Barbara's Travel Blog

Flacks gone wild

Last week I was in San Fracisco for a work conference (I'll skip naming it so as to not hit Google searches for the event).

I tend not to blog much about San Francisco, since I travel so frequently there that it feels like my second home. I'll make an exception this time though, since I am armed with photos from a very drunken Tuesday night with my PR colleagues. The photos speak for themselves...

I think my favorite part of these photos is tracking Bill's hand placement in the last four. Here's hoping HR doesn't read my blog. ;-)

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.)

On the Road Again

After four weeks of staying put in Hong Kong, I'd almost forgotten how to travel (or at least how to pack). But I expect to be traveling more in November and December, and hopefully to some more exciting places than this week's destination - Taipei, Taiwan.

I was there to attend the Intel Developer Forum, and thankfully I've been to Taipei before, so at least I knew my way around. There's not a lot of exciting stuff to do in Taipei, but one of the nights I went out with a small group of international journalists to one of the night markets. The markets are always entertaining and a bit of a culture shock, and this one was no exception. Here's a photo of Australian journalist Dan admiring some big buckets of snail snacks. Mmm!

Since the last time I was here, they also finished constructing Taipei 101, which is now the world's tallest building. It's so tall, in fact, that I had to turn my camera diagonal to be able to fit the whole building into the photo I took from my hotel room.

Today I took a quick jaunt up the tower to see the view (and I do mean quick - the elevators received a Guinness world record for being the fastest in the world). Most of the views reinforced my opinion of Taipei as a sprawling, industrial city, but one angle surprised me (the photo on the right). Maybe there's more to Taipei than I thought.

I'm sitting in the airport now, killing some time before my flight, and looking forward to being back in Hong Kong in my own space again. Look at that - I guess I'm starting to feel more at home in Hong Kong than I'd realized.

More photos at http://babas.typepad.com/photos/hong_kong_2/.

Busy, busy

My schedule has been too hectic to put much time into blogging, but here are some snapshots from the last couple days in Thailand:

• Dinner the first night in the a French restaurant at the hotel - great food, but we were entertained by the waitress's explanation that "salmon trout" is a hybrid breed of the two species. Learned later on the Internet that it is in fact a breed of trout that turns pink from its shrimp diet.
• My utter frustration at the incredibly weak hair dryer in my hotel room. Turns out I had it plugged into the 110-volt outlet instead of the 220-volt Asian standard outlet.
• Breakfast and lunch buffets at the hotel - amazingly good, except the orange juice, which I swear is Tang (the powdered beverage). Stunned to find out the lavish buffet only costs about $3.50 US.
• Dinner last night with the team - great authentic Thai food (which actually tasted a lot like what we get in Portland) - photo of the PR team attached.
• After dinner, six of us went for massages - was one of the best of my life, and only $20 US!

More photos and stories later.

Fire hose

A few observations from my first day at the office:

1. The cubes are about the size of my thumbnail.
2. Privacy? What privacy? The cubicle walls are not only shorter than in the US, but the top couple feet are clear plexiglass, ensuring others can see everything you do.
3. There are signs in the bathroom stalls that say "Please leave the toilet seat dry and clean." I'm disturbed that this needs to be said.
4. Did I mention things are small here? In addition to tiny cubes, there are tiny conference rooms, tiny bathroom stalls, tiny waste baskets, even tiny staplers.

Aside from marveling at the above points, I spent most of the day getting inundated with info about my new role. Between the  information fire hose and the jet lag, it's 7pm and I'm ready to go to bed.

I'm looking forward to my first trip to Thailand tomorrow though. Just heard on the news that this weekend had the highest air pollution levels Hong Kong has seen in the past year - so much so that people with respiratory problems were encouraged to stay indoors. Glad I spent the day hiking around Victoria Peak! :P