The entrance to Sydney harbour



 

These photos were taken at the entrance to the Sydney harbour.  They used to have a number of gun emplacements at the top of these cliffs to protect the harbour, but they have been removed and only the concrete remains (pretty poor concrete too by the way).

You can see in the top photo a number of large sailing boats leaving the bay and heading out to sea. 

And I will also share with you the view I had from the restaurant that I ate lunch at.  A very nice lunch too by the way.

 

The Airport Hotel - the penthouse suit

The first night in Sydney I wanted a hotel close to the airport and not too expensive, and I found this lovely little room. Yes, my room is the one up at the top of the stairs.  Despite the awful looks, the hotel turned out to be very comfortable.  Not quite the Trident in Mumbai, but okay for one night.

 

 

 

 

Sydney - Australia

I spent the weekend in Sydney and got the chance to look around a bit.  The activities that they have at the beach are amazing.  The one beach I visited (in Manly) had a Surf boat race. The web page listed it as follows:  (I didn't take these two photos - but they are much better than mine)

"Sydney's Dee Why beach was abuzz on Saturday with a large crowd (it was really only about 100 people) gathering for the fourth and final round of this summer's Schick Hydro Ocean Thunder Pro Surf Boat series. Australia's top 36 surf rowing crews from all over Australia converged on Dee Why for the series which is viewed by millions of television viewers worldwide."

The male rowers were all 6'5" and 230lb's,  real giants.  After watching all these guys wandering around I began to think that everyone is that big here in Australia, but at the next beach they were more the everyday size - short and fat.  I am surprised that this sport isn't the number one sport watched by women.  The guys for some reason, pull their speedo's up to form a sort of thong at the back.  Fully exposing their bottoms.  So at the start of the race you see 6 teams of 5 men with their butts exposed, getting ready to rush down to the boats.  The women's teams don't feel it is necessary to do this with their swim suits unfortunately.

The tough part of the race is getting through the first set of waves, and often one boat is completely swamped and looks like it will sink for sure.  But somehow, they can row with the boat full of water and it drains out the back.

 

Further down the same beach was a larger crowd gathered for kids life guarding training.  They had a series of races set up for kids from age 6 to 13.  The little ones had a relay race where they had to run down to the beach and then swim through the waves, go around a bouy and swim back.  The older kids were doing a race with the rescue boards.  They had to go quite far out and around two bouys then back to the beach.  It looked like great fun and I wished I could join in.

Night out

That evening we are all taken out for dinner and join a large group from the same company at the typical round table.  5 of the people at the table I have never met before and don’t even speak English.  The drinking soon starts and they are regularly  “Gambei” each other (finishing off the drink). I wisely don’t take part.  The photo is of our table early in the evening.

The next morning in the meeting room, you can smell the booze coming out of their pores.  But they didn’t seem any worse for wear.

That evening we fly to Beijing on the first leg of our return flight.  When we land in Beijing, the air is unbelievably bad.  Over powering smell of sulfur and smog in the air.  I get 1.5 hrs sleep that night and I am very tired when I have to get up at 4:45am for the morning flight – I am starting to wonder why I put myself through this….

Off to China

How’s this for a travel day:  Get up at 4am (after being woken up at 2 am by mistaken wakeup call from hotel reception) for a flight at 5:45 am.  The first leg of my flight was from Surabaya to Jakarta, then catch a flight to Guangzhu China, then a third flight from there to Wuhan, China where I landed at 7 pm.  By the time I got to the hotel it was 8:30pm.  It was my first time to Guangzhu airport and I had to pass through immigration and then find the domestic flight to Wuhan.  They certainly could use some more signs to inform people where to go. I had to ask a number of people to find my way through an extremely large airport and I was given the wrong information three times before I found the right check in desk.   The business lounge I would rate at the low end of the scale for those who happen to find themselves passing through.  However the airport is very modern and very spacious (and huge).

The hotel is quite nice – with the painting below in the lobby (3 meters high) and the hotel room is excellent (even free internet).  In the morning, I can’t find the restaurant and have to ask again, only to be told it is on the 4^th floor.  I am later told by colleagues that the prostitutes are on the 5^th floor.  I am quite shocked that this is the norm in China for business men and that even top hotels organize this.

Trip to Tuscany

My wife and I took a short (?) drive down to Tuscany.  Weather was great and traffic minimal.  Only problem encountered was the very bright light that flashed at me for some reason on our return.  I am waiting to find out the exact speed that I should have been traveling vs. the speed I was going when this bright light hit.  The Swiss postal system will bring this news in the coming days.

The photo is of the area of Tuscany that we were in.  It is quite amazing how much time it takes to drive anywhere in the country side.  10 km ends up taking 30 minutes or much longer in our case when you take into account getting lost.

Back on the road - Jakarta and Mumbai

After a brief break, I am back on the road - well " in the air" actually.  I felt the kids were pushing me out the door this time, as they have given me their DVD wish list   It has been a while since I have been to Jakarta and they had compiled quite a list of DVD's for me to pick up.  For those not in the know, Jakarta is a good place to pick up inexpensive DVD's - about 60 cents each.  I don't think I can buy blank ones for this price.  There are about 10 of these "shops" in this mall I frequent, and the quality (so I hear) is quite poor for new releases, but improves as the movies get older.

For any FBI agents reading this blog, I can assure you that I spoke quite sternly to my children about copy right infringement and that I would not be a part of it.

As usual with my visits to these places, it was required to work the weekend.  We spent 8 hours working in a corner of the hotel lobby lounge as the office shuts off it's air conditioning on the weekend.  The lounge played the same music CD over and over again.  It became mildly bothersome after the forth time.

The flight to Singapore is always on the A380 and I find it cool that the entrances are on two levels. I have been meaning to show a photo of it for a while, and finally remembered this last trip.

My stop over in Mumbai was thankfully brief, and I got a room with the ocean view.  Normally I get the dirty view out the back looking at the slum.  In the morning I got up early and took this photo of the ocean with the shadow of the buildings on the water and a small fishing boat below.  The city across the bay is visable in the distance.