Sept, 2009: BKK -> Dec, 2009: TPE -> Jan, 2010: BKK

And so, it seems, everything has come full circle......







BKK



















TPE



















TPE



















BKK

August, 2009: Beijing, China

One Night in




I was going around the Beijing "bird nest" stadium, hoping to get all the alphabet to make up the word Beijing. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Curiously, there are no gates "I" (maybe to avoid getting mixed up with gate "1", one) and "N" (maybe to avoid mix-up with the similar-sounding "M").




I have been in Beijing previously, so only spent one night at a friend's place. In the day time, I went visiting the Olympics site, which wasn't built during my previous trip.

Other than that, the most fun was checking out the 'English" menu at a resturant while waitng for dinner to be ready. Obviously, the Englisg language police checking out English roadsign in the capital before the 2008 Olympics missed out on THIS restaurant:

August 2009, QingDao to Beijing on the China High Speed Railway

The China high speed rail is the equivalent of the Japanese Shinkasen. It even looks like one, with it sleek aerodynamic design. A Japanese friend actually call it an "i-mi-ta-shi-on shinkasen": imitation Shinkasen (I sense some north Asia rivalry here, friendly or otherwise.)


The He Xie, Harmony (or Concorde, I don't have the official translation) train takes one from Qingdao to JiNan, although the high speed track is only between Qingdaon and JiNan (the capital of Shangdong province.)
You can feel the speed as the train zip out of Qingdao city and out into its rural county. But after JiNan, it noticeably slows down.
Inside the train, it looks similar to a Shinkasen train. The seats, the toilets, taps and even the cloth-hanger by the window all reminds one of a Shinkasen interior. But that's, more or less, where the similarity ends.

I was booked into a no-seat train. That means there were no more seat available on that trip. I am looking at six hours or so standing on the aisle. I manage to find a place near the doors between two carriage. There was a family of four (returning from a Qingdao seaside holiday) share that space with me. They manage to get some stackable plastic chairs and was having a pretty comfortable. So comfortable that before long that space was littered with their fruit peeling, melon seed shells and plastic cups. The chief conductor, a big matron-like lady, came a few times on her rounds, making half-hearted attempt to get them to not block the passage between two carriage. She sometimes ask the train service guys and gals to clean up the floor. The guy and gal made equally half-hearted attempt to sweep up the floor, spending most of the time taking a nap on the floor. By the time the train pulled into Beijing South station, there was a pool a water on one of the carriage from a bottle spill.

I made a mistake of sending my heavier luggage ahead of me by China railway. There was actually big enough space on the train for heavy luggage, even for one with no seating ticket. The luggage ended up in the old Beijing Station. To collect it, you need to go down to the dark basement below the platforms.