Christmas 2009
23/12/09 16:30 Filed in: Christmas Letters
What a year! It started off leisurely and finishing (almost) hectically.
The boring stuff first: Work. Work was so-so, ok, ho hum, nothing to write about. No business trips looked like coming up by first half of the year, so I thought I’d start taking holidays to try and keep up with my Qantas Frequent Flyer status.
I took mum to Taipei and Tainan in March, stopping over Hong Kong on the way. Found a new hotel in Hong Kong to stay in. Nice, clean, cheap while the rooms are of a decent size.
Catching up with relatives was always fun but this time we caught up with relatives from Australia at the same time! Fancy seeing them there!
Taipei visit was a bit different this time. I got to hang out with the Executive Chef at the Shangri-La and his team while they visited an organic market on a Saturday morning. Visiting an organic market isn’t normally my kind of thing, but throw in the chefs and it makes interesting observations. Also good to know the chefs too because when I visited the restaurant the following night, I was very well looked after!
I took mum on a trip to one of the scenic spots (WuLai) on the outskirts of Taipei. Very pretty place, but we took a cab and mum, having no idea of the exchange rate, saw the amount and was freaking out. So the minute we arrived, she kept bugging me to find our way home – by bus! I don’t know, did she think I can get us there but can’t get us back?
In Tainan, we were there for the Shangri-La’s official opening day. Originally, I was going to get there earlier for the opening ceremony because it was rumoured the Taiwanese President, Ma Ying-jeou, was going to be there. I thought I might, get an autograph and get to meet him. But luckily I didn’t because the Vice President attended instead. As I know Lien, the Front Office Manager, from Taipei, we were given the VIP treatment. Actually, they fussed more over mum than me.
But it was good. Mum would wake me at 7am (I’m on holidays!!) wanting to go to breakfast. On the first day, I took her downstairs and just asked one of the waiters to look after her and have someone take her back to our room after. That was enough. I get to sleep in, mum gets to eat breakfast every morning at 7am.
With everyone fussing over mum, talking to her, making her freshly made fruit juice when she said she doesn’t drink cold (refrigerated) juice, she was happy. So I’m happy.
I got to know pretty much everyone at the Front Office and staying in the hotel was most relaxing, most casual and most comfortable. An excellent holiday.
Then I was told I had to go to London in May to babysit 3 of my customers from China as they attended our European User Conference. It’s a lousy job but someone had to do it!
I’ve never been to London. This was my first visit to London. As this chance doesn’t come along that often, I decided to not waste it. I arrived an extra couple of days early so I could look around London.
I love London! The weather was GREAT for the first three days I was there, so I took plenty of photos with blue skies and sunny weather. A brilliant start to my trip. Then it started to turn cloudy but by then, I was mostly visiting attractions indoors so it didn’t affect my photos too much.
I crammed in so many things in those three days, covering a large part of central London and most of the well-known attractions. I even attended an evening service at St Paul’s Cathedral. If that’s not memorable enough, I even witnessed a protest.
I was hoping to call in to Buckingham Palace to have a cup of tea with Liz, the Queen, maybe get a knighthood in the process, but she was out (in Windsor presumably). I didn’t leave a message for her to call me when she gets in. At least the British have a real Queen instead of Australia having a re-badged one.
It rained for the two days I had to work, so I didn’t miss much anyway.
One of the best, best thing that coincided with my London visit was meeting my friend Katrina. She and I last worked together in Sydney over 12 years ago and haven’t seen each other for about 10 years. We met up for dinners and shows so it was the icing on the cake – I pretty much spoke to no one during the day but in the evening I had someone I know to share my day’s experience with. It’s one thing travelling in a new country and not knowing anyone, but it’s extra special to meet up with a friend from back home, not to mention a blast from the past and cute. Thanks Katrina, we’ll have to do this again next time I visit London.
My legs were so sore every night when I got back to the hotel, but I was ready to go the next day. Talk about motivated! I took about 900+ photos for these three days and after I culled all the bad ones out, I was still left with over 600+ photos.
After the business part of the trip, I flew up to Manchester to visit my cousin and her husband. I’ve wanted to visit Manchester even longer than wanting to visit London. My cousin wanted me to go provide IT support, I wanted to visit (in addition to visiting them) Old Trafford – home of Manchester United!
Because of time (my boss screwed up my plan), I had a 22 hour visit to Manchester. I didn’t get to do a tour of the stadium, but I did get into the gift shop 5 minutes before closing and bought a subtle Man U tie (and got a few guys back in Sydney quite jealous). The best thing with it is I can wear it to a business meeting looking very professional and only those in the know will recognise (if they look very closely) – yeah, from time to time, I like to show off.
It may have been 22 hours only but it was so good to finally visit Manchester and best of all, visit family. Thanks again cousin Octavia and Horatio. You can be sure I’ll visit again and stay longer next time.
Because of my unexpected trip to London, my chance of retaining my Qantas Gold status was suddenly within reach! So I decided to take a very short and cost effective trip to Tainan, again! Similar experience as the first time and I got my points so I now remain a Qantas Gold member. Pathetic I know but really, when you are Silver status, they don’t even treat you like a person.
Then work took over and I was quite busy working from June to November.
In November, I went to Beijing for a 2-day work event. This is the first time I’ve been there in winter. I wasn’t quite expecting snow but it snowed one night! We stayed at the China World Hotel, which is one of the FOUR hotels operated by Shangri-La in Beijing.
As usual, work was boring, but I made new friends at the Shangri-La, which is always a bonus.
My sister Amy recommended a restaurant to try the Peking Duck. It was not only delicious, but the presentation was brilliant! Even their menu was very artistically done. If it weren’t for the size of the menu – it’s a hardcover, about 2 feet long menu, I would have asked if I could take a copy home!
Shanghai is still my favourite city in China, but I’d like to go back to Beijing to visit my new friends at the China World and try the other dishes at the Peking Duck restaurant!
I almost had my wish.
About a week after coming back from Beijing, I was asked if I could accompany one of our guys to “China” to do some work. He doesn’t speak Chinese so I was going as the translator. Yes, I know, the things I do for my company.
Two weeks before the trip was to take place, I found out that the city we were visiting was not Beijing, but Changsha! OK, I’ve heard of Changsha in my Chinese novels, but I had to Google it to find out where it is actually located!
I asked ALL the Chinese people I know living in China if they’d gone to Changsha. No one has. I know it’s in Hunan Province so the food will be hot. Otherwise it’s close to ChongQing which was the capital of the old Nationalist Government during WWII but that was about it.
Suddenly the trip didn’t look that good. But I wasn’t going to let that ruin my trip. Cutting a long story short, we ended up going from Changsha to Hangzhou by plane, Hangzhou to Shanghai by car and Shanghai back to Sydney via Hong Kong (by plane obviously!).
For those of you not familiar with Hangzhou, it’s quite close to Shanghai but it’s very picturesque. It’s clean, very green and very peaceful. It’s cold too but that’s obviously because it’s winter. Highly recommended. I only saw about one hour of it by car but it’s convinced me that I should go back for an in-depth visit.
We missed our flight in Hong Kong, due to a late take off of the flight from Shanghai due to a mechanical problem. Luckily we were able to catch the next one after waiting about 2 hours, though we could do without all the screaming babys and young kids. Had these people not heard of birth control?? We should have non-smoking, non-kids flights. All the family with kids can get on one plane and good luck to them.
Back in the country just in time (19/12) to attend the company Christmas dinner, put up the tree, fix the computer, last minute shopping and now writing the Christmas letter!
The rest of the family are well. Mum’s memory is getting worse, so she asks the same question again and again. But she’s in good health and remembers the good time she had at the Shangri-La in Tainan.
After her accident last year, Amy made a full recovery and walking fine. I guess they actually got it right on the second attempt (to connect her leg). She’s not allowed to travel by herself without prior OSC (other siblings consent).
May went to India for 8 weeks for work. I’m proud to say I negotiated a very good rate for her and her team (better than her Cisco corporate rate) staying at MFHB (My Favourite Hotel Brand). In case you’re wondering: No, Shangri-La is not paying me commission.
Other news that may be of interest: I bought a Macbook! It’s the first time in over 20 years that I’ve gone back to an Apple computer. I was a staunch Apple user back in its early days and switched to the PC because I was working at IBM, forced to use Windows because of stupid Microsoft. I am in the process of converting most of the computers in the house to Mac (you still need Windows for certain things – thanks to evil Microsoft).
So, for the first time since publishing my Christmas letters online, this Christmas letter is produced and published using an Apple computer!
Christmas Eve last year, we had a few friends from Toastmasters over for dinner and played Monopoly. It was a such a hoot and we had such great fun that we’re doing the same again this year.
Hope you have had a great year as I did (even if you perhaps didn’t go to Taiwan and England).
Merry Christmas and stay safe.
Your friend,
Bevan
