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5.45 morning call

Due to a 3 hour bus ride to Nanjing, and the need to be at the airport before noon, we encountered our earliest wake up call yet. At 0545 hours. Thankfully I had packed the previous night, and unlike some others, did not have to rush.

Considering that almost everyone was partying till the wee hours of the morning, almost everyone was fast asleep on the ride to Nanjing. Including myself.

We were supposed to visit the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, and were greeted by a long snaking queue of mainly Chinese schoolchildren. We tried queuing for about 20 minutes, and then gave up, as it simply took too long, and we had a flight to catch.

The long and snaking queue reminded me of those at the Tokyo Expo, which I had visited last year. At least we didn’t queue for 3hours this time! ;)

So on to Nanjing International Airport, where we were supposed to eat lunch.

Due to a lack of fast food, and given time constraints, my group purchased instant noodles to eat for lunch. Supposedly, SIA was the only international airline to operate out of Nanjing. (not counting Dragon Air…).. Nonetheless, we entertained ourselves, discussing dfs and more, and soon enough, we were boarding the plane to take us back home.

Caught a couple of movies and played a few games on the way back, in an otherwise uneventful flight.

Touched down at approximately 1940hours, and was on the way home by 2010hours.

Great Trip, but nonetheless, its great to be back.

Cheers.

photo credits go to: Joel Khoo, Seow Chun Ming, Ronald Ip and myself...

After the SIP, we proceeded on to the Master of the Nets Garden.. which I suspect was literally translated, but unfortunately couldn’t find the original Chinese plague to check against it..

Nice backdrop for nice pictures to be taken against =)

有山有水.

Guanqian Street was a pale comparison with the opulence of Nanjing Road, and the great deals at Xiangyang. Nevertheless, we were spellbound, watching a really accomplished Magician demonstrate his card tricks and more. Mingyi and Anthony purchased some really unique items. Ask them to demo it haha

Having been to Suzhou before, the Silk Factory was not a place I hadn’t visited prior to this trip, and still has the repugnant odor produced when the silk worms are boiled.

Day and Night 6

Luzhi Water Town.. where you see old buildings (constructed without any nails), water, villagers, nice bridges and thresholds to walk over.

Nice place for pictures though….

The tour through the water town proved to be the longest had experienced on this trip. With the twisting passages and maze-like alleys, it was not a surprise, that several members of the entourage were lost, and the tour agents had to do a search and rescue mission.

Grand Canal.. the second largest architectural and engineering feat in China, after the Great Wall. It supposedly stretches from Hangzhou to Beijing, and is used for trade, and transportation purposes. Construction started during the Warring States period. Again, do not underestimate them.

The Embroidery Institute showcased the epitome of Chinese fine art, with delicate hands weaving pieces of thread into works of art, the most impressive of which resembled an oil painting.

As I mentioned previously, Breadtalk has come to China. What do people do when they see a good product in a country that doesn’t really care about intellectual property rights?

They Pirate it.

Holiland Bread was a fine example of how Breadtalk has been copied in China. Same colour scheme, same concepts, but. Interestingly,

Better Products.

I wonder if they’ve moved on from piracy to innovation already. Certainly, they seem to be walking in Japan’s footsteps…

Imitate – Innovate – Invent.

Our last dinner was an interesting affair, with a san hu (?) player taking requests and singing whatever songs which we requested for. Within those 20 minutes, he had made a grand total of 140 元. Hmm....

Computers Computers Computers.

You thought you’d seen many. You haven’t seen the 10^th most powerful Supercomputer in the world. Capable of 10 trillion calculations per second, or 10 tetraflops. Some people couldn’t believe that such an advanced machine could even exist in the seemingly backward China.

Welcome to the Real World.

I heard this a few weeks ago.. “remember how people used to say that millions of people in Africa are starving, so eat up every grain of rice on your plate? Its changed. Now, if you don’t finish the rice on your plate, the people in China and India will eat it up.”

The next superpower is, indeed on the rise. Study hard and improve your Chinese. You’ll need it =P

Garbage Incineration Plant. Nothing new to me, having visited Senoko Power Plant a few years back. The main difference is that the Shanghai one is much larger, as Shanghai, with its population of 13 million, obviously generates more rubbish than our little red dot. Another difference is that you get to view the whole garbage incineration process behind thick glass walls at Senoko, however… at Shanghai, its really a ‘4D’ experience [refer to previous post about ‘4D’]

Free Smells anyone?

The quality of the food had steadily been getting better, prior to the lunch we ate on this very day. It reversed the trend, rather violently, and set the quality of the food way back….

Xiangyang part 2. Some other people decided that hey. They didn’t buy enough the last time. So back we went, (I was rather delighted actually. Bargaining is FUN), and one of the aforementioned people who wanted to go back…made the purchase of the trip. A fake watch. For SGD $60.

After buying more things, we departed for Suzhou.

Water actually poured from the sky this once. During the evening. And I had my ONE and ONLY chance to use the umbrella which I had brought many miles.

Day and Night 5

Once upon a time, China asked Singapore to help set up an Industrial Park, with its Premier citing that he was impressed with Singapore’s progress, and asked Singapore, with all its experience, to help them set up an Industrial Park, in Suzhou.

Singapore happily takes it as a fantastic opportunity to expand overseas, and agrees.

Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) is formed.

Singapore sets up the infrastructure. Brings in its people from URA, EDB etc. with the aim of making the park a huge success.

Suzhou Local Government is not pleased, and sets up a rival park, and manages to attract German companies such as Siemens over.

S’pore’s Joint Venture loses $.

In 2000, S’pore, from a Majority Shareholder in the project, becomes a minority shareholder, controlling a mere 25% in the Suzhou Industrial Park

Well. Painful lesson learnt?

Maybe.

Some say, that China becoming the majority share holder was good for the Industrial Park, with thousands of Parks in the motherland, the government would now personally push for the park to become a success. What does S’pore gain?

Hardly anything tangible.

But hey. The intangibles are great!

S’pore gets to boost its reputation internationally, it was, and still is the only Government to Government “joint-venture” in China etc etc etc.

Good choice to go in?

No. Great Choice.

So that’s the history behind the SIP.

Go in there. You’d think you were back in some china-fied version of Singapore.

From the the ‘CBD’, the design of the residential condos, to the Marina Cove Neighbourhood, and the ‘Master Plans’, Singapore’s planning divisions certainly left their indelible mark on the SIP.

This was the last truly educational visit of the whole trip.

Perhaps I shall Endeavour to turn this webspace into a travelogue of sorts, everytime I travel…. But whether I can keep this up.. remains to be seen.

My 4^th Trip into the central kingdom

22-28 April. SHANGHAI – SUZHOU – NANJING

Day and Night 1

I still think that having a flight which takes off at 0115 hours, and lands at 0635 hours, doesn’t make very much sense, especially when on the flight, there are 42+ movies, television channels on demand, audio on demand, and live news available. Of course its great to hit the ground running, without wasting a day traveling blah blah… However, it is not realistic to expect everyone to be able to rest on the flight, and be in optimum condition to learn the following day.

On a 5 hour flight, after the first hour has passed, the air stewardesses serve DINNER. [at 0230 hours]. And at around 0500 hours, they decide to serve you breakfast. Assuming that one eats really quickly, and can fall asleep almost immediately, there is less than 2 and a half hours to sleep, sans interruptions.

So bleary eyed, the group of 59 students, and 4 teachers, stumbled into China’s Financial Centre in the wee hours of the morning.

What most people did on the bus, was to sleep.

Surprising?

I hope not.

Breakfast introduced the first timers to the sheer oiliness of food, in China. Another unremarkable thing was that at every meal, there’d be a bottle of either 7 up or Sprite, and Pepsi or Coca-Cola waiting to be drunk.

I wonder what is the average life span of the citizens there. With extraordinary oily food, and gassy drinks for every meal…. Hmmm.

Of course, the first breakfast was the worst breakfast. To quote a fellow student, ‘The porridge was super diluted, tasted like water... the noodle was oily, the crust was hard, the bread was wet...’

Another thing to note about that meal, was that they gave us bread, jam, and chopsticks. So those who decided to consume that article of food had to innovate, and spread jam on the bread with chopsticks. Ingenious eh?

I don’t remember anything about the ensuring bus journey into the heart of Shanghai city, as I was asleep.

The Urban Planning Centre, as its name suggests, is the URA of Shanghai. Similarities include a miniature model of the entire city, which they proudly showed off, and demonstrated their capabilities for planning way into the future. They also unveiled their plans for the 2010 World Exposition, to be held there. I intend to next visit the city above the ocean (上海)then.

'They plan to build this city within 20 years, and finish it within 10’ was one of the quips which I overheard whilst touring the complex. Inference: They’re really advanced. Throughout the whole trip, that conclusion was shown to be correct again and again.

When CapitalLand builds a shopping complex in Shanghai, expect it to be named Raffles City. Mounted on the exterior of this complex was a giant LCD screen. Which showcased the fact, that it is now safe to turn off your computer.

The interior introduced me to the world of parallel imports, and CDs which would have cost me at least SGD$20, cost SGD$5. Needless to say, I bought them.

Science and Technology. Indeed a key part of this booming city. With simulators, machines, and all sorts of unique exhibitions… I still feel that the Tokyo Science Museum is much more advanced, but hey. Shanghai’s Sci-Tech Museum isn’t that far away.

Many wondered, what is a 4-D show? Well take a normal 3-D show, complete with the huge glasses, and couple it with water, sand, air blasting at you, whilst your seat rocks around like some virtual reality ride.

Hotel was good. Ethernet cables free for loan, And Internet available. Was introduced to an extremely addictive Japanese drama series.. which we watched almost nightly till it finished, on the last night (albeit watching 3 episodes on the last night.. )

Day and Night 2

Agricultural parks… Nothing new there… Personally I felt that Singapore’s hydroponics and ---- ponics were much more advanced than the ones showcased there.

At the City Kennel.. which was next to the agri-park, we all saw how they kept their Dogs. No wonder they take it so seriously when called a dog. Mongrels and Hounds were kept in a perhaps 2meters by 1meter enclosure, in terrible conditions. Ironic thing was that they also called it a ‘Pet Hotel’. That hotel would have probably ended up on a negative star scale.

By coincidence, we were near the airport, so somebody from the other bus decided to propose that we take the maglev train into the city, to lunch. The proposal was unanimously supported by all.

So, at 431km/h on land, speeding towards the city centre. Priceless.

It utilizes.. Centrifugal Force (according to a friend), as the train pivoted up to 60 degrees on each side at various points in the ride. Yet, I didn’t feel the pull of gravity towards each side of the train.

Xintiandi. Tourist attraction. Coffee Bean, Starbucks. ‘nuff said.

Xiangyang market. First proper shopping stop in the trip. Mission: To minimize the shopkeeper's Profits.

Bought a silk shirt, a polo shirt, a short sleeve shirt, long pants, shorts and an overcoat at ridiculously low prices. The overcoat cost about 1/300 the price as if I had purchased it in London/Paris.

Bargaining practice. I was a little out of touch with the ruthless world of bargaining, but I gradually remembered all about it, and plunged headlong, with the aim of being Uniquely Singaporean. Quoting very low prices and making shop keepers go a little mad was quite a highlight of the trip.

Oriental Pearl TV tower. The 1^st time I visited the tower, back in 2000, it was plainly coloured. This time, it was lit up with multicoloured LCD lights. It turned out that with the 3 gorges dam in operation, Shanghai benefited from the enormous power supply, and all the skyscrapers decided to utilize the power to create animated LCD screens all over the exterior of their buildings, which resulted in one of the most unique lightups which I have ever seen.

Well.. They evicted villagers from their homes, and flood ancestral grounds, and destroyed entire ecosystems… to have fantastic lights in the financial capital? Not bad!

Day and Night 3

Coca-Cola Factory. A ginormous complex which churns out 1000? Bottles a minute.

Was fascinated by the sheer scale of the automated machines, producing tens of thousands of bottles of soft drinks. The presentations also drilled home the importance of having fantastic marketing skills, which resulted in the largest soft-drink producer in the world.

Went to take a few group pictures at the Bund before lunch, and visited Sharp Electronics Factory after lunch..

A fridge which can open on both sides, air conditioners and purifiers. Fascinating new innovation. Cutting edge technology? Nein.

Seen all that before in Courts. Since January ’06.

One thing about Chinese business culture, is that they take u to this showroom, where they showcase their latest products and innovations.. Awards won.. etc. Before showing you how it works. Trying to impress? Maybe. Try harder next time ^^

Nanjing Road.. 2^nd time I’ve been there. Whats new? Breadtalk.

Our dear home grown company has expanded into Shanghai, taking along its trademark pork floss buns, open concept ‘manufacturing’, and ‘self-service’ to Shanghai. One wonders how much longer, before they become a global brand, maybe..... one day becoming as famous as the golden arches..

The Bund by night, showcased again, the uniquely-Shanghai night sky. Animated LCDs and spotlights lit up the sky. Fantastic phototaking opportunity: If you have a steady hand / tripod.