Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Made it to Shanghai
Well I made it to Shanghai.
It was a long trip, but travelling with Thai air was good. Good service, great food, and reasonably comfortable chairs.
I bought myself some iPod accessories duty free, and a new pair of Bolle's. Tried heaps of glasses on and found some that look OK, so I bought them.
We had a 3 hour wait in Bangkok which was pretty cool. I'm going to get some alcohol and some Drakar Noir on the way back, because perfumes and alcohol are ridiculously cheap in Bangkok.
The second trip to Shanghai, while shorter, seemed to take so much longer. The movies were dreadful (for the most part) so I drunk lot's of alcohol. It made everything kinda hazy, but didn't make things go any faster.
I had a great chat with my travel companion, and one of my bosses. He's pretty keen for me to step up to the bar and see if I've got the goods to manage one of the company groups. That's both daunting and flattering. Flattering because he has the faith in my abilities to do the job, and daunting, because I'm not sure if I have the same confidence.
I'll give it my all though in trying to achieve that goal, because it's important for me, and also for the company I'm working for.
My first impressions of Shanghai have been pretty good. It seems to be a much cleaner and modern city than Beijing, though I've really only seen the newer Pudong section. Maybe later I'll get a chance to go to old Shanghai and see The Bund, and some of the old Colonial sections.
The hotel is pretty cool, though it was a bit of a shock to discover that my credit card will be charged for the room and then me getting re-imbursed. I'll have to transfer some money to cover that, because I wasn't expecting it. It'll all be fine, but it would have been nice to know in advance so that I could have planned accordingly.
I really hate these kinds of surprises. Surprises are usually a good thing, but in this case, it's just damned annoying.
Anyway, I've got some notes to type up, and some calculations to make before tomorrow, and I really need some sleep, so until then Dsai Jian (Goodbye) :-)
It was a long trip, but travelling with Thai air was good. Good service, great food, and reasonably comfortable chairs.
I bought myself some iPod accessories duty free, and a new pair of Bolle's. Tried heaps of glasses on and found some that look OK, so I bought them.
We had a 3 hour wait in Bangkok which was pretty cool. I'm going to get some alcohol and some Drakar Noir on the way back, because perfumes and alcohol are ridiculously cheap in Bangkok.
The second trip to Shanghai, while shorter, seemed to take so much longer. The movies were dreadful (for the most part) so I drunk lot's of alcohol. It made everything kinda hazy, but didn't make things go any faster.
I had a great chat with my travel companion, and one of my bosses. He's pretty keen for me to step up to the bar and see if I've got the goods to manage one of the company groups. That's both daunting and flattering. Flattering because he has the faith in my abilities to do the job, and daunting, because I'm not sure if I have the same confidence.
I'll give it my all though in trying to achieve that goal, because it's important for me, and also for the company I'm working for.
My first impressions of Shanghai have been pretty good. It seems to be a much cleaner and modern city than Beijing, though I've really only seen the newer Pudong section. Maybe later I'll get a chance to go to old Shanghai and see The Bund, and some of the old Colonial sections.
The hotel is pretty cool, though it was a bit of a shock to discover that my credit card will be charged for the room and then me getting re-imbursed. I'll have to transfer some money to cover that, because I wasn't expecting it. It'll all be fine, but it would have been nice to know in advance so that I could have planned accordingly.
I really hate these kinds of surprises. Surprises are usually a good thing, but in this case, it's just damned annoying.
Anyway, I've got some notes to type up, and some calculations to make before tomorrow, and I really need some sleep, so until then Dsai Jian (Goodbye) :-)
# posted by The Puppeteer : 10:17 pm
