a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
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.
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’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).
Sunday was May Day here in Asia and in Europe (Google’s homepage), and in most places that makes Monday a holiday. My colleague had not taken the Hong Kong Peak Tram, and so we did that — but the line was so long that we bought a combination Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum plus Tram ticket in the much shorter line. The museum was a lot of fun. (The picture of Einstein is my favorite*. One could only get a picture with President Obama from the official photographer, that’s why I couldn’t pose with him on my picture).
*The weekend China Post reports that there is an Einstein exhibition planned for Shanghai and that authorities there insisted that it be coupled with an exhibit of Confucius
Today we started out on Hollywood Rd on Hong Kong Island where all the antique shops are, stopped by the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch and then went to International Commerce Center which has opened its obsevarion deck just a few weeks ago.
Pictures – Man Mo temple on Hollywood Rd burns a lotof incense (spiral coils)! The International Commerce Center comes in at No 4 according to a chart on the observation deck. Notably Chicago boasts two skyscrapers in the top 10 : Willis Tower (Sears Tower’s new name) and Trump’s Tower. (Message to Mr Trump : stick to real estate and stay out of politics). The blue floor with a model of Hong Kong is at one’s feet when stepping out of the elevator on the 100th floor. The tower is in Kowloon, so that’s Hong Kong Island across Victoria Harbor. The observation deck has little mascots (to make it interesting for young visitors?) The picture shows a little of the side, and that’s me in the ‘take a photo’ cube.
We noticed that there’s a number of floors above the observation deck .. that is actually a Ritz-Carlton Hotel (!) occupying floors 102 through 118. It has the world’s highest swimming pool and bar within a building. The 30,000 sqf Presidential Suite which costs 100 000 HKD per night ($US 12,500) is on floor 117.
The corporate steering committee’s reviews and assessments have been completed. and we have been given the green light to go live on Tuesday with our system. The cut-over activities went well this week – so well that we don’t have to work over the weekend. So a colleague and I jumped on the bus and came to Hong Kong. Pictures : a new face for the Sha Tou Jiao border crossing building, waiting for the bus to Hong Kong. Prince Edward station on the Hong Kong metro and a British pub in Lan Kwai Fong televising the Royal Wedding (of course). All kinds of pubs and restaurants in Lan Kwai Fong, we picked a Greek restaurant for dinner. The Hong Kong Hard Rock Cafe has just opened.
What’s for dinner in the hotel room if one is too tired to go out? Why – instant noodles, of course! Add boiling water, let it steep for 3 minutes and it’s ready! Tonkotsu flavor is pork bone broth flavor (or an imitation of that? doesn’t matter, it’s tasty and good). My research shows that instant noodles were invented in 1958 by Momofuku Ando, the Taiwanese-Japanese founder and chairman of Nissin Foods (same as my noodle cup’s brand), now run by his son Koki Ando.
A final note : instant noodles was named the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th century in a Japanese poll. (Source : Wikipedia. It did not say which other inventions the instant noodle competed with).
Here is the coin that I bought Tuesday. (Never mind that silver’s price surged over $49 an ounce on Monday, briefly putting it within $1 of a 30-year-high! I bought the coin as a souvenir and not as an investment).
This commemorative 1 oz silver coin of Year of the Rabbit 2011 is legal tender of the People’s Republic of China, issued by People’s Bank of China. The obverse (front) shows the Rabbit and the reverse says People’s Republic of China with the Forbidden Palace in the center.
Since I had Tuesday off (due to Monday’s night shift) I went back to where I was on Sunday : the Shenzhen Library and Concert Hall. (I bought a silver coin with a rabbit on. I will show it tomorrow). So the first picture is of the Shenzhen Library. Remember the building with the wavy roof? It houses the Shenzhen Museum, and check out the second picture – made me think the building is galloping towards me, very cool. It was designed by architect Li Mingyi, built by the Shenzhen QiXin Construction Group and completed in 2004. The small picture is an artist’s rendition. It shows the entire structure which I couldn’t into a single picture, so I covered it from left to right with three pictures. The Civic Plaza from where I took these three pictures has big and small light fixtures powered by solar energy. I don’t know the names of the other glitzy new glass and steel buildings, but the last picture is of the Children’s Palace. It’s a science museum but it was very much closed on Tuesday night.
Yes, that’s me on the stretcher (cot? not sure that it’s a ‘cot’) doing night shift in the conference room that we set up as the ‘war room’ at work. But please note 1. I didn’t really sleep and 2. the lavender blanket is not mine! (nice color, though! LOL). We are taking turns to do night shifts to support the final data conversion sequence into the production system that started last week.
I was finally free to go to the city on Sunday, and so I did. I started off by going to the SEG electronics market (赛格电子市场) in the Futian area (exit A of Huaqiang Lu station – this for my own reference!). There are several electronics marts and buildings, some more formal than others. The tall building is the SEG building. The inside pictures are from a cylindrical building called Huaqiang Market if I recall correctly. The lighting orbs five floors up on the ceiling change color every few seconds, making for a nice display. Check out the close-up of the green traffic light figure -fitting for located at ground zero for electronics geeks !
My other major stop was at the Children’s Palace station (少年宮站) to go to the Book Experience Mall. At over 74,000 sqm (800,000 sqf) and occupying two city blocks, it is billed as the world’s first and largest retail center dedicated exclusively to books, music and art. Unfortunately for me it has very few English books (probably by design). I bought a country map of China and snapped pictures of the covers of a 600 page tome about the Yin and the Yang and Nelson Mandela’s autobiography in Chinese. (By the way, South Africa’s Chinese population is 350,000. Google ‘Chinese in South Africa and read the The Wikipedia entry for more). I couldn’t resist taking a discreet cell-phone picture of the two kids reading the book together. I envy them with a lifetime of books to read ahead of them! – and thought why do I not make more time for reading myself? The final pictures are outside of the bookstore. There is an open plaza with musicians and singers performing in public. It was such a gorgeous Sunday afternoon and made for a very nice experience. So the backdrop of the musicians and audience picture is the Shenzhen Library and Concert Hall. The dad teaching his daughter to ride her bike and the enormous wavy roof structure is the view looking out from the steps on the way to the lobbies of the library and the concert hall. The lobbies face each other (with the pyramid-shaped roofs). I took two pictures of the roof beams-as-art inside the library before the security guard ran up to me and said ‘no pictures’ !
The ‘baby on board’ sticker is from Saturday morning’s ‘black’ taxi that took 3 of us to work to support the on-going data conversion for the May go-live. The flowers are from the swank lobby of the Dameisha Sheraton where we had a burger and a beer Friday night. It would have been nice to stay in the Sheraton for the project, but it’s too expensive and instead we stay in the Pattaya Hotel (with the blue LED trim, and marked on the Dameisha map).
I still see new real estate agencies every time I come back here for my next trip, but the word is that the 2009-2010 purchasing frenzy is no longer occurring at real estate centers. The ‘sweet spring’ of real estate buying in March and April has not materialized this year. There are reports that housing prices especially for second hand homes as they are called here, have declined some 5% in cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. And there is still no sign of life in the Ocean Crown condo complex (picture with the reflection in the water) across from the Pattaya Hotel.
A colleague of mine working here on the project brought out some biltong from South Africa. Biltong is South African ‘beef jerky’ but comes in many many more incarnations than just beef. So in South Africa one would find bilong made from beef, kudu, eland, wildebeest, even ostrich. Blue wildebeest is a very common antelope found in Africa and has a ‘least concerned’ status on the endangered species list (see panel from Wikipedia), which made me feel better – it being Earth Day and all on Friday ! There are about 1 million of the ‘beasts’ roaming the plains of the Serengeti.
I bought the ‘bee-hive’ honey bottle in a fancy grocery store in Hong Kong some time ago. Check out the French-engineered ‘valve’ on the bottom that allows honey to be squeezed through with no dripping. Quite a feat, huh? My cereal bowl* for use in the hotel room is melamine and from the local grocery store. It is the perfect shape for me to mix my sloppy Pronutro cereal in. (It’s like instant oatmeal). If the bowl is too shallow, the milk and stuff sloshes out to easily – very annoying !
*go ahead and ignore the little pooh-bear, I didn’t buy the bowl for that : )
The two striking bottled water advertisements* are from shop windows on my early morning walk around Dameisha (getting up early made possible by my jet lag, hard for me to do otherwise!). It’s also nice to be able to take a in-the-middle-of-the-street picture since there is no traffic. The building with the curved roof is a recent construction close to where we work in the Da Peng area but I’m not sure what its purpose is. The final two pictures are from buildings close to the power station. They house indoor sports facilities such as basket ball courts.
*Yes, I know I should not promote bottled water. These 5 good reasons from a web site called Mother Nature Network –
1) Bottled water isn’t a good value for one’s money
2) No healthier than tap water (my note: it depends where in the world you are)
3) Bottled water means garbage
4) Bottled water means less attention to public systems
5) The corporatization of water
As promised here are some images from the Doraemon – Gadget Cat from the Future – books I bought at Narita airport. This is the first in a a series of 10 books. I thought I’d get the first two and see if I like it .. and so far I do! The little copters allows the Cat and those with him to fly. And check out the Cat’s matching facial expressions as he asks ‘Did I upset you?‘ and says ‘I can’t answer all of your questions at once’.
The last two pictures are of items with Doraemon pictures on that I found in the grocery store here in Dameisha.
The ice cream was a welcome little snack we got on the plane ride in to Hong Kong. It was 1 am by the time I checked into the Pattaya Hotel in Dameisha (view from my balcony this morning) .. my driver and I again had long waits at the border crossings out of Hong Kong and into mainland China (this is at 12 midnight on a Sunday night !). We also run into a lot of traffic into work this morning. Someone said a journalist from Hong Kong to demonstrated recently that almost anyone can get into the main security entrance gate and that there has been a crackdown and every vehicle is now checked.
So here at the work site the final upload sequence into the live SAP production system (as we call it) has started. It’s all systems go! and all hands on deck! for the teams. Wish us well !
I’m on solid ground here in the airport lounge and happy to report nothing is a-wry. I got my boarding pass as well. It’s an All Nippon Airlines flight masquerading as a Continental flight that will take me to Hong Kong. I snapped all the pictures the last hour or so. Oh, no Tin tin books but I did get two Doraemon books from which I will post some pictures later.
The pictures : I’m at Terminal 1, the International terminal / view outside of Terminal 1/ set your watch to Japan time, 16 hrs ahead of Seattle time/ the Narita aiport mascot points to something / my childhood favorite Kit Kat candy bars are available in green tea and wasabi flavor here / the red lettering ‘K’S COFFEE SHOP’ looks like Starbucks but its not, it’s Beck’s Coffee Shop / ever seen a paper hippopotamus? it’s from the origami art store, as is the scene from Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf ! he heh / check out the tuft of hair that the Gap Japan dude is sporting / and a Newsweek magazine showing 3.11 (as the day of the earthquake became known)
I am at Seattle-Tacoma airport. A Boeing 777 is going to fly us to Tokyo’s Narita airport. There is also Haneda airport, closer to the city. I see there was another tremor of 5.8 that shook buildings in Tokyo this Saturday morning there. The layover time for the flight from there to Hong Kong is 3 hrs so I hope everything will be OK. I’m not used to earthquake tremors! (Is anyone?) I actually need a little extra time since United couldn’t issue my Tokyo-Hong Kong boarding pass – I have to get it in Tokyo. (The connecting flight is is on ‘another’ air-line : Continental. So given that Continental and United are merging, they still have some merging to do! I can also check out some of the souvenir and book stores at the airport. Maybe I will find a Japanese-language Tintin book to add to my collection (classic European comic strip book from the 30s now translated in 50 languages). I can also look for a book with the Doraemon character that I have seen on sweatshirts that my China colleagues wear. Doraemon is an earless robotic cat (!) who travels back in time from the 22nd century to aid a schoolboy Nobita Nobi. The character is a Japanese cultural icon and was riginally a manga series which later became an anime series and an Asian franchise.
The cloudy and rainy winter weather here in Seattle still lets up only now and then, and then I feel I have to run out and take pictures of the blue sky and buildings that reflect it. I took the first two pictures in the Virginia St/ 9th Ave area on Thursday. The Tutta Bella pizza restaurant is in Columbia City on the south in Seattle and is where we had some wood-fired pizza on Friday night. We saw on the oven thermometer that it is a singeing 750 ºF (400 ºC) inside. At that temperature it takes only 90 seconds to bake the pizza! I fly to Tokyo’s Narita airport tomorrow directly from Seattle, and then to Hong Kong. There is a few hours between the connecting flights, and I should have time to check out the stores at the airport.
