I have been told it was to long ago that I last wrote…

It is 6am and I have been up for over an hour and a half. You see there is this rooster next door and he crows from 4:45 till noon, just in case you planned to oversleep. So given the twelve hour difference between here and there I decided to make 2 phone calls.

Now back to the past.

So last time I wrote was when I landed in Bangkok, well I just got back to Bangkok from Hong Kong. Now let me explain Hong Kong for those who have not been there. I is 42nd street meets Spanish Harlem but only has Chinese and British. This was very odd to me but it kind of felt like home, I guess it must of been the attitudes(NYC style) there.

So I arrived in HKK at 6:30p and headed directly to immigration. Now here is where I love being a US citizen: Immigration. Guy, looks at passport, looks at me, stamps passport. I walk through and wait for my Taiwanese friend. He approaches the gate and the Immigration. guy starts yelling at him, you see this is China, and he is from “China”. It turns out that the visa he got is a transit visa only they say. The visa says: here by grant permission to enter and remain upon, twice. Who am I to argue with the Chinese military. So it takes him about two hours to clear immigration and off to the hotel we went.

Now we are in HK to see this guy Conroy, he is the son of this really rich man and a friend of my coworker. His father owns New World Corp., which builds hotels, telephone companies, etc… The name of the hotel is “New World Renaissance Hotel”, and my coworker said our stay would be free. Great.

The phone rings, “Hello, Mr. Chow?” it said. And I said, “Yes.” He replied, “There is a problem with your deposit, you need to come down and fill out a new form and use a different credit card or cash.” Now this came as a surprise to me, because when a room is complimentary or is paid for by another the guest never has to lay out a dime! This is two days into our stay at the hotel. Well we had to pay, it was not free. NEVER ASSUME, you know what they say, right?

So off to the cheapest hotel I could find in the phone book. Dadol Hotel is located on a very well lit and neon street called Kimberly Road in Kowloon, Hong Kong. Now we arrive there to find out that they also have hourly rates. Now they don’t provide room keys for the guests, you have to go to the desk and ask for the door to be opened. Now if you don’t pay your rent they don’t open your door. Needless to say by the time we checked out they had over charged us by a thousand dollars. Well I decided to do away with this problem, so I argued, argued, called the police, got my way and missed the plane. DOH!

First I called the airline, and spoke with the gate manager, he said they don’t hold planes, but if I got there before the door was closed I could get on the plane. So there was 26 minutes on the clock before the plane left the gate. Down stairs I went with my luggage, dragging my other coworker, and into the taxi. I said to the taxi driver, “Airport quick!” He said ok, once on the road I informed him that he had 16 minutes to make it to the terminal. So doing 160km/h, we made it to the airport on my schedule. 9 minutes left, lets get to the gate. Passing one China Airlines employee, I stated that we need to get to flight 641. He proceeded to throw his hands up in the air and say no you can’t go it is to late. We argued for 8 minutes and I gave up, you cant clear customs and make a plane in one minute (yes Matt, even I can’t do that).

So now our only option looked like stay and wait for the next flight next day. This was unacceptable, you see these flights get in at noon local time, which in turn get you home by 2pm(3pm Singapore). We have business in Singapore to do on Thursday.

Now to create more options. I go up to the counter and as for some time tables, I wanted to take a flight from HKK and get to BKK anyway I could by 8am BKK time. So I noticed that they went to Taipei, Taiwan and from there they went to Bangkok. So I spoke to the reservation agent and explained the situation. She proceeded to try to exchange our non refundable, redoubtable, etc. ticket. She succeeded, around 4pm. But we made a mistake, Wednesday is the only day they don’t fly from TPE to BKK.

Back to the drawing board. I have realized that politely asking for a exchanged ticket and bending airline policy is no longer going to work. Time to hard ass. I go up to the desk, the shift has changed, advantage Jason. Now I start to converse with the desk supervisor, he tries to be most polite and accommodating. But his apologies and suggestions just don’t get me there on time. And I tell him this whilst asking for a higher supervisor. Enter the schmuck who made me miss the plane (I could not believe this guy was a supervisor). I just did not want to talk to him, so I asked him for his supervisor. He replied as all who will lose do, “I DON’T HAVE A SUPERVISOR.” You should never say that, it is a blatant lie. SO after two minutes of rephrasing the question he goes and get the boss.

Now when Mr. Li shows up he is very polite. But this does not detour me, I explain from the beginning of how the airline has given me misdirection one after another with the end result of me missing my plane. I told him he had two options. 1) to get me to BKK by 8am or 2) to provide me with a bed, and telephone to call Singapore the next morning, and on the plane.

Now of course he chose 1. At 10:15p we were on some random Arab airline heading for BKK then UAE, I don’t think they take kindly to meal requests.

So once in Bangkok I was able to arrange 7 meetings with venture capitalists so far in Singapore. Well I am off to Singapore Sunday morning (about 24 hours from now).

I miss you guys. And I will be back in 8 days.

-jp

Re: so, i had to go to an internet cafe for work…. [part 2]

Well I am in Thailand now. Bangkok feels just like west palm beach Florida. (see: http://www.cnn.com/WEATHER/as/Thailand/BangkokVTBD.html)

back to the past:

I have been on a mission to find flavored food in Taiwan. I decided to make Strawberry Daiquiris, French Toast, or Hamburger. Problem number one: no strawberries, I have been told in Asia there are no strawberries except in May. #2 cinnamon and vanilla these are impossible to find (isn’t cinnamon a Chinese spice?) so there goes French Toast. #3 Hamburger, this seamed the most hopeful, it has two ingredients beef & bread! I went on a search for buns, guess what they don’t exist, I settled for my French Toast bread. Next, the BEEF, I went to the markets asking for ground beef, they give me sliced beef, finally I convey the need for mushy type beef. I get minced beef. So I go home with my minced beef I mold it into a patty (13oz). There was no pan only a wok… IT CAME OUT HORRIBLE!!!!

Now just the other day the typhoon hit Taichung, it was my first one. It was actually quite pleasant, it reminded me of they weather back in Illinois, strong winds and strong rain. The winds were around 90 miles per hour and the rain drops the size of grapes. Thursday there was no rain only wind and around 75 degrees, beautiful.

So I found out that an airplane crashed airport late Wednesday night, this was not encouraging. But my visa was to expire Thursday so I had to leave. I call Royal Dutch Airlines and they tell me that the plane is on time (4:30 for a 7pm flight). I get to the airport and check my baggage, then they tell me that there is a delay of undetermined length. And I say as long as you get me out by midnight I am happy. Going on they give me a coupon for dinner at the cafeteria. I go up there the line is the full length of the terminal, after getting to the food counter I notice roaches crawling all over the walls and counter. I go back downstairs and ask to speak with the supervisor. I inform him that I am wholly unsatisfied with the food conditions and I want a decent meal, he replies that this is the only thing he can offer as they have an “arrangement” with the cafeteria. Now I have been told that the food at the airport hotel restaurant is good, so I tell the supervisor I want to eat there. He replies that he cant do that, I say bla bla bla, he says ok. Well no I am in the hotel restaurant, I order filet minion (sp?), onion soup, salad, fresh lemon juice, black “wood” cake, and several drinks at the bar. all in all a fifty dollar+ tab, courtesy of Royal Dutch Airlines!

Now that I am in Thailand, the food is sweet and spicy, and I love it. I LOVE THE FOOD!!!!, I have had excellent curry, sushi, samushi (sp?), and great BBQ. They have sauces that are like molasses on fire.

Oh, and Thai voices are so pleasant. They all sound like cooing birds.

Going on I met this family that makes candles, like those 40$ types. So I got some free candles. I like them. Also today I won some tickets on the radio to a lingerie show.

All in all I really miss Baltimore!

Hope to be back soon
-jp

so, i had to go to an internet cafe for work….

so the guy to my right is smoking up a storm, and singing into the mikeĀ for his “girlfriend”. it is a one way video conference, she sees him but he does not see her!

going on here, this place is insane. I am supposed to go drinking with these girls ( they have never seen a white guy drink before, this is what i am told). all you have to do is say shea shea (thank you) and they flock to you. (btw, they like big eyes)

back to about work, i met with a few VC firms (venture captial) they all want to know why dont we write our software here, and i keep saying the technical expertese here are not that good. they say but it is so cheap. anyway i went to get a friday morning (a common computer book [java class libs]) well to make a long story short tonight i found 2/3 volumes. now these vc firms want us to write our stuff here where they don’t even have reference books?

now that the email i sent out to a few days ago:

]how chan ching chaw
]ra cha ba yah no kee
]
]and i said to the taxi driver please take me here ( i pointed to an
]address in chineese)
]
]he said again :
]how chan ching chaw
]ra cha ba yah no kee

I repeat this 3 or 4 times daily, but now it has gotten worse! i started to travel farther, i now point out step by step directions

i say left now, right now, go go go, and stop.

]one more thinng, there are these trucks that go around and say with a
]loud speaker “ba yaw, ba yaw bla bla bla bla” I cant figure out if they
]are selling ice cream or politics?

well my files are done downloading so it is back to the office.

one other thing square towles are toilet paper, and the weather is great if you like beach weather 24/7.

cheers

-jp