 seconds, which is really, really cool….And pretty shaky. No wonder they don’t have any tables in the train. Put a cup of coffee somewhere and you’ll find rather quickly that the coffee wants to get out of the cup and down in your lap. Anyway, the shaking isn’t that uncomfortable, it still is cool and you don’t have time to drink any coffee anyway. Less cool is that the train only runs between the airport and a station in the eastern SH (Pudong Longyang station). To get to that station, I have to go down to the Subway (8 minutes), take 7 or 8 stations (25 - 30 minutes) and then the Maglev (8 minutes) walk to the terminal (5-6 minutes), which totals around 50 minutes, with 0 waiting time at the stations. Maximum waiting time is 8 + 15 minutes which gives around 70 minutes in total. Total time from home to the terminal with taxi, 39 – 56 minutes (had one that took 1h and 13 minutes when we had to take a detour because of an accident). So unless they extend the line to the center of Shanghai, I think I’ll take the taxi when going to the Airport. I only have to photos, one on the inside and on from the inside on the Airport, if you want to see what the train looks like check this page out,

Thank god it's Friday!

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 06:54:00 +0000

Shanghai has the worst weather ever. It’s been raining for two weeks now, constantly. I wasn’t even here the first week, but even after 6 days of raining I’ve had enough. I miss Harbin. Yes it’s minus 20 and even colder, but I hate rain and I love snow. Oh, by the way, last time I hade 25 minutes of spare time to take a taxi to one of the ice sculpture exhibitions. I mean, after all Harbin is the Ice city. In fact, you don’t even have to go to an exhibition to see them. They’re everywhere! In the roundabouts, on the streets, in the parks, in gardens, on the back of our hotel – lions, dragons, dogs, fishes, towers, bridges, boats, Kirins (Qilin in Chinese and not a clue about the English translation. Have you ever had that Japanese beer Kirin? On the bottles you can see this animal mix of Dragon, Giraffe, some kind of deer and a bunch of other animals. This animal (animals?) only descends to earth when and where there is total harmony – not to be a pessimist but in my point of view, that would be never), all made of ice. Since it was pretty cold, I took a very quick tour, taking some pics until the cold sucked up all the battery life in my camera and then took a taxi back to the hotel (While having to listen to a taxi driver complaining about how Harbin was destroyed with all the new, tall buildings. It was much better 20 years ago.). Since I had a couple of hours of work waiting for me, I decided to go down to the swimming pool and take 30 minutes in there to freshen up my mind, just before they closed for the night.

Lost the thread up there somewhere...

Well, Monday and Tuesday next week we are going to a small city called Zhangjiagang a couple of hours outside Shanghai. Hope the weather is better there. After that it is only two days left before our Singapore trip! After that, I am going to Beijing for a couple of days, then to a city that I don’t even know the name of, and Qingdao (probably, not decided yet). I hope we are going there – Qingdao is famous for it’s beer and it would be nice to check that place out. (Qingdao is also famous (or infamous) for it’s totally useless airport. Taking off from there guarantees you a delay, according to a classmate from my Chinese classes last summer, who lived and worked there for two years). By the time I come back to Shanghai, I really hope the weather is better.

Number two, the Chinese banking system sucks! Since everything is handled with cash, when paying my rent, I first have to go to my bank and withdraw money. Yes, the whole amount in 100RMB notes, so then I have to carry around a big bunch of notes (which is pretty cool in one way) of course after having waited for like one hour (there’s always 50 numbers ahead of you). Then I have to go to my landlord’s bank to deposit the cash. Today there were 107 number ahead of me there, so I gave up that one pretty fast. Damn, don’t people do anything but going to the banks around here? Went to another branch of his bank, a small office, pretty sure it was smaller than my living room. “This’ll be quick” I thought, having only 12 in line before. If it hadn’t been for 5 out of 6 cashiers doing something else leaving only one available. Well, last day to pay the rent so nothing else to do but to stand in line for 40 minutes or so, which got me pretty annoyed.

On my way home, I saw this kid looting a pink wallet in a street corner, then throw it away. I could bet my turquoise umbrella that it wasn’t his wallet. I just wished I’d seen him a couple of minutes earlier during him doing the pick pocketing, just in time to shove my turquoise umbrella up his… well you know… and… yeah you know that part too. Anyway, I was pretty close to try to poke his eyes out or something, again with a turquoise umbrella. You know they can in fact come in handy sometimes. =) And then I wondered for a short while, why didn’t he just get one of those people coming out from the bank with the big bunches of 100 RMB notes (one of the old ladies in front of me withdrew somewhere around 10 000 – 20 000 RMB and put it in a vinyl bag carrying it as if she’d just got out of the super). Find a friend, and then pick one of those outside the bank on their way home instead, and you’ll earn much more than you’ll get pickpocketing people in the streets in six months.

Well, this weekend I am up for doing… nothing. Bought the first season of Prison Break and all the Inuyasha episodes. Maybe me and Emiko will just stay inside avoiding the god damn rain together with those episodes? But I also have some homework for my Chinese lesson Sunday night. Better spare some hours for that too. =)

I'll write about it all later. =)

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 06:53:00 +0000

Hi!

You're all back wherever you were supposed to return to after Christmas and New Year? Hope you had a nice flight, drive, boat trip, walk or however you got there. =)

In fact I have a lot to write about, but no time to write it. So, I have to come back to you with more details.

To sum up: Sister and her boyfriend was here. Had a really nice time! Hope to see you soon again! I'll come back to this later. =)

Been to Beijing and Harbin for six day. Had two 21 hour workdays, three that was only around 14 hours, did some skiing and spent way to much time at boring airports. Tell you more later. =)

Next weekend (from Friday, jan 27. Or 28?) when Chinese Spring festival starts, me and Emiko are flying to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. 6 days of sun and shopping. =)

The week after that, Heidi has arranged for me to participate in a focus group for some customer (not ours). A part of a development of a new product or something. I don't know the detail, Heidi doesn't know the details. It is arranged by a friend of Heidis in another company namely. All we know right now is that we are going to five different cities around China somewhere. Tell you more when I know. =)

Soon I think I will know when to start at TP Japan. Hope I'll get a couple of days off inbetween. Want to go to Taiwan to see my dad, Spain to see my sister and family and Sweden to see the other part of my family and my friends. =)

Finally, I've managed to become a globetrotter! literarily. My distance traveled in an airplane during the year of 2005 reached around 40,300 km (24,980 miles) and according to scientists, who I am sure are doing their math pretty good, the earth’s circumference around the equator is 40,076 km (24,902 miles), which means that I have beaten Mother Earth by some 200km. I also spent more days abroad (226 days in Mainland China, Japan, USA, Hong Kong and Macau) than in Sweden (139 days). =)

Gotta run!

See ya'round!

Xmas, New Year and broken SAS toilets

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 06:52:00 +0000

Hi everyone! Last day before I have to go to the office again tomorrow. It'll only be a three day short week, and then weekend again. Next Monday and Tuesday I'll go to Beijing for meetings.

Tomorrow I have to send what I have been working on for the last two or three weeks to my boss for approval. It is a strategic proposal for a geographical expansion and product portfolio composition in 2006 for our customer in northest. In short, what, how and where they should sell their products (Well, Liquid Dairy Products in TP packages =) ) during this year. I hope I'll get out of next week's meeting with my boss alive. =)

My big sister (not the one living in Spain, but in Sweden.) and her boyfriend were supposed to land at Pudong Airport today, but obviously some SAS technical problem had screwed up the airplane and all the toilets had malfunctioned. And who want´s to sit in this airplane for 10 hours without... going... while the nice stewardesses and handsome stewards serve free drinks? So after a couple of hours they managed to fix one toilet and... since that isn't enough for a whole airplane full of passengers only the business class people could finally take off. All the others got stuck in Copenhagen and had to spend the night at hotels. So, I have to wait until tomorrow until I see my sister.

And as you know, my little sister and mum visited me during two weeks in december. Since we (me and my sisters, or at least me and one of my sisters) are scattered all over the world, and instead of us visiting mum in Ängelholm, poor mum has to fly back and forth all over the world to see us. (Last time I saw her and my little sister (And my "Spanish" sister) was for 2 days in June in Ängelholm, and before that for 2 weeks in January in the USA (But at that time only mum, no sisters). That time I missed my little sister with a couple of days since I was in Japan when she was in the USA and she left just before I arrived there. Well, that is the way it is. We only see each other a couple of days every year. I haven't even been to Spain yet to visit my sister! Shame on me! Well, hope to see you in Japan this year at least! =) )

During the first week of their visit, Heidi, a colleague and dear friend of my fathers (hmm. Right, a colleague of mine too now =) ), and also a dear friend of my mothers, came to Shanghai from Taiwan for business, and what do you get from this? Yeah, that's right, a 25-year long time no see reunion for my mum and Heidi! They seemed very happy and I was very happy for them! =) Hope it won't take another 25 years until they see each other next time!

Other than that, we visited some of the must-visit-places in Shanghai, had a lot of Japanese food and did a lot of shopping! Miss you guys already!

Time flies, and already Christmas and New Year is over. The last two hours of 2005 was spent together with Emiko and some colleagues at a Count Down Carnival that Minnie at work got from a friend of hers working at an advertisement agency. A lot of music and dancing, including some famous and some not so famous Chinese singers and pop stars. I've seen a couple of them on TV and also one of the hosts, a lady who always wears red and has some talk show/music program on TV, but don't now their names, ehum. As a final guest of honor, Jackie Chan appeared and sang a couple of song, talked a lot, joked and danced a little, and suddenly they were counting down and the whole place exploded (in a good sense, not bad) in fire works and 2006 had arrived. Pretty cool, and we could review it on TV later. =) Oh, And I also almost got hit in the head a couple of times by one of those extended arms with a camera in the end thats makes it look like your flying over the crowd when watching it on TV. It is not my fault that everyone here is one head shorter than me!

Well, my best wishes to all of you and I hope that you'll stay with me during this year too!

And, for all you working on your thesis', keep up the good work and keep me updated on when your finished! =) There should be a couple of you finished within this month or next, right? I'm proud of you guys =)

See ya'll!

Stupid rules....

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 06:51:00 +0000

Hope you guys had a nice Christmas Holiday! I did, with a Christmas tree, family (part of it, first time in a couple of years actually), Christmas gifts (Yup, bought all of them on Dec 24) Pepparkakor and Glogg (Well, hmmm.. Swedish Christmasy things...).

This morning I put my mum and sis in a cab and hope they got to the airport OK, safe and sound! Have a safe flight home! I didn't have the chance to go with them since I had to go to the office, where I am right now.

Well, in China (And in Japan) they have this wonderful rule that if holidays occurs on weekend, they just move them to following weekdays, which means January 2nd and 3rd off. How great isn't that? =) (Christmas isn't celebrated in China more than wishing each other ??????!(Zhu ni Shengdan kuai le! = Wish you a merry Christmas!). I am not sure about the gift giving thing, but people were shopping like crazy last week so I guess Christmas gifts has something to do with that. (Speaking of which, hope you beat last years december sales and have a nice sale next month, GANT Store Linkoping, Jonkoping, Vala, HBG and Lund! =))
Back to the day moving stuff... in Japan they've all agreed to move them and simply have the days off (Maybe thats why the Japanese has the highest average unpaid overtime hours, 2000+ hours anually to compensate for that. Compare with Sweden that has around 150 - 200hours.) . Well, in China some very smart person decided that, since we are taking a day off, lets work on a Saturday instead! If you wanna have a holiday, use your annual leave. So, that's why I have to work on New Years Eve.

This new was brought to me in the elevator this morning by Johnny, who by the way made me sing a Swedish song a cappela in front of 10 colleagues without even my guitar, just because I lost some stupid game at our Yangzhou outing. On the other hand, he saved me from having to take a shower naked in front of them which some of my female colleagues proposed I should do instead. Shame on them! =)

Now my lunch is over, better get to work.

Ho Ho Ho!

i01tombr@gmail.com (Tomotaka Brink Fushimi) — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 06:50:00 +0000

To everybody out there in Sweden, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, US, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, GB, Austraila, New Zealand or where ever you might be at the moment, I wish you a Very Merry Christmas from a Shanghai without any snow! A special Merry Christmas to my father who went home to Sweden over the weekend!

I have things to write about from the past weeks, but will keep that for later because right now I am going to have some Julglogg and Pepparkakor with my mother, sister and Emiko.