Crawling Around with Baltimore Street Rats

Baltimore and rats: They are smart enough (in a non-individual, Darwinian way) to ambush a garbage truck.

And of course there was this giant rat from China news.

RedChina

Sign in the Hong Kong Tsuen Wan metro station.



Access stairways to the parking lot nearby.



A small fishing village on the less-densely inhabited side of Lantau, Hong Kong.



Same place: A streetside altar. "Street" means a narrow alley wide enough to let two people pass.



Steelworks on an overpass in Tsuen Wan.



Somewhere downtown.



Another alley-side shrine, this time in a New Territories village.



Shenzhen train station.



A café in a Shenzhen cultural quarter.

HK 2007 - Return: HK, Doha, FFM, BT/HA5, BT/GSP

Back in Doha:
After one week of sweltering heat, strange sounds, and chicken feet, the 10-yrs-past-graduation-reunion-trip to Hong Kong with Hi-Khan is coming to a close.



The last days were so full of sights&sounds that I'm constantly surprised when browsing through my pictures folders. Lots of places I haven't seen before (this having been the third time for me in HK), we managed to check off a long list of things I wanted to see, Hi-Khan had a long-time-no-see family reunion himself, and much more. Pictures will follow.




Am now safely back on the way to BT, with connection to GSP via Doha, FFM and HA5.

HK 2007 - Grand Hyatt

I can barely walk.

Maybe it's the sudden onset of age, but this "holiday" is made up of hurting legs much more than any previous one, including the last in Italy, which was filled with much more walking even. But maybe it's the jetlag, extreme heat/humidity, and strange food altogether.

However, there's nothing to complain about the trip itself.
Today, Hi-Khan and me finally made true the promise we agreed on ten years ago. We had our tea/coffee in the Grand Hyatt lobby, with live music and a grand view on the harbour and Central lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree. In a flash of introspection, we both found we mostly finished all steps in the last decade successfully. It was probably the most interesting one in our lives, although the consensus is that the next one will be the most decisive. And we tried to settle on a destination to meet in after the next decade, in 2017. (One idea so far is Buenos Aires, on account of neither of us ever having been there, and improbable to go there otherwise.)



I tried to soothe myself by buying a huge stack of cheap VCDs and DVDs. We went to Chungking Mansion, shoe stores ("Sneakers. Wenn's mal wieder länger dauert.") for Hi-Khan, electronics stores for both of us, took millions of pictures, and walked and walked, with AC being our tour guide, dubbed "TomTom" by Hi-Khan.

HK 2007 - Shenzhen

Yesterday was Shenzhen. Looks astonishingly like Beijing... it's true there's no heritage, but untrue about no culture.
Furthermore, there's a real deluge of pictures, but they need to be sorted first.

Today it's to the ManMo-Temple (with one of them being the God of War, the other being the God of Civil Servants) and the Sitting Buddha on Lantau.

HK 2007 - Business

The whole business class is humming with the engines adjusting the individual seats. In fact, when the seat doesn't fit you, when you feel uncomfortable, it just means you haven't figured out the appropriate setting yet.
"How may I help you, Sir?" (note "may" and capital "S" in "Sir) on the press of a button.
There was compulsory caviar sandwich shortly after takeoff, but the rest of the meals can be ordered to your heart's desire from a menu whose size which would humble several restaurants.
All this comfort, however, doesn't make the air more humid. So when I felt the onset of a nosebleed, I moved to the lobby with QiLin/PingGuo, which I have all to myself at this time (around 06:00 a.m. board time). Not for long, however, as the First Class will soon wake up, and for us from Business it's "the other lounge, Sir". The first-class lavatory is a room with a view, btw.




Breakfast was brought to bed, starting with an energizer drink made from freshly-pressed orange, milk, and oats. Then I ordered a Chinese breakfast tofu, however: "Sir, all of it is inclusive. There is no choice within the Chinese breakfast." So I had everything, starting with green tea and dim sum and continuing with chicken, rice, grilled lobster, and my tofu. In fact, the lobster was so large at first mistook it to be tofu. The chopsticks were everything but single-use; heavy and brass-plate-ended they'd make any home collection happy. The wonton soup was not too bad, either. Same as the abalone congee the evening before.

HK 2007 - Day 1: I/O, Doha, &onwards

2007-06-18
11:30
Idar-Oberstein

The first day of the 10yr Reunion Trip starts out in I/O with sunshine, birds singing, buses on time, people asking for the destination of my trip, and strawberry cake with coffee right across from the train station, idling away the last half hour before leaving.

On Qatar Airways: No green tea right away, but BTO/brewed-to-order... highly stunning.

In Doha Internation Airport, Qatar: Free WiFi. Free as in free beer, no idea about free speech. Oh, and there's free power.
Aha. And just got upgraded to Business Class. Aha aha. Oh, and the flight FFM->Doha was right in the emergency seat aisle, meaning lots of legroom. Aha. In case you ask, Qatar Airways seems to rule.

However, now about one point five gazillion people streamed into the departure hall, 1/2 of them using all kinds of gadgets (just checked that) to access the WiFi, thus totally bogging down the connection. Or the connection quality. Or whatever.

...

Now that I'm thinking of it... what an improbable luck that I've been idling at the right gate at the right time to be found by this airport ground personnel employee. Hm hm hm. When travelling, there seems to be a lucky charm about me. That's only half a joke. Italy's been a close call very often, and there's been lots of luggage involved then.

(female employee) "Are you flying alone?"
(me) "Yes..."
(female employee) "Why?"
(me) "?!?"

10 Years Ago

Ten years ago, on June 23rd, 1997, PJS passed his final Abitur (aka high school graduation) exam at the Gymnasium an der Heinzenwies.

Three written examinations (Math, English, and Physics) were followed by one oral examination (in Geography) on that day. The weeks and months before, everybody was delving deep into the mysteries of the final grade calculation scheme, and was busy extrapolating their Abitur marks.

One year earlier, in 1996, my Dad and me had been on a world tour together, leading us to a whole bunch of places, roughly following the footsteps of "80 Days around the World". Since my Dad had taken tons of pictures and video footage, I had a chance to give a short presentation to my geography class after our return when we were - by chance - discussing the socio-political-economic status and development of Hong Kong. It seems my teacher recalled that when deciding on a final exam topic for me, and this allowed me to excel ("brillantly shine", in case you didn't get my point) in that cross-examination.

One week later, on July 1st, 1997, Hong Kong was in the limelight of international news, as the 100-years old lease of Great Britain for the New Territories was ending, and Hong Kong itself was returned to the Chinese mainland then. In short, it was HK's big days, both on a world and personal scale. (Oh, my mom had visited that place in the meantime, too.)

So after our Abitur and in the turmoil that engulfed BA and me because of a less-than-warmly-received criticizing feature of ours in the Abitur newspaper, she, me, and Higgins decided to have our own, alternative 10-years reunion. We'd not meet up with everybody else (provided there'd be a big-scale reunion at all), but discreetly have a sip of coffee or 5-o'clock tea in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt in HK - provided it'd still exist by then.

PJS, my then-gf, and Higgins (probably in 2003)

Now it's June 2007. Time to 'fess up.

Higgins and me will go through. All the way, straight to the bottom of that long-ago agreed-upon cup of coffee. We'll lift our cups in reverence to BA, who won't be able to join us, and rejoice in old memories, wading through the muck which accumulated around our feet during those ten years, and soberly ponder our fates, all the while musing about the ways of the world.

And sure, have a jolly good time, too.


It will start 30 minutes from now, with PJS running down the same side alley to the main street of Tiefenstein, trying to catch the bus. The bus to the train, the train to the airport, the plane to one week of catching up with old plans.

Macau CityGuide ECard

blog, Gruss made in Macao! pjs Sent on 17/10/2006

Note: This E-Mail was sent from a Macau CityGuide Kiosk, hence IACM will not assume any legal responsibility for the content.

China 2006 - BJ->HK, Sanitization, Wrong-Sides, Chicken Claw

Second part of the journey begins today... going to HK. Early morning taxi ride to the airport. (Flagging down a taxi at the street proves easy&cheaper than a hotel-provided one.)

Lift panel at the HK airport gets "sanitized every two hours".
Observation: Small people, large cell phones. It's steaming hot once I step out of the airport building in search of the bus, actually even in the small gap between the airplane and the airport gangway.

Squid-scallop-shrimp-bbq-bun at HKAI Maxim's.

Slightly startling observation: Buses run at the wrong side of the street.

In the evening: Taxi has no pedals and no wheel at front left! And, HK cab drivers are not caged in like the BJ ones.
I ate 1/2 chicken foot during dinner, hopefully proving myself at least a brave gwailo. Supermassive tofu ice cream afterwards.

HK skyline definitely has changed from ten years ago. The landmarks of that time are but mere bystanders in today's highrise park in Central.

[To be continued...]

China 2006 - Mutianyu, Summer Palace, KongYiJi Restaurant

6 RMB p.p. for bus to Huairou on the way to the Great Wall at Mutianyu, with my feet sticking out into aisle. The taxi driver honks away pedestrians who got dropped off earlier from their buses on the way to the parking lot right next to the Mutianyu Great Wall... like VIPs. It's a local taxi, meaning private, but as there are no official ones in smaller cities, it's no scam. We visit a faraway section of the Wall, with much fewer people than at Badaling ten years ago. Chinese gondola ride uphill to the Wall itself, German Sommerrodelbahn down.

Observation: Chinese spit even while talking at the mobile phone.

Almost got locked in at the dark SummerPalace at night.

Taxi to Chinese restaurant Kong3Yi3Ji3 with traditional top-down menu, story of fraudulent book-borrowing ancient scholar, and traditional courtyard layout&lighting. Some tea-cooked shrimp, crabs, and good tea.
Tripped somebody at the washroom sink over my feet.

China 2006 - Yuanmingyuan, Tsinghua&Body Count

Several good presentations in the morning.

Lost&mosquito-bitten in the Yuanmingyuan (old Summer Palace ruins) in the late afternoon; I'm the only Westerner there. Some stray dogs are following me at a distance, while I am looking for loose stones to scare them away.





Dinner at a Tsinghua/Qinghua restaurant after a late evening walk through the on-campus residential area. Body count; around 500 animals on the table, including one duck and one donkey, 350 get eaten whole. The order is taken on a WLAN-enabled Handspring. Cheers waft over from the next room... as the other tables are discussing quantum physics, they probably cheer for some successful cold fusion at their table. Some of the food stays where it belongs because it's bogged down by some working class grade booze of 56 vol%.

China 2006 - Presentations, GHoP, non-English taxi

Woke up for a day with two talks of mine with only one properly set alarm clock.

Organization running out of coffee, plates, cutlery, &glasses repeatedly.

No questions after Surgical Robotics presentation, two from chair of Path Planning session. Is the IROS not a good place for Robot-Assisted Surgery?
Momentous revelation to be remembered: Self-contained presentations are the best.

Conference Center parking lot full of buses at 17:00; gathering for Conference Banquet at the Great Hall of The People.
At first, my name's not on the GHoP-dinner bus security check list, but shows up later. A real VIP treatment: Police escort for our 17+ buses, crossing red lights in a convoy - true invitees of the GHoP. Having such an array of large vehicles allows for some very effective traffic shaping - closing off a street crossing to free it for the remaining buses is feasible.
There are 2.6 million cars in BJ currently. Plans include increasing the number of subway lines from two to ten until the Olympics in 2008.

The GHoP building is so large it doesn't change shape when one moves in front of it. First class dinner, BJ opera&music presentation.

The way back takes 15 minutes, while getting there was a bus ride of 1.5 hours due to rush hour jams.

Lone taxi back to my hotel with a non-English-speaking driver who obviously is not a BJ local and not only has no idea where to go, but also refuses to follow several clear instructions. Successful in the end thanks to a bilingual city map and a compass.

China 2006 - Planning, Observations, Social Gap

Grabbed a 1st-come-1st-serve lunch. Plenary talk abt co-existence with robots rather useless.
Most talks so far uninteresting.

Therefore, the interesting questions: When to visit the Great Wall? Or Tian Tan?

Observation: Simple papers/presentations draw many questions, but probably it's because either they're self-contained or those papers claim (novel) speedups for solutions of known problems.
English's a torture in general.

Long taxi ride in evening rush hour. Dinner at Danielli's; proving that pizza can only be ordered in a pizzeria, definitely not in a 5-Star ristorante.

China 2006 - 30%, IROS, Pizza Hut, Reception

Taxi transfer to conference site.
Some confusion over banquet tickets.
I'm trying to get over the remaining jetlag with an iced latte mocha at the very style-generic Crowne Plaza next door. Like everything in China, the 5-star hotel's waterfountain is 30% too loud.



About 1080666006 people in a Chinese supermarket.
Pizza Hut offers "Casual Dinning" (sic), with the single courses being timed and logged, maybe for quality assurance reasons. One waiter per two or three tables (as everywhere in China) creates a feeling of constant supervision, mixed with an almost-forgotten sense of Colonial exploitation on my side. No tipping allowed, again.

Conference workshop extremely tiring.



Conference reception on lawn outside. Met Rui (an old acquaintance from Montpellier times, he wanted to rent&drive a car at BJ, hopefully I managed to talk him out of this), met the Japanese German-speaking acquaintance from IROS 2005, and met Zhang Hong (my "host" of the EDM Aug'06 RONAF invited talk, gossipped about weather), & some others.

China 2006 - BJ: Hutong, Forbidden City, Chinese Pepper

Breakfast at Bamboo Garden Hotel is bad, as staff is unhelpful and obviously not accustomed to the Western etiquette of their primary clientele (assumed to be laowai, as Chinese probably don't settle for traditional hotels for this price).

Now I have to talk Chinese on my own. Nin hao, xiexie, bu yong, zaijian!

Mounting Bell Tower in the hutong right across the street. Lower floor occupied by a laowei cha establishment, full of tourists watching a theatrically spiced-up tea ceremony.
Mahjongg tables along the Beihai shore walk.



Long footwalk to Tiananmen, coughs&sneezes developing due to exhaust fumes along the way.
There are only old men at a streetside playground, obviously engaging in their morning Tai Ji Quan sessions.
Scene at a pedestrians crossing: Two waves of people facing each other and meeting in the middle of the street - one tourists, one hawkers with postcards.





The Forbidden City is under renovation, but features "4-Star toilets", I got caught for a picture with a little Chinese girl.






In the evening dinner at Fei Teng Yu Xiang Restaurant: Fresh fish ("the cook just mashed its head, right after I chose it"), tastebud-numbing Chinese pepper. Depressing information about social situation of waiters, but no tipping allowed.

China 2006 - BJ: Wangfujing

Going to business street Wangfujing, looking for deer penis for MW, but only receiving strange sideways glances by saleswomen. Settling on seahorses for CS instead.

"Xin Dong An Guangchang"? (Note to myself: What did I mean by this comment at the time?)
4got 5.&6.floor (Note: And this?)

Chinese Starbucks are lacking WLAN.

Got lost on way to Tibetan restaurant for dinner, needed repeated instructions from the same sanlunche tricyclist. Sour butter wine, spicyhot chicken, and Tibetan folk dancing groupe.

China 2006 - ...->HK->BJ

Crossing border into Chinese airspace - already first Chinese passenger cleaning his nose in a very loud manner.
HK airport. Japanese at restroom(!) bowing to yield/give right of way to me on the way out.
Yellow-clad Buddhist monk greeting. 3hrs until transfer.



Talking escalators. McDull says "Thank you for keeping the airpt clean."
Ferrari-label shop features German Schumi technorap.

Completely lost sense of place over Wonton Soup. Where am I? VCV, BJ, FFM, HK, MUC?
"I'll still have that, thank you.'' How should the local waiter have known what I meant without me pointing&waving? Or... is this still British HK? ...

30° C. Flight to BJ, seat at emergency exit. Air so misty the plane projects a shadow into the air itself, not onto clouds. Bumpy ride. Very quick good meal, served only upon descent.

During descent into BJ, whole city quarters are flickering in the dark. Foggy. Smoggy? 19° C. Taxi sent by hotel for pickup from the airport.