Taking the polar route
Friday February 18, 2005 8:32 AM HK

I couldn't call it the Polar Express, cuz that may be copyright violation. And going from Chicago to Hong Kong is not exactly express, although taking the direct flight is much better than connecting. Just about to leave for work, but wanted to leave some eye candy. I mentioned the route UA895 takes, but for the benefit of Cassie (and anyone else who sees this) I thought a visual would be nice. So click here to see the Polar Route.

Off to work.
- posted by LyleDeck @ 6:28 PM   

 
Sleep...
Thursday, February 17, 2005. 9:30 AM HK

Sorry, no post today. I was going to try to catch up last night, but ended up crashing before I could accomplish anything. Actually, that's not completely true... I did get the chance to have a video chat with my nieces, and that is definitely something. So you'll have to wait another day to read about Wonderland. Tonight's goal is putting up the new Foundation website.
- posted by LyleDeck @ 7:30 PM   

 
Yipee!
Wednesday, February 16, 2005. 10:00 AM HK

Looks like Blogger fixed their Email-to-Blog interface! This will allow me to make updates more frequently. Hopefully. OK maybe not, but it's still a Good Thing.
- posted by LyleDeck @ 8:00 PM   

 
United 895
Tuesday, February 15, 2005. 7:00 AM HK

Time for some backtracking.

Saturday Feb 5 at about noon I was scheduled to leave Chicago O'Hare destination Hong Kong on United 895 . Because the trip is over 5 hours, my company allows me to fly business class. The trip is significantly over 5 hours... it's just under 16 hours to Hong Kong, and just over 14 hours coming back. A few days before departure, I decided that I wanted to experience luxury, so I upgraded myself to first class for the ORD-HKG segment. First class on a three class aircraft (First/Business/Steerage) is very cool. The first class "suites" are individual seat pods, complete with personal video players, chairs that extend into flat beds, a power outlet to plug laptops / DVD players / whatever into, plus the personalized service that one would expect from First Class. I wasn't going to upgrade myself for the trip home, but the more I think about it, I think I will. It was that nice.

When I got to O'Hare, the flight was already posted for a delay. They claimed aircraft service issues, which I never take to be a good thing. I hung out at the Red Carpet club for awhile, then decided to just hang out at the gate waiting for something to happen. Because a watched gate always produces a plane...

They posted the flight for a 2 PM departure, but at 1:30 still no aircraft, so I figured no way we're leaving even at 2. A loaded 747, able to board in 1/2 hour? Amazingly enough, the plane arrived soon after, we shuffled onboard, and pulled away from the gate not much past 2. Getting from the gate to the taxiway was another issue. Seems the tug which pushes the plane couldn't get good traction with the tarmac, and the wheels kept slipping. So we rocked back and forth for what seemed like 15 minutes until the tug operator figured out how to avoid the slippery spot on the tarmac, and we were on our way to runway 32L. I've read that is the longest runway at O'Hare, and is the only one long enough for a fully loaded 747 to take off safely. We received takeoff clearance (I just love United for providing air traffic control tower communications over the headsets), then proceeded to sit on the runway. By the time our takeoff clearance was revoked, I heard that the winds had shifted such that it was no longer safe for us to takeoff. Sometimes I learn things listening to tower communications that I really don't want to know.

Once in the air safely, we headed due north. Our flight path took us over Green Bay, through Canada, close to the North Pole, down through Russia, China and finally into Hong Kong. Surprisingly enough, I couldn't sleep for much of the flight - 3-4 hours at most. I watched three movies, worked on the computer (personal stuff, composing email, etc.), and ate two lunches. First we ate early in the flight, then again about 2 hours before landing. Most people 'up front' put themselves on Hong Kong time right when we left, so they went to sleep soon after eating to get as close to HK schedule as possible. I just couldn't sleep at that point. At times it seemed the flight would never end, but of course it did, and I stepped off the plane into Wonderland.
- posted by LyleDeck @ 5:00 PM   

 
Happy Valentine's Day
Monday, February 14, 2005. 7:00 AM HK

Valentine's Day, Hong Kong style. Basically the same as Chicago style, but with a more general focus. Valentine's Day at home is focused more on romantic love. Over here, it's a more general love... love for your family, love for your friends (OK I guess we do those two at home too), love for your co-workers (this one I haven't done). Another example of a "let's take care of each other" attitude of Chinese society.

-----

I survived my first weekend in Hong Kong. OK, it was really only one day, since Saturday was a working day. Sunday I tried catching up on all of the things I'd been lagging on my first week... mostly updating the Foundation website (hopefully I'll have a new version up early this week). I walked around the Pacific Place mall, bought some gym shoes (I forgot mine at home) so I can start exercising, had dinner at Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill. Jet lag is finally behind me, but I have been waking up in the middle of the night pretty much every night. Hope *that* goes away soon.

-----

I've added this link to the sidebar, but wanted to point it out: Centamap. When the page first loads it's in Chinese, but click in the upper left and you can switch to english. There will be an area to enter place names on the left. I'm staying at "Conrad International Hong Kong", and working in "Devon House, Taikoo Place". By clicking on zoom level 4 or higher, you get a better perspective to see where I am. In general, I live and work on the north side of Hong Kong Island, on the south side of Victoria Harbor.

Off to work. Happy Valentine's Day!
- posted by LyleDeck @ 5:00 PM   

 
Bradshaw in Paris
Friday, Feb 11, 2005. 7:00 PM HK

It's me again. That's sort of a silly statement, as I'm the only one who can post here at this point in time. That may tell you what sort of mental state I'm in... I'm talking to the computer. I've been in Hong Kong almost a week (I'm still not sure if I left Chicago on Saturday or Sunday... one of those days disappeared...) and at this point I think difficulty of communication has been my greatest problem. Not communicating with Hong Kong'ians (I don't know what to call the locals - I guess Chinese is correct?), but communicating with anyone that I care about. Resourceful people can figure out how to talk to each other (hell, babies who can barely see each other communicate), so I have no doubt that during my stay here I'll be able to get by without knowing a shred of Chinese. It's the difficulty I'm going to have over the next 6+ weeks talking to people at home which is going to cause me angst. There's really only 2 small windows a day that I have to do real email, chatting and other personal things with home, and the reality is that most people do these things at night after work, so there's really a day lag in getting anything real accomplished. <slap> OK. I'm better now.

I'll backtrack later to describe the past week, but I'll be sending these short (!) random posts when thoughts cross my mind. And the thought of the moment is, sitting in a cramped room for 8+ hours a day 6 days a week with no conversation is going to drive me nuts. Maybe I need to take up smoking so I can at least have an excuse to go outside for breaks. OK bad idea, but if I go for coffee every time I leave the building for a break (and I *would* go for coffee every time I'd leave for a break) I'm going to be crawling up the walls even worse than I am now.

This may not mean much to some people, but I'm having a very Bradshaw in Paris type of week. There's all these people around, the city is alive and humming, and I'm feeling ultimately very alone.

Back to work.
- posted by LyleDeck @ 5:00 AM   

 
Let's get started
Friday, Feb 11, 2005. 7:00 am HK

Knock, knock...

This entry is my welcome to the front landing of - well, me. I'll use this space to comment on current events in my life, in the space around me, and whatever else comes to the front of the grey matter. For the moment, it's my current posting in Hong Kong, expected to last for the next... well, who really knows. I posted the local date and time above, since I'm not sure yet how that info will appear at home. I've been in Hong Kong for a few days, but have just gotten around to figuring out how to create this blog. As I can, I'll post the experience of the past week, and during my stay I'll post some pictures of life in this very interesting city. Hope you'll come back!
- posted by LyleDeck @ 5:00 PM 0 comments