Tag: Travel

What can you learn from an Octopus?

Post author By The Burble....
Post date July 4, 2017
No Comments on What can you learn from an Octopus?

I always find taking that first step off the airplane both exciting and distinctly underwhelming. Exciting as all new countries are an experience, and underwhelming because all airports now look-alike; other than Heathrow which looks like no airport on earth and despite the great PR machine actually doesn’t work very well. And Haneda in Tokyo which is the only airport in the world I’ve travelled through where the ground crew bow to the plan when it arrives.

One of the exciting aspects of traveling to a new country is trying to gain insights into the culture that drives how business is done. This is an important aspect of working overseas as a little respect for any local culture goes a long way to making people feel confident with each other. And confidence makes it easier to discuss things.

But trying to understand a culture and how it will impact you is difficult. As a westerner in Asia I had not idea of what is driving the local culture and what allowances are being made to accommodate your attempts to bow in say Japan. If you follow the link you’ll see just how complicated bowing can be. To be fair as a westerner in the USA I had equally no idea what was going on.

After giving it some thought I’ve come up with the 4 basic things that can tell you a lot about a country.

At the Airport

Airports can be a great place to gain some insights on how a country might work. Are the signs clear and easy to follow, in multiple languages and do the staff at immigration actually look like they want to be there. Business is likely to be thorough and organised and guest and visitors are appreciated. If you’ve travelled through Heathrow or into the USA you’ll appreciate that none of this is in place and when you jump in a taxi (particularly in the US) you’ll see exactly how business is going to be done; if the driver knows where you’re going that’s a bonus.

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At the Hotel

If the hotel staff have been trained and are courteous and helpful you know that meetings will be polite and well organised with the topics well though through. If you have to go back to reception multiple times because either the room the hotel gave you is already occupied (which does provide a major surprise for the existing occupant of the room but can be good for making or losing friends) or the room key fails to work then you’ll know that any meeting is likely to be a riot of noise, questions, papers and activity but with very little chance of actually achieving much. Again if you have ever tried checking into a hotel in London you’ll know what I mean.

Public Transport

If your hosts are happy to let you take public transport than you know that they are a proud people who value exposing you to their country and its people’s and activities. if not then I’d heartedly recommend that you do not try public transport yourself. There is a very good reason why the use of public transport has to be by recommendation only. See signs above. I have numerous examples over many years of colleagues who have faithfully boarded trams and ended up doing calls from public gardens 10 miles out-of-town.

So if public transport is recommended go for it and your meetings will be on time and end up in the place you want to get to (even if you go round the houses to get there). If not then you could end up anywhere with an agreement to repeat the whole thing again next time. On another bus and on a road to nowhere

At the Restaurant

Eating overseas is always fun and working out what is on the menu can be a real challenge but one you should always take. Don’t try to find something western as it will invariably not taste like anything you know and you’ll simply upset the hosts who will be keen to show you the best of their food culture. Personally though I always draw the line at eating anything alive – whether octopus or eel I prefer to know that it is dead and well prepared rather than still trying to escape as it travels down your throat.

For the squeamish look away now.

If your food is alive when it arrives you’re going hungry – sandwiches in meetings are a no-no and you have no way of getting to what you want as you will have upset your hosts. Just go get on the plane and leave.

Tags airport, Business, eating, hotel, human rights, London, People, places, transport, Travel

People Service

Yes they’re free – of course you can’t have them…..Sir

Post author By The Burble....
Post date November 28, 2016
No Comments on Yes they’re free – of course you can’t have them…..Sir

Sometimes the way this country works leaves me baffled. While many things in the UK are clearly better than they used to be; Measles outbreaks, Cooking programs on TV (anyone for Fanny Cradock – a dry bird?) and Chelsea FC, many things have carried on exactly as before.

And anything that is free or involves a form simply hasn’t changed at all.

This week found me at my local Doctors surgery to obtain a repeat prescription. Apparently to stop my head falling off or something similar its important that I have some medicine. And since I left the UK the process has improved no end; now you can have a repeat prescription automatically filled by a pharmacist. Simple really. You get your prescription, log it at the chemist and the go along at the appropriate time and pick up the drugs. Its funny that even a sentence with the word drugs in it sounds naughty – I must be really getting old.

Anyhow as with all good systems it works by a combination of electronics and forms. Tghe pharmacy sends a request to the doctor and they authorise it. Simple. Except it isn’t.

Normally the pharmacy text me when they have the prescription but in this case having received nothing I went to the surgery and then onto the pharmacy. The surgery confirmed they had done what they needed to and I should go to the pharmacist. Which I did.

The pharmacy confirmed that the drugs (cue shiver again) had been approved but they didn’t have the ‘form’.

‘So that’s good its been approved’

‘yes’

‘So I can have the drugs?’

‘No – we haven’t got the form’

‘What form?’

‘The one the surgery printed off – they need to send it to us.’

‘But you have it approved on the system?’

‘yes but now the surgery have printed off a the form we actually need to see it – even though we can see its been approved on the system’

So we go round this a couple more times and of course I give up. There is nothing quite like a process in the UK for being both designed to withstand a nuclear war and completely useless if you need it to work. Which brings me back to biscuits.

My first run in with officialdom and processes that make no sense came in the early 80’s on a British Rail train. This was a time when a tea trolley still made its way up and down the train and it was from such a trolley that I ordered a cup of something warm and brown that claimed to be tea and asked for some bourbon creams.

‘Oh I am sorry sir you see their free so you can’t have them’

‘pardon’

‘you see their free sir – so obviously I can’t give them to you’

‘if I paid for them would that make a difference?’

‘well no sir, as i said they’re free’

Which after a while I realised meant that they were free in business class but not for me. I can see why we British Rail never made any money. And so I sat back drank my tea and dreamed of free biscuits. I think it was this incident that led me to try that little bit harder to travel in business as much as I can. Eventually the tea trolley came back down the train and I saw that the bourbons remained unclaimed. Surely now they would be mine.

No apparently they were still free and thus not available, even if I wanted to pay for them.

You can be sure of something in the UK. You cannot beat either a form or a process. And some things never change…

And I know the picture has nothing to do with the blog but as its cold and dark you can never beat a picture form Koh Samui.

Tags biscuits, bourbon, bourbons, Business, forms, London, medicine, places, society, train, Travel

Buildings and Places Change Customers People Service

Back to the Future

In the film Back to the Future Marty McFly is blasted back to 1955 running the risk that whatever he does will affect his future. And of course this being Hollywood all works out in the end. So much so that 2 more films were made in the series. Its one of the most enjoyable trilogies I’ve watched.

In the film you can see linkages between the future and the past but a definite change between the two. The future is definitely ahead of the past. Which to be honest isn’t the way I’ve found coming back to the UK. The country seems to have got stuck.

I should probably provide some support for my conjecture. Well firstly the transport system really hasn’t changed that much at all. The trains are overcrowded and still have no air-conditioning. And people don’t talk to each other (indeed go out of their way not to talk to anyone at all) so the whole process is one of the least enjoyable features of being back in the UK.

Now lets talk about 4G. The mobile phone network of choice for most countries around the world. In the UK the phone network is simply bad. And I have heard many different excuses. Apparently London has too many high buildings which is actually doesn’t. And in any event I give you Hong Kong. A country and a city that has nothing other than tall buildings and a 4G network that works – works so well in fact that almost everyone is watching video on their phone, continuously. It also has its own Tardis

So if it isn’t about the size of the buildings the second excuse is that the network is simply too busy. Which implies that the people who build the networks simply have no idea how many people want to use their phones. I can’t quite believe that as the people who run the networks seem perfectly able to produce adverts to sign up new users. Thus presumably slowing down their networks even further.

Well at least the UK now has a number of Polish builders so hiring a builder must have got better. Well I am sure it has got better if your landlord uses a Polish builder. If they don’t well believe me nothing has changed in the 7 years I’ve been out of the UK. Appointment times are randomly adhered to, work is fudged, covered over or simply not done. So nothing changes there.

And despite all the excuses I can only assume that the leaders of businesses big and small simply don’t care to much. And being British we don’t complain or do anything about it.Which is what being British is all about. Don’t take too much care, and don’t complain.

I always knew it would take time to settle in and I am pretty sure there are things that have moved forward. The internet for example, if you don’t want to use your phone too much, is quick and works well. The council services in Greenwich have been excellent, and I mean excellent, which I wouldn’t have thought possible and food is definitely a better proposition here than in the US and Hong Kong.

I’ll get past the angst about the UK at some point. Probably the sooner the better…

Tags Back to the Future, Builder, Business, Greenwich, People, Travel, UK

Change Communication People

Back in 2011 I fell out of love

Post author By The Burble....
Post date May 8, 2016
No Comments on Back in 2011 I fell out of love

As anyone who read my last post knows I have just returned to the UK after an 8 year absence. And it doesn’t feel like home. Maybe this post explains some of it. Maybe not but I still feeling a little melancholy being back in the UK. I hope that this changes as I have so much to look forward to this year.

This is how is was.

I guess it has happened to all of us at sometime in our lives.

You wake up one morning and something just doesn’t feel quite right; you’re not quite sure what it is but something definitely doesn’t feel right. So you ignore it, go on admit you this is how you deal with it when you know its not quite right but you can’t put your finger on it.

So you carry on hoping everything will be OK but somehow that nagging itch just won’t go away. You even try harder – you really want to be in love again. Indeed you go out of your way to look for all the good things, the words, the views, the deep meaningful glances that you’ve treasured for so long. But somehow that itch keeps needing to be scratched and whatever you do it just seems to be there.

So for a while you ignore everything negative, you’ve convinced yourself that it is something to do with you and therefore best to leave everything as it is. You go on as if nothing has happened and you feel happy, you look at everything with rose colored glasses and the world is a happy place again. You were right it was all your fault, you’re just feeling a bit down and missing the sun or something and really everything is OK.

The problem is that it isn’t. You know it and now so do your best friends. They can see that you’ve lost a bit of your desire and verve and that you’re just not quite as happy as you used to be. Even when they can still see how happy they are and really nothing has changed so you should be as happy as them, they know, they can tell, they can see it in your eyes. They even try to help. really its not that bad, it will get better, it will be better than it was.

The problem is that you know it won’t be.

So you begin to think about it, giving shape and form to this nameless concern, this feeling, this worry. It grows, begins to take over your days and all of a sudden a lot of the good things you’ve grown up with all of a sudden feel grayer than they did before. What was obvious yesterday becomes questionable. What was the bedrock of your being a week ago begins to suffer a series of quakes varying an increasing Richter scale number. Everything begins to shake and your solid base begins to liquefy and all of s sudden you’re afloat being tossed about and trying to find you’re way back to solid ground. You’re cross and angry; how could this have happened after all the work and effort you’re put in; of course you could have done more but you did enough.

YES I DID ENOUGH.

You eventually get to a place where the storms subside a bit and you get to think. Maybe everything isn’t quite as good as you thought originally. Maybe you do need to do something about it. Maybe the time is now, you never did really feel attached, you’ve always looked elsewhere. You look for justification of what you’re thinking and miraculously it is everywhere. It’s straight into your face 24 hours a day – how could you have been so stupid. Isn’t it obvious, it clearly isn’t right, its just got to change, you’ve got to do something about it and you need to do it NOW.

All of a sudden the way ahead is clear.

You’re friends can see you’ve changed. They know what is coming, they know they will have to help and get you through this whatever may happen. That’s what friends are for, even if they don’t like it they dust off their smiling faces and get themselves aligned to help.

But in this case there isn’t anything they can do.

I’ve fallen out of love with my home country.

At the end of the day I will always be a confused mix of English and British. I have a lot to be proud of coming from a nation that has done a lot of good (and a lot of bad that I am not proud of) but I simply don’t recognize the country anymore. I am not sure anywhere else is better but that’s not the point. I don’t feel happy with my home country anymore and maybe in a while I will tell you why.

Tags Englishman in New York, People, Travel

Background Change People

Going home?

As I sit here writing this one the apartment is a hive of activity. Boxes piling up all around and the sound of tape and cardboard filling the air. It’s the time that many expats in Hong Kong have experienced many times over – the sounds of relocation. And accompanying the noise are those questions, fears, concerns and the sense of dislocation. We are relocating back to the UK. My fault as my very long suffering wife remind me regularly.

But is it going home?

Out of all the questions that come up when you move back to where you come from this is probably the one that I come back to more and more and with less and less of an answer. I really don’t know how I feel about going back to the UK. Quite honestly it doesn’t feel like a country that I recognise. Gone seems to be the tolerant hard working but somewhat smug nation that I grew up in, replaced by a nation that seems to think the world owes it a living and that all foreigners are in some way bad – just for being foreign. A country where the Daily Mail has gone from being a comic for the distinctly odd to a sad reflection of broad swathes of society. A country that is currently in the throws of debating whether to remain as part of a multinational and multi cultural world or descend into being a small island that can somehow stand out and above the rest based on a distinctly rosy view of our position in the world.

We’re starting in Greenwich, somewhere I know very little about but it looks good on the tourism site and GoogleMaps.

Image courtesy of Robert Bradford at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

While there must be something good about the place I am struggling to see it and while you might then ask why on earth relocate back there the simple answer to that one is the alternative was Switzerland. As someone once said to me its a great place for the morning but you’ve done it by lunchtime.

This is the third time I’ve moved countries and possibly the most daunting. Not knowing anything about the culture of the country your moving to is part of the fun. Coming out of our front door and not having any idea of what to do, where to go and how things work is all part of the experience. I’m not sure this applies to coming back to the UK.

We will see

Tags change, Experience, Hong Kong, London, Relocation, Travel

Buildings and Places

Bali

I write this coming to the end of my second visit to Bali – a part of Indonesia that never fails to impress me with its drive and development all wrapped up in a tenacious desire not to let go of the past. What has got the Balinese to this point they seem to be saying, is what will continue to drive us into the future.

It is not at all unusual to find offerings to the spirits or gods sitting on the pavement outside shops and offices in the towns nor to find staff in businesses lighting incense in the afternoon before returning to work. Its a practical link between the past and the future and is perhaps more prevalent here than in many places I have been around the Asia region. Or maybe being on vacation I have simply stopped and noticed.

Tags Bali, Experience, Travel

Buildings and Places Uncategorized

Hanoi. Growing up quickly

Post author By The Burble....
Post date February 17, 2016
No Comments on Hanoi. Growing up quickly

It’s loud it’s busy it’s a messy energetic city of hope. I love it. Like I love a large amount of South East Asia but Hanoi has a special place in my heart as this was the first city we travelled to outside the expat homeland of Hong Kong.

Only an hours flying time from the glitzy, shopping centre that Hong Kong has become the contrast couldn’t be much bigger. Hong Kong is brash, bright and, in its own mind wonderfully successful while Hanoi is the little brother that it desperately hopes won’t mess up the sandwiches. Which of courseHanoi sets out to do, and does, very effectively. To the extent that it even has its own sandwich.

But it is the energy of the place that astounded me when I first arrived. Hong Kong is brash and bright and everyone wants to make money – end of the discussion. But in hanoi everyone wants to do everything, live, learn, make money, eat, teach, and shout. And mostly while riding a moped. If anyone has seen the Top Gear special that they did in Vietnam and wondered if it was really as busy as the pictures showed (surely they cut it to look busy?) well I can assure you that it is a lot worse than you see on the film. I think it was James May that compared his scooter to a US tank with the line that the scooter has freed more people than the tank ever did and in Hanoi, as a microcosm of the cities in Vietnam he was exactly right.

Mopeds are everywhere, occasionally on the tight side of the road going in the right direction but mainly coming at you from in front behind and ay other direction possible. I have yet to see one fly but its only a matter of time. Some video will give you the idea.

Crossing the road in Hanoi is an experience. Locals helpfully give you the rather distracting advice just to ‘step out and keep going straight the bikes will swerve round you’ or that is what I think they are saying as my local language skills aren’t too strong. But the advice does seem to work (testament as I am writing this after two trips to Hanoi) and the bike riders do seem to realise that killing pedestrians isn’t a good idea; especially if you are riding with Grandma, your husband, your children and your dog all on the same moped.

Cars however are another thing. 3 years ago when I went to Hanoi there were a handful of cars on the road, mainly taxis, and they had adopted the riders ideas and tended to swerve round you. Which is no mean feat in Hanoi where many of the roads are only wide enough for a couple of bikes. But I have to report that Vietnam in its headlong rush to develop has seen a rapid rise in the number of cars and the new car drives, probably never having ridden a motorbike, have not worked out that you can go round pedestrians. And so they don’t. Which makes crossing the road a far less exciting experience than wading trough mopeds doing their best to avoid you.

Hanoi sites on the Red River about 85 miles in land from the South China Sea. Hanoi is the national capital although it lost this title to Hue after 1945 following a successful take over by Ho Chi Minh. It only regained the title in 1954 after the French, who used Hanoi as their regional center for Indochina, were defeated at Dien Bien Phu. At the end of the Vietnam war in 1976 Hanoi was once again declared the capital of the new Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Visiting any Asian city is always an experience and you long to write about the scents of perfumed streets, the quality restaurants and the calm of a city going about its business. And if you do you’ve never been to a developing Asian city. The noise is all mopeds and horns, the smells are two stroke fumes combined with outdoor cooking smells and the city is anything but calming. It’s noisy, smelly and exciting and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Tags Customers, Google, Hanoi, Hong Kong, Travel

Buildings Buildings and Places Uncategorized

The Peak – The Tardis in reverse

Post author By The Burble....
Post date April 5, 2015
1 Comment on The Peak – The Tardis in reverse

One of my favorite buildings in Hong Kong – The Peak Tower. According to the the tourist guide the tower sits at 396 meters above sea level and is one of the most stylish architectural icons in Hong Kong. And situated at the top is the Sky Terrace 428 the ‘highest 360 viewing platform’ sitting at ‘and you probably guesses this already 428 meters above seal level.

Its a spectacular building sitting like some upturned boat dominating the sky line. Or at least it used to dominate the skyline but this is Hong Kong and now at least 3 buildings have appeared between us and the Tower; in just 18 months.

But what I find so interesting about this building is that it performs a trick that only seems possible in the movies. Its bigger on the outside than the inside. A remarkable feat of building and engineering leaves us with a huge edifice sitting on the top of the Peak and a range of small scale shops and coffee houses more suited to the back streets of Wanchai.

It is one of my favorites from the outside. The inside has gone missing and I’d like it to come back.

Tags building, Cantonese, Hong Kong, places, The Peak, Travel

Customers Service

My passport? O que?

I have mentioned in a few postings how much I value speed of service and how some organizations put so much effort into making things simple and efficient. So it came as somewhat of a surprise to me to be writing this blog as a result of being refused entry to a country and being put on a boat back to Hong Kong; oh and at the same time abandoning my children to their fates.

Tags Business, Customers, Hong Kong, Macau, service, Travel

Background

A New York Mourning

I’m just back from NYC from a joint business and vacation trip. Its amazing, having lived in New York for more than three years before moving to Hong Kong, just how much it feels like home. You get off the plane and everything is familiar even while a lot has changed. Although of course nothing changes like Hong Kong where once a week at least three of our local shops have closed, been refurbished and reopened as something else.

Image courtesy of porbital / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Maybe its that pace of change that stops Hong Kong from feeling like home yet. Or maybe its the fact that in New York there are people who recognise me nearly two years after I left. Going into a bar for dinner and being recognized by a waiter who seems genuinely interested in what I’ve been doing just makes the place more comfortable.

Sure, in Hong Kong we have local restaurants where after regular use we are now well known but with the exception of one – Stone Nullah Tavern in Wan Chai – it still doesn’t quite feel like home. Of course Stone Nullah is an American style bar and maybe that’s part of the attraction. They go out of their way to make us feel welcome.

A view of Hong Kong Harbor from the Peak

My wife pointed out to me the other day, as we ruminated on where we might move to next, that it takes a long time to feel settled in a place. Often it takes between 18 months and two years just to feel like you know the place and how things work. Moving internationally is something that I’d recommend to everyone but I have perhaps, in the past three or four months, overlooked just how long it takes to feel settled. While getting a cheery wave and a ‘joe sun’ (or correctly spelled: jóusàhn) from locals is a testament to getting better known, its still a long way from being settled.

So I’ll keep hunting for good bars and restaurants and welcome your recommendations in the comments section below! For the expats living abroad, what made you feel settled in the country you now call home?

Tags Business, Hong Kong, New York City, Travel, United States