Well as some of you might know, part of the reason, scratch that....The reason to us moving to Switzerland is Dennis's new job. And, in his job description is a very tiny clause at the bottom of the paper that says: "Thou shalt soon become a very accomplished World Traveler". ......I thought it would be more fun for you to read his last e-mail than for me to describe to you my adventures of opening moving boxes that haven't been opened for 20 years, in preparation to this next move....SO, save yourself a trip to Barns and Noble Bookstore, read on and enjoy...
HEEERE IS DENNIS!...:
Hi to all,
I managed to get to the Wuhan airport on Wednesday morning and get on the flight fine. Got to Hong Kong and was AMAZED at all the buildings on all the islands around the airport... (look at it on googleearth). The airport is HUGE, and it had a few high-end shops in it. So many that I had to write them down:... hang on, the list is long... GUCCI, Hermes, Channel, Celine, Boss, Ermenegildo Zenga, Bulcari, Tiffany & Co, Dior, Bortega Veneta, Prada, Longchamp, Coach, Bally, Van Cleef & Arpels, Lanvin, Cartier, Chloe and Dunhill... whew... too bad I am traveling with only a small bag, otherwise I'd have picked up a few things from each shop since they were all so convenient... think of all the gas I would have saved!
From Hong Kong I was on an Airbus 320... a big plane. On the way out, I saw more ships than I have ever seen in one place. I saw them all the way out to about 400 miles off shore... looked like those leaving port were full and those coming into port were empty... hmmm whats that one coming out say on the side?... "Walmart... save money, live better." hmmm ... Sounds familiar. No one next to me, so I had a ton of space, and the staff was very attentive, and food was great... even the small tub of HagenDas ice cream. I watched most of "Drillbit Taylor" but we landed before I could see the end... hope it came out ok.
As we were flying along on the Hong Kong - Indonesia flight, I have in my mind that we'd arrive at 7:30PM in Surabaya, Indonesia and I would have someone to pick me up and deliver me to the hotel in the daylight. As we kept flying, I thgought... this is taking a looong time, but them remembered that there was a time zone switch so the flight would be an hour longer that I thought. I looked out the window and noticed it was getting darker... and darker. My mind says "Dennis, perhaps you got on the wrong flight, or your admin assistant typed the wrong arrival time." I wondered about that until I looked out again and it was pitch black outside... ergh... what is going on... it stays light until almost 9:30PM in Wuhan... hmmm.... Just then, the wise part of my brain (that I am not that familiar with because I do not spend much timne listening to that part) says... "Dennis... do you remember where Indonesia is?" Sure... it's east and south of here. Yes... you are so clever. "Tell me... just how far south is it?" I have no clue... looks like about only two inches south on this airline magazine map... just an inch and a half below this line... "The horizontal line that has the word EQUATOR on it?" Yes... so what?... oh no... I am going soiuth of the equator and it will be winter down there and will ber dark early and... oh I feel stupid... the voice saiid "Yup!, see ya later."
The fellow who was to pick me up at the airport was not to be found, so I got a taxi ticket from the booth inside the airport. They diod not take AMEX, but jumped for the chance to take a twenty dollar bill... the ticket was $10, or (at current exchange rate) 86,000 rupies... no typo there. I was given my change in bills of 50,000, 20,000, 10,000, and three 2,000 RP bills. Seems odd to have a piece of paper that is worth 20 cents.
The hotel is very, very, very well protected with two armed police on the street enterence, two more half way up the driveway and four at the large steel draw-gate where they open your car and inspect it, and another four at the hotel doors... along with the 6 porters and 6 other staff standing there... I suppose this level of security is a good thing these days.
I met with the management staff today at the factory and they are all under 35 or so and are very nice... we had a great time together. We came up with the "Fried Chicken Award", pronounced "Had-y-ah i-am go-ring" ... i-am is the word for chicken. We also worked out that the cats I saw on the manufacturing floor were the "Critter Attack Technology System" or CATS for short... wonder who instigated those two pieces of humor?
Tomorrow morning I'll meet with the production supervisors and share with them some of what we came up with about where we'll take the different programs we came up with... should be fun.
There are a TON of motorcycles on EVERY street... EVERYWHERE.... they outnumber cars about ten to one. Some ov them have women sitting sidesaddle and others have dad in front, baby (infant) in the middle and mom on the back.
cheers,
dad/Dennis
I managed to get to the Wuhan airport on Wednesday morning and get on the flight fine. Got to Hong Kong and was AMAZED at all the buildings on all the islands around the airport... (look at it on googleearth). The airport is HUGE, and it had a few high-end shops in it. So many that I had to write them down:... hang on, the list is long... GUCCI, Hermes, Channel, Celine, Boss, Ermenegildo Zenga, Bulcari, Tiffany & Co, Dior, Bortega Veneta, Prada, Longchamp, Coach, Bally, Van Cleef & Arpels, Lanvin, Cartier, Chloe and Dunhill... whew... too bad I am traveling with only a small bag, otherwise I'd have picked up a few things from each shop since they were all so convenient... think of all the gas I would have saved!
From Hong Kong I was on an Airbus 320... a big plane. On the way out, I saw more ships than I have ever seen in one place. I saw them all the way out to about 400 miles off shore... looked like those leaving port were full and those coming into port were empty... hmmm whats that one coming out say on the side?... "Walmart... save money, live better." hmmm ... Sounds familiar. No one next to me, so I had a ton of space, and the staff was very attentive, and food was great... even the small tub of HagenDas ice cream. I watched most of "Drillbit Taylor" but we landed before I could see the end... hope it came out ok.
As we were flying along on the Hong Kong - Indonesia flight, I have in my mind that we'd arrive at 7:30PM in Surabaya, Indonesia and I would have someone to pick me up and deliver me to the hotel in the daylight. As we kept flying, I thgought... this is taking a looong time, but them remembered that there was a time zone switch so the flight would be an hour longer that I thought. I looked out the window and noticed it was getting darker... and darker. My mind says "Dennis, perhaps you got on the wrong flight, or your admin assistant typed the wrong arrival time." I wondered about that until I looked out again and it was pitch black outside... ergh... what is going on... it stays light until almost 9:30PM in Wuhan... hmmm.... Just then, the wise part of my brain (that I am not that familiar with because I do not spend much timne listening to that part) says... "Dennis... do you remember where Indonesia is?" Sure... it's east and south of here. Yes... you are so clever. "Tell me... just how far south is it?" I have no clue... looks like about only two inches south on this airline magazine map... just an inch and a half below this line... "The horizontal line that has the word EQUATOR on it?" Yes... so what?... oh no... I am going soiuth of the equator and it will be winter down there and will ber dark early and... oh I feel stupid... the voice saiid "Yup!, see ya later."
The fellow who was to pick me up at the airport was not to be found, so I got a taxi ticket from the booth inside the airport. They diod not take AMEX, but jumped for the chance to take a twenty dollar bill... the ticket was $10, or (at current exchange rate) 86,000 rupies... no typo there. I was given my change in bills of 50,000, 20,000, 10,000, and three 2,000 RP bills. Seems odd to have a piece of paper that is worth 20 cents.
The hotel is very, very, very well protected with two armed police on the street enterence, two more half way up the driveway and four at the large steel draw-gate where they open your car and inspect it, and another four at the hotel doors... along with the 6 porters and 6 other staff standing there... I suppose this level of security is a good thing these days.
I met with the management staff today at the factory and they are all under 35 or so and are very nice... we had a great time together. We came up with the "Fried Chicken Award", pronounced "Had-y-ah i-am go-ring" ... i-am is the word for chicken. We also worked out that the cats I saw on the manufacturing floor were the "Critter Attack Technology System" or CATS for short... wonder who instigated those two pieces of humor?
Tomorrow morning I'll meet with the production supervisors and share with them some of what we came up with about where we'll take the different programs we came up with... should be fun.
There are a TON of motorcycles on EVERY street... EVERYWHERE.... they outnumber cars about ten to one. Some ov them have women sitting sidesaddle and others have dad in front, baby (infant) in the middle and mom on the back.
cheers,
dad/Dennis
1 comment:
Wow, thanks for sharing!
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