Barbara's Travel Blog

Home Cold Home

I got back to Portland a week ago, arriving to bitter cold temperatures that were quite a shock after three months in Hong Kong. One of my first stops of the week was to Old Navy, which was a lot like going to the grocery store hungry. I ended up buying two coats, four fleeces, a turtleneck and several long-sleeve shirts. You'd think I'd never been cold before.

I'm continuing to do my Hong Kong job remotely until Christmas (since they have yet to backfill my position), so I've been sleeping until noon, running errands in the afternoon, and working from 5pm to 2am. It's an odd schedule, but it works out well, because it means I can avoid doing any shopping or driving during peak pre-Christmas hours.

Friday was my welcome home happy hour, arranged by April and attended by most of my Portland friends. The next night was Abby and Scott's housewarming party, which had the whole gang, plus some cool coworkers and friends of Abby and Scott's that I hadn't met before.

It was wonderful to see everyone, though it also made me sad… you see, in the last week I agreed to do another six-month rotation in Asia (details to be announced later). So in February or March, I'll be off again, and missing my friends and home that much more. It's a great opportunity though, and I know it will be one of the major experiences of my life.

Now the countdown to Christmas has begun, but the Oregon weather didn't time it quite right - instead of a white Christmas, we had a snowstorm yesterday. It's mostly melted now, but the roads were so icy last night that we had to cancel girls' night and hunker down at home.

We're off to Thailand on the 27th, but I may not have much of a chance to blog while I'm gone, what with all the relaxing, sightseeing and drinking I plan to do. If you don't hear from me while I'm there, I'll be back in mid-January with plenty of photos and stories to share.

In the meantime, have a merry Christmas, a festive Hanukkah, and a happy new year!

Photo album link

Here's a link to the rest of the photos from last week: http://babas.typepad.com/photos/crbtrip/

The end of a long week

I think I may have jinxed myself in my last blog entry, because things took a bit of a turn for the worse upon my arrival in Sri Lanka. In case you're not familiar with it, we learned in one of our school visits that Sri Lanka is a small island nation located south of India, and is about the size of West Virginia.

Anyway, after clearing customs, we were routed the wrong way out of the airport, and landed on the sidewalk, instead of the VIP area where our vans and security guards were waiting.

After about 10 minutes of sweating buckets in the intense heat and humidity, the vans showed up. Unfortunately, I was misdirected to the luggage van, which had no air conditioning. By the time the driver figured out the error, the other vans had already departed - so I enjoyed over an hour ride with the hot, dusty wind on my face. It was an interesting ride though, giving me a chance to see a lot of the local life. It reminded me a great deal of Central America, with lots of little open-fronted stores and dogs running around everywhere.

Thankfully, the rest of the Sri Lanka visit ran smoothly. I did indeed get the full night of sleep I'd been hoping for, and the next day's activities weren't quite as hectic as the rest of the week had been.

It was fascinating putting on an Intel-scale event in such an emerging country. There were no venues that could hold a keynote the size of the one we were staging, so we ended up having to fly in a massive tent from India and create our own venue on a hotel lawn.

After the various activities of the day, we had a team dinner complete with local dance performances. Then another long van ride to the airport - this time air-conditioned and with a police escort - followed by a five-hour flight to Hong Kong. I was back in my own bed (well, mine for two more days) by 6:30am.

And now it's time to get packing - I'll be on my way back to Portland on Monday!

P.S. FYI, I've added some photos to my blog entries from earlier this week, and I'll have the rest of my photos up in an album soon.

Getting better all the time

I guess the old adage is true about it being darkest before the dawn, because today was the best day of the week so far (not counting the sight-seeing day in India).

My night yesterday finished the crappy day in fitting style - I arrived at my hotel room in Kuala Lumpur at 2am to find my Internet connection not working. So I gave up, skipped my nightly report, and enjoyed my five hours of sleep.

But this morning, everything went right - my Internet connection was working, my stomach started to feel better, I was able to print the morning report at the business center with no issues - these are the simple things that make a big difference. I also got an hour to catch up on e-mail, which did wonders for my sanity.

The highlight of the day - of the week, really - was a visit to a local school for a presentation to the Minister of Education about Intel's education programs. A teacher presented, telling us about how the Intel Teach to the Future program has helped her motivate her students and bring their grades up. Then a group of her students presented examples of the work they've done on computers. It was so endearing, and the teacher's talk really made me feel so great about working at Intel.

Even better though was the female high school student who talked about how participating in Intel's International Science and Engineering Fair got her excited about science and gave her self confidence. Then her mom, who is also her science teacher, got up and talked about the changes she'd seen in her daughter, her other children, and her other students, after participating in the fair. I know this sounds cheesy, but several of us were in tears by the end of it.

We finished up the day with a press conference and an interview, then headed to the plane to depart during daylight hours (gasp!). We're set to arrive in Sri Lanka at 6:30pm - unheard of! I just might get a full night of sleep tonight…

A long day

It's a good thing I visited Beijing previously and enjoyed it, because today wouldn't have sold me on it.

We had another short night (6 hours sleep this time) followed by a long day of government meetings, award ceremonies and a TV talk show. These were interspersed with walks in and out of buildings in the bitter, dry cold.

Today's meals were a disappointment all around - we had not-so-appealing sandwiches on the bus for lunch (with mayo, which of course meant I couldn't eat them), then to make up for the bad lunch, the local team bought us local food to have for dinner on the plane. Unfortunately, it wasn't so great either.

We had a 3+ hour flight from Beijing to Hong Kong, where we stopped for an hour to refuel, and now we're continuing with another four hours to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where we land after midnight.

At the moment we're watching the movie "Memento," and enjoying a cheese and cracker plate - the high point of the day. Here's hoping tomorrow's a better day.

The madness continues

Upon landing at 1am today in Chengdu, our charter jet was greeted by dozens of cheering Intel employees and government representatives. Thus started the team's repeated experience of waving goodbye to crowds from the bus.

On to the hotel, a 40-minute drive, but thankfully upon arrival we had already been checked in by the local team, so we were able to just head straight to our rooms. Actually, make that suites - a waste really, considering that most of us spent a whopping five hours in them. But I did appreciate the spread of treats and the framed silk panda print I found waiting for me.

I did my nightly report, then crawled into bed at 2:30am, realizing when I set my alarm for 6:30am just how miserable I was going to be the next day. And miserable I was - I was so tired all day, I actually felt nauseous.

The day consisted of the routine morning briefing, followed by a press interview, then I got a short break during the government meetings. The big highlight of the day though was the opening ceremony of our new manufacturing plant in Chengdu. Virtually every government official was there, and Craig (our chairman) was recognized with honorary citizenship to Chengdu.

The ceremony itself was pretty entertaining - kids performing, Chinese girls in traditional dresses, drummers, etc. - but would have been a lot more tolerable if it hadn't been outside in sub-freezing temperatures.

Following the ceremony, we took a tour of the factory (a first for me), then held a press conference and headed out. The last stop of the day was a lecture to about a thousand university students, which I decided to bag out on in favor of a nap in the back of the bus. I felt immensely better following an hour and a half of rest.

After the lecture, we made our way to the airport, thanks in great part to a police escort that led the way. The traffic in Chengdu was a nightmare, but apparently our group was important enough that every couple miles traffic in both directions would stop, and we would drive on the wrong side of the road and pass it all up - very cool!

Now we're back on the charter jet on the way to Beijing, enjoying a fantastic dinner of genuine Szechwan food from Chengdu, and getting a little silly after a day of seriousness.

I know - it's a rough life. ;)

My jet-setting life

Day two in India was night and day from day one. It kicked off with an early morning briefing to Intel's chairman, followed by three TV interviews, then I was rushed off to do two hours of editing on videos of India government ministers endorsing our announcements of the day. Back in the van to the Oberoi, a fancy hotel where we were hosting an industry panel and press conference to announce a billion dollar investment in India.

Admittedly, most of this is stuff I might do on any given big PR event day. But it got slightly surreal when minutes after the press conference ended, we were whisked away to the airport where we had special VIP customs clearance, and then headed to the charter jet.

Now, if you're thinking "corporate jet… plus leather seats… champagne… caviar…" well, you'd be right. No kidding. We were served a gourmet meal, fine wine and cocktails, caviar, heated brownies - I could get used to this.

But even on a charter jet, it turns out there are classes. First class are the four larger leather seats at the front of the plane where the execs sit, while the TAs, PR and security scum sit in the six less large seats behind them. Okay, it's absolutely nothing to scoff at, but there go my pipe dreams of hob-knobbing with the execs.

I can't stop yawning, so I'm going to try to take a nap now. We don't land in Chengdu (China) until 1am, then we still have customs and a 40-minute drive to the hotel before we can crawl into our beds. But oh wait, that's not until after I send out the nightly trip report. :P

Monkeys and elephants and snakes, oh my!

Where to begin… I guess all my blog entries this week will be a bit rushed, since I'll have to squeeze them in between rushing to & from flights, TV interviews, press conferences, morning briefings, etc. etc. etc. But it feels like so much happened today, I don't know how I'm going to do this in 10 minutes! Photos will definitely have to wait until the end of the week.

First, getting in last night - what a trip (and I don't mean the flight!). We landed in Delhi, India (we being me and my boss, Mark) on a commercial flight (hereafter I'll be on the charter jet). The airport was crazy, even though it was 2:30 in the morning, and aside from the hordes of people, we also noticed men with machine guns poised to deal with whatever.

On to the hotel - a 45-minute ride that was bar-none the craziest driving I've ever seen. Several times we passed broken down trucks, motorcycles and carts blocking the road; everyone was honking non-stop; our driver would take random detours onto gravel roads, then connect back to the main road; but the biggest eye-rubbing, "is this for real?" moment was passing two elephants, plodding along as part of the traffic on the highway. Unreal!

We had various mishaps with the hotel - Mark's lights wouldn't stay on last night, mine wouldn't stay off this morning while I was trying to sleep, and to top it off my bed smelled like urine - but overall it's a really nice place, and I'm being treated like a queen because I'm part of an executive crew. My 24-hour butler has been quite responsive.

Today Mark and I hired a taxi to drive us around and see some of the sights, but to be honest we found the drive more interesting than the sights themselves. Everywhere there was something fascinating to see - crazy traffic, tent communities, cows on city streets, people getting their haircut on chairs by the side of the road, kids begging for cash at the taxi door, sorry looking dogs, endless construction to the point of it looking like a war zone.

We got out at one monument and were bombarded with attention - everyone wanted us to buy something or pay for a photograph of their animal or perform for us. We fell prey to a couple - the snake charmer and the monkeys. I have to say, while I loved my first hands-on monkey experience, it made me so sad to see these little guys on leashes and collars, and they just seemed kind of mad at the world (which I can understand). One of them hopped onto my lap on command for a photo, but he started biting my thumb midway through (thankfully it was a light bite, so no harm done). But if I was in his position, I think I'd bite people too.

Anyway, I'm off to dinner with the India PR team now, then packing up to check out tomorrow morning, participate in a long day of events here in Delhi, then off to China in the evening. Onward ho! (No jokes please, it's just not that original.)

Flexible lane usage, and other idiosyncrasies

I've generally resisted the temptation to point out amusing Engrish.com-esque language mistakes I encounter here in Asia. After all, it would be pretty asinine of me to make fun of other people's mishaps in using my language, when I can barely get out three words in theirs.

But two signs caught my eye in the last week that made me smile without feeling like a jerk, so here goes...

I have no picture of the first, since I sped by it in a taxi, but it was sign in both English and Chinese that said: "Get in lane." Now, I realize they were probably trying to convey that drivers needed to pick and stay in a lane, because the road was splitting up ahead. But I couldn't help smiling at the irony, since Hong Kong has some of the most liberal lane usage I've seen in all my travels.

The second is to the left, and this one caught my eye not only for its amusing syntax, but also for its sweetness -- I don't think you'll ever see a sign in the U.S. that asks you to "care," nor refers to anything as "lovely."