Saturday/ come to Tokyo!

(Very late Sunday night in Hong Kong as I write).   Just a few pictures from Saturday – I will post more tomorrow.     First picture is a sign from a restaurant in Ginza.   I assume it talks about help needed for the earthquake victims.      The subway is super efficient and super easy to use and I love the station names.   The trains were generally not very crowded, possibly because it was in the middle of a weekend day.     This is inside a giant electronics + toy store in the Akihabara district with 7 floors that sells electronics, computers, anime, model trains, planes, automobiles and toys of every stripe.    I was overwhelmed – even though all the kids with their parents seemed to handle the visual onslaught of all the merchandise on display better than I did.

The traditional gate is near the Asakusa station and in a very nice area with small streets and malls of stores and eateries.   There were several people collecting money for the earthquake victims.

Then early evening Saturday I met friends of my Seattle friends at Shinjuku station – it is the busiest train station in the world.    Outside there was a buzz outside with many of Tokyo’s young people just hanging out and socializing.    The two night time picture is from there as well.     The little tickle-me- Elmos(?) are inside a coin-operated machine, hoping to be picked up with a dangling hook by a lucky Saturday night player.

Friday night/ arrived in Tokyo

Our flight left 3 hrs late!  with two returns to the gate needed, the last to fix a broken Pitot tube.  (Let me not mention Air France 447 but now that I did, I think they will find out if the Pitot tubes were actually responsible for the crash now that they recovered the flight recorders. )

So some people missed their connections in Tokyo, but that gave me time to fix my hotel reservation which I discovered just before boarding, had me arrive Thu night instead of Friday.    I called the hotel in Tokyo from the plane parked at the gate, after getting the correct country code + area code from a woman called Debbie who says people call her all the time asking if it’s the hotel.   So sorry! I said.

The train station picture is my arrival at Tokyo station, that’s the Narita Express on the left.   Check the Do Not Rush! instruction on the pillar (you will stumble and crash into the train or fall onto the tracks – not good).    So then I used my Suica card to take the regular subway train to Ginza – only thing was, there is a Ginza station on three lines, and I picked the wrong one.     So I ended up quite a walk from the hotel.      When I finally re-located myself and the hotel on my map – not easy with the translations and street names – three cabs in a row refused to take me there even though I pointed to it on the map.    Two friendly passers-by* explained that they are all waiting at the bars and hotels for the midnight/ 1 am start time when they can picked up people in the Ginza district.    I’d have to walk to a taxi station.    But anyway, the hotel is probably just as far, and they pointed me to a street corner, take a right, and walk for 10 mins.    And there the happy sight of the Tokyo Ginza Marriott was at last.    *It is true : Tokyo people are very helpful and very friendly!

The last three pictures are of my midnight walk .. I have to say Tokyo’s luxury stores are not nearly as glitzy and ostentatious as they are in Hong Kong (and Shenzhen for that matter).       The city is also in a power conservation mode and not all the night lights for the buildings are switched on (or maybe it was too late at night when I walked by).   The taxis outnumber regular cars by 10 to 1.    There are almost no private vehicles to be seen on the streets.

Thursday/ at Sea-Tac airport

I am at Seattle airport.    I see the Airbus A319 that will take us to Tokyo today started in Wichita (Kansas) this morning, hopped over to Denver (Colorado) and has landed at Seattle airport.     Our scheduled flying time is 10h 12 min and the scheduled arrival is Fri at 3pm Tokyo time.

Wednesday/ preparing for Tokyo stayover

I’m on my way back to China on Thursday, but here are some of my ‘prep notes’ for my two-day stayover in Tokyo before I travel on to Hong Kong on Sunday.    Tokyo is very big, and not like Western cities with one ‘defined’ downtown.   Several big urban centers are built around the major train stations.   (No way you can get 35 million people in the world’s largest megalopolis to where they need to be if you didn’t do that !).   The black map diagram is of the Marriott Courtyard hotel in the Ginza district where I will stay .. a long way from the airport, but in the middle of a very nice area.

Notes for Tokyo Narita Airport Arrival

At  JR East Travel Service Center – Narita Airport Terminal 1,  8:15 – 19:00, every day of the year

buy a combination Suica card + N-Ex return for the green car, it costs Y 5500 for a round-trip.

For the Shinkansen (Super Express ‘bullet train’) the stations are

Ofuna Totsuka Yokohama Musashi-Kosugi Omiya Ikebukuro Takao Hachioji Tachikawa Kokubunji Mitaka Kichijoji Shinjuku Shibuya Shinagawa Tokyo Chiba Yotsukaido Narita Narita Airport
Terminal 2 Narita Airport  Terminal 1 Narita Airport

All seats on the Narita Express require prior reservation. Advance reservation for the seat and travel interval are required.

Round trips

  • Outward reserved seats are available for the Narita Express when purchasing a Suica & N’EX package.
  • The special-value outward ticket can be used to board the Narita Express and travel to any JR East station in the Designated Tokyo Train Interval, the yellow area on the map. Riders may get off the train along the route as long as they do not exit from the ticket gate.
  • Return reserved seats can be reserved in advance at designated seat ticket machines and JR Ticket Offices (Midori-no-madoguchi).
  • The return ticket is valid for entry at any station within the yellow area on the map. When returning to Narita Airport Station on the Narita Express, riders may get off the train along the route as long as they do not exit from the ticket gate.
  • If you miss your booked train, you cannot use the seats on a later limited express even if you have a Green Car ticket. In this case, please stand.

We are operating the Narita Express (N’EX) with a partial suspension of service. N’EX departs from Narita Airport Station every 30 minutes or hourly from 7:31 to 11:15 and from 14:15 to 20:44. Please note that the service of N’EX departing from Narita Airport between 12:00 and 14:00 is to be cancelled, but the Rapid trains run every hour for Tokyo.

Tuesday/ blue sky

Monday night and Tuesday’s pictures.

Blue sky at the corner of Fifth and Pike with the monorail train just arriving (the monorail train runs from the Space Needle to downtown, was built for the World Fair in Seattle in 1962 and is just a tourist attraction at this point!).     Gas is now at/ over $4.00/ gal at most places here, these prices from the gas station nearest to my house*.    Seattlegasprices.com reports that the best anyone can do in the city is $3.87/ gal, which would save me $1.96 on a full tank of gas (but cost me gas and time to get there!).   Check out the fancy new parking permit stickers the city is issuing .. yes, residents of Capitol Hill need permits (they’re free) to park in their own neighborhood, since we have too many cars here.

*The US senate just voted ‘NO’ on a proposal that the $2 billion annual tax subsidy to the oil companies be rescinded.  But we all know that this is a drop in the bucket anyway, and that cheap gas will not come back.  So drive less! or get an electric car!, is what I think.   The chart (click to enlarge) shows the average American consumer spends a whopping $725 per month on transportation.

And the meal is lamb and eggplant curry stew over couscous from the Elysian Pub from Tuesday night.  It was delicious.

Monday/ another cool, rainy spring day

Monday was rainy again, and that makes bright colors like the umbrella from a passer-by near my house, and a poster jump out.    It feels cold to me, brr!, coming from the climate in Hong Kong that is already warm and humid.    We’re at 190 days and counting to reach 70 °F (21.1 °C).  The last time that happened was Nov 3 last year with a record-high-for-the-calendar of 74°F.


Sunday/ South Korean bank notes

I got a few South Korean bank notes at Incheon airport on Saturday.   The won has been in use for thousands of years, but represented by different denominations and notes over the centuries, of course.    Today South Korean paper money comes in 50,000 won (introduced only in 2009, equal to US$ 45), 10,000 won (US$ 9), 5,000 won (US$ 4.50) and and 1,000 won (US$ 0.90).    So the $9 in exchange for the 10,000 won note is fine for adding it to my world money collection.

The front of the 10,000 won note shows Sejong the Great, the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea (born May 7, 1397 – dec. May 18, 1450).    The background contains a folding screen from this time, and text from the first work of literature written in Korean.   The work is called ‘Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven’, and was also compiled during this time.

Saturday/ in Seattle

I arrived in Seattle a few hours ago via Seoul.   The van picked 3 of us up in Dameisha on Saturday morning.     The first picture is on the way there; the ubiquitous red Hong Kong taxi making it into the picture.   Next stop Hong Kong airport, super efficient and organized as always.    I opted for the Korean dinner on the Asiana Airlines flight, called Bibimbap (‘mixed meal’), a signature Korean dish.    It is served as a bowl of warm white rice and namul (sautéed and seasoned vegetables) and gochujang (chili pepper paste).   My version had sesame oil and some ground beef as well.  The ingredients are stirred together thoroughly just before eating.   Delicious!   The stewardess said I got the good version of bibimbap, supplied by a Korean company, and that the meals they get from Hong Kong suppliers are not nearly as nice.   The soup was salty with bit of dried fish, onion and cabbage and was very good, too.

The final picture is our approach into Incheon airport in Seoul with a nice suspension bridge in the distance.

Friday/ shipping out

It’s Friday, it’s two weeks after the go-live, and most of the Americans are going home for a week.     So we are as happy as robot cat Doraemon on the candy tin (picture from a candy store in Hong Kong), and sitting pretty as the spotted cat (leopard) in the tree (picture from a colleague, taken in a private game reserve in South Africa). 

I will stick around in Dameisha tonight and then get picked up in the morning to catch my flight out to Seattle on Saturday,  Asiana Airlines via Seoul.    And I might even arrive there with 64 degrees and the sun shining. 

Thursday/ countdown to Universade 2011

 I took these pictures Thursday in Dameisha.   Shenzhen is the city that hosts the 2011 Universiade (the ‘Start Here’* picture is presumably an office that sells tickets to events -or registers participants?).   The Universiade is an international multi-sport event, organized for university athletes by the International University Sports Federation (FISU).      It has 10 compulsory sports, namely track and field, water sports (swimming, diving and water polo), basketball, soccer, fencing, gymnastics, judo, table tennis, tennis and volleyball.

*the ‘Start Here’ reminded me of the Windows 95 launch .. and sure enough, the ‘ Start’  on the picture with Bill Gates uses the same font !

I discovered later the ICIF on the green ball stands for the International Cultural Industries Fair of 2011 which is the 7th annual cultural trade fair in China.     So there is that going on somewhere in the area as well.  

Wednesday/ China’s Oprah

Here are a few TV pictures I snapped Wednesday night.   It is of Chen Lu Yu, the host amd creator of A Date With Luyu and a guest.    She is sometimes referred to as China’s Oprah.    I couldn’t make out much of the conversation on this show where she interviewed the blond-haired lǎo ​wài*.   (I don’t know his name).    He speaks Mandarin fluently and his voice has a nice tenor to it when he sings.

*foreigner, a neutral term.     We use it frequently on the bus or at work to describe ourselves to our Chinese collegues and client team members here, as in ‘Will ​lǎo ​wàis be able to order food at that restaurant without help?’

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday/ how to build a 1,000mph car

 .. which is of course not really a car : it’s a rocket on wheels.   

This recent article on the Bloodhound Supersonic Car project appeared in last week’s Economist (see text below).   I found the diagram of the other British landspeed records elsewhere.  And where exactly is the proposed Hakskeen Pan test site?  I wanted to know.   Well, it’s in the north-west of South Africa, right in that wedge between Botswana and Namibia, in the Kalahari desert.     Could that place ever be the same after that insatiable need-for-speed Hound had thundered across its flats?

 

From May 5 issue of The Economist :

How to build a 1,000mph car

THIS summer Daniel Jubb will perform the equivalent of lighting the blue touch paper and standing clear. The 27-year-old will undertake the first full test firing of a hybrid rocket which he has designed to help a British team set a new land-speed record by driving at 1,000mph (1,609kph). Mr Jubb’s rocket, however, will also need the assistance of a powerful EJ200 jet engine from a Typhoon fighter aircraft and a Cosworth Formula 1 racing engine if Bloodhound SSC (supersonic car) is to become the fastest thing on wheels.

Combining a rocket, a jet and a racing-car engine into one vehicle is engineering of an extreme sort, but record-breaking often demands that new problems be solved. Mr Jubb’s task was to build a rocket that could be used safely in a car, but was also controllable and could be switched off quickly in the event of an emergency.

A rocket works by burning fuel with an oxidiser, which provides a source of oxygen for combustion. The hot exhaust gases are then blasted through a nozzle to produce thrust. Rockets using liquid propellants can be shut down reasonably easily by turning off the pumps delivering the fuel and oxidiser, but they tend to be complex and their propellants, such as liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, difficult and hazardous to handle.

Solid-fuel rockets, in which the fuel and oxidiser are pre-mixed into a stable, solid propellant and then packed inside the case of the rocket, are simpler, lighter and relatively safer. But once a solid-fuel rocket is ignited, it is off like a firework and keeps going until all the fuel is burned up. About the only way to stop it is to blow it apart. In a car, that would not do.

The hybrid design which Mr Jubb has come up with uses a solid fuel called hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, a form of synthetic rubber used to make things like aircraft tyres. It is contained within the case of the rocket, into which is pumped a liquid oxidiser called high-test peroxide (HTP), a concentrated form of hydrogen peroxide which is relatively safe to handle. When the HTP comes into contact with a catalyst contained within the rocket, it turns into steam and oxygen. And it does so at a high enough temperature to ignite the solid fuel. This provides the added advantage of not having to build an ignition system into the rocket.

If the hybrid rocket needs to be shut down in a hurry all you need do is turn off the pump delivering the oxidiser. That is where the Cosworth engine comes in. Apart from generating auxiliary power for Bloodhound SSC’s electrical and hydraulic systems, it also drives a high-speed pump capable of delivering all 800 litres of HTP in the tank to the rocket in 20 seconds.

The rocket gives the car plenty of power, but it is either on or off. To provide some form of throttle to allow acceleration and deceleration, the vehicle’s designers added the EJ200 jet engine. This will be used by Andy Green, a Royal Air Force pilot who will drive the car, to get the vehicle moving. At about 200mph he will start the pump to deliver the HTP into the rocket.

At first there will be a stream of steam coming from the rocket. But then ignition gets going and at full blast the jet and the rocket will each provide about half of the 210,000 newtons (47,000 pounds) of thrust needed to break the record. At about 750mph the car will go through the sound barrier. Wing Commander Green has been there before—and not only in a fighter plane. In 1997 at Black Rock Desert, Nevada, he drove Thrust SSC to become the first person to break the sound barrier in a car and set the existing land-speed record of 763mph. This time the Nevada desert will not be big enough, so the attempt will take place over an even larger expanse of flat ground at Hakskeen Pan in the Northern Cape in South Africa, perhaps next year.

Bloodhound SSC could reach up to 1,050mph. Wing Commander Green then has to slam on the brakes. After turning off the jet and rocket he will deploy an air brake at 800mph, parachutes at 600mph and finally put his foot on a car-type friction brake at 250mph—any faster and the brakes could explode.

Then the car is serviced and refuelled to do it all over again. This is because the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, which keeps the land-speed records, takes as its measure the average of two runs over one mile in opposite directions completed within one hour.

The attempt is being organised by Richard Noble, a veteran British record-breaker, and is sponsored by a number of companies. Mr Jubb’s firm, The Falcon Project, was one of the first to step forward—and into the limelight. He usually designs and manufactures secretive military rockets in Britain and the United States. Construction of Bloodhound SSC has begun at an apt location: a borrowed warehouse on the dockside in Bristol next to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s SS Great Britain, which in 1845 crossed the Atlantic in a record 14 days.

Unusually for such an enterprise, all the technical details, including computer-aided design files, are available online (bloodhoundssc.com). Mr Noble is involving schools in the project to encourage interest in engineering as a career. So far, more than 4,000 schools are taking part. This was part of a deal with Britain’s defence ministry in order to borrow the EJ200. It is to be hoped, though, that none of the children will try to build one of these cars at home.

Monday/ earplugs to the rescue

I stayed at the hotel on Monday to get over my cold.   Of course : I had to get a day with lots of activity out front in the street.   Whole trees getting lifted up by a crane and put in by the enormous (but empty) apartment complex, AND a crew with jack hammers breaking up the pavement in front of the hotel.     So that’s where you need these little memory foam earplugs.  Granted, they take a little getting used to but they drown out the decibels from screaming babies, jack hammers and jet engines.

Sunday/ happy Mother’s Day 母亲节 !

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers!  We love you! [big hug-g].

The TV screen is from my hotel room in Dameisha after I had arrived.      So .. to make my way back to Dameisha today, I took a taxi from the hotel on Hong Kong Island to the Hung Hom terminal station of the East Rail line (light blue line on the map).   That train runs up all the way to the Lo Wu border crossing (about 40 mins).   Then you walk through the Hong Kong and mainland China crossings, and catch a taxi again for Dameisha.    I worried that I might be stopped at the border if I had a fever (I have a runny nose and a sore throat), but I made it through.   ‘Stay away from wild animals’ said a sign coming in to the mainland.   Yes- nevermind the animals, I’m staying away from humans so as not to make them sick!

Getting on the train at Hung Hom station.  As the railway line approaches the mainland border, it splits into two, one route going to Lo Wu and the other to Lok Ma Chau.
Tai Po Market station. The Hong Kong Railway Museum is located a10-min walk away from the station.
The arum lily art is at Fan Ling station (we call them pig’s ears in Afrikaans in South Africa).
Approaching Lo Wu station.
Luo Wu station on the Shenzhen side, after I had entered mainland China through customs.  The taxi stand is downstairs by escalator.  

Saturday/ searching for medicine

Yes, the odd work hours and the stress of last week must have gotten to me.    I have a sore throat (this is Sunday morning) and a stuffy head.     I did find some Cepacol throat tablets (made in the USA, no less) .. these have been around a long time since I took them as a youngster in South Africa.       Check out the colorful labels on the medicines one finds in the drug stores here.    Doraemon the robot cat is also deployed to market products aimed at kids !

Friday/ Hong Kong

Friday was busy at work.  We discovered a bug in the SAP program that creates work orders, and several hundred work orders needed to get fixed.    We got the fix in and since we did not have to come in to work this weekend,  my colleague and I hopped on the bus and came to Hong Kong.     It took 3 hours to get here – about average – and this picture was taken outside the Four Seasons hotel, on Hong Kong island.      The snacks we had at the bar, was also dinner.

Thursday/ dinner at Dynasty

These chopsticks are from the Dynasty restaurant in the Sheraton Dameisha Hotel where we had dinner Thursday night : lacquered with metal ends.   (See the dragon in the picture?).    I have seen really expensive sticks carved from jade.      But it turns out for me that the lowly bamboo ones we use at lunch in the cafeteria every day are the very best :  light and with tips that can hold on the morsel of food that is picked up from the plate or the bowl.

Wednesday/ evening walk

Just a few pictures from my evening walk around Da Mei Sha : the entrance to the freeway that runs to Shenzhen,  the Jing Di hotel on the beachfront (hotels.com reports that it goes for US $106 a night – that puts it halfway between the cheapest hotels in Dameisha which go for $33 and the Sheraton which goes for $250),  and flood lights on the Mei Sha beach around 8pm in the evening with some evening swimmers.

Tuesday/ Day One

We had an early start (5.45am bus departure from Dameisha!) to make it in for the go-live.    But please note that we are not opening a website that sells tickets for a rock concert.     So the system does not get flooded with thousands of users trying to get in.   Instead, the first day users are the work planners, the supply chain users and the finance guys .. and some of them have already been in the system since last week.

And are you ready for your 5-minute crash course on how to install  SAP?    Let’s go!    Start by setting up a development (DEV) and sandbox (SBX) system.     SAP comes with packaged programs and some configuration but you will have to set up your own company’s configuration and master data.      Then do a ‘blueprint’ phase to draw up the plan for what functions the system needs to have.      The DEV system is used for this and for the ‘realization’ phase.    The realization phase – the construction phase – can take 6 to 12 months!    You then need a ‘quality assurance’ system (QAS) for testing the prototype that you built.    For that, convert your legacy system’s data into the QAS.     And then when all defects have been fixed and tweaks made to the design, you are ready to create the final system.      In our case we had a ‘production system’ (PRD) up and running already that had been in place for a few years.     But if it’s the first time SAP is installed at your company, you will create a brand-spanking new PRD system.   (A system is a gigantic database with several hundred thousand connected tables, a set of SAP application software, and database software from Oracle or IBM to keep the millions of data records indexed and organized).  

So all of this to say our project has ‘arrived’ at the end of the line.   We have a system that is up and running, that have active users in, that has the basic SAP functions with added bells and whistles that make it support the work methods here.     Which in our case is running a nuclear power plant’s work management activities,  engineering activities, supply chain functions (purchases of parts, materials and services) and all the finances that go with it.  

 

Monday/ the Great Doughnut Hunt

Monday’s mission was to find some doughnuts and bagels in Hong Kong for the SAP go-live here in Daya Bay.    So here are the highlights of the events that led to the delightful sight of pink-sprinkly and chocolate-with-nuts frosted doughnuts.     The doughnut shop in Lan Kwai Fong we found on the internet went out of business some time ago.    So, off to the nearest Starbucks.   It had all of 8 doughnuts (we needed forty-8!).   Well – we’ll take all 8, we said.   Something is better than nothing.    And would they know where to get more?  Or when is the next delivery?  There is a factory in the city but they only deliver again at 3 pm.   It would have been best to order one day ahead.   But the barista was very helpful, offering to call other Starbuckses and tracking down more for us.   Well – we didn’t have time to go to 6 other Starbuckses in the city!   So we remembered a Marks & Spencer store down on Queens Rd., and off we went.   The store’s food dept was in the basement.   As we made our way through the underwear department which was also down there, we went .. hmm, what are the chances of any doughnuts down here?   But sure enough, they had a bakery and there they were,  in the display case (pictures).    And they had plenty more in the deep freezer.   Turns out they keep them there and defrost them a dozen at a time – otherwise the frosting goes gooey in the humid Hong Kong atmosphere.    Alright! we said.  4 dozen frozen ones, please !   Mission accomplished.    (Soon after that we learned of the news of the big mission from the US Marines that had been accomplished as well).