Well after two weeks on the road Jill and I are back in Hong Kong. It's still rainy and muggy...glad to see nothing changed from before we left weather-wise.
My work trip was successful. We were conducting trainings, and I think they were well-received by all those that attended. I visited 4 countries over the course of 2.5 weeks, so it was a bit of a whirlwind experience. I didn't really have time to do much outside of the trainings, but I'll briefly summarize each stop the trip. And I apologize for the size/quality of the pictures - these were all taken with my iPhone...
Bangkok, Thailand-Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok
I really liked Bangkok. Definitely a place I would like to spend more time in. The Sunday before the trainings started, I visited the biggest outdoor market I have ever seen in my life, and bought a pair of flip flops because I failed to pack my own...I think they were like 4 dollars US. That afternoon I farted around the area near the hotel and saw a Buddhist temple and a huge mall. I recently found out that Bangkok is the #1 tourist destination in the world this year...so that's cool.
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| Outside the Buddhist temple |
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| Statue outside the mall...guaranteed to haunt your dreams |
A week after being in Bali for vacation I was back there for work. It was tough to concentrate. Had a little bit of time to spend on the beach. It was Bali...amazing. Sorry, no pics.
Shenzhen is just on the other side of the Chinese border (45 min train ride from Hong Kong). I had probably the most interesting experience of the trip in Shenzhen.
After the first day of training, a few people were getting together after dinner for a drink. We all met in the lobby of the hotel, and started walking to what I thought was a bar. Well, apparently I didn't get the memo that we were actually going to get foot massages. Not really sure how we went from getting drinks to getting foot massages, but I went along with it anyway. We arrived at this gigantic "spa" and had to wait about 15 minutes before we could go in.
Luckily we were with someone that spoke Mandarin, because nobody that worked there spoke English. I was informed that we were going to have to change from our clothes into a standard issue "uniform". Things were starting to get weird. We were taken to the locker room where we were each assigned a "helper". This helper stood there while I changed (yes I had to get naked in front of this dude). I then found out that we were required to shower. Not sure why we had to take a full shower for a foot massage, but he gave me a towel and led me to a bank of showers with no doors. After the most uncomfortable shower of my life, I was led to another area of the locker room to change into my uniform. The area to change had no doors-just had to lose my towel with the goods floppin' around and change in front of a bunch of Chinese dudes...not awkward at all.
I met back up with the guys I had gone there with and we were led up a couple of flights of stairs to a room where we could peruse a menu of the various services of the spa. At this point I have no idea what's going on, so I just sit there and look at the menu while someone tries to upsell us (they were speaking to the guy that spoke Mandarin). It became very clear that this was definitely a place where you could get a happy ending and probably a lot of other weird stuff. The menu included things like "Fruity Additions", and the guy we were with said they alluded to "other types of massages" during their little sales pitch. I mean, we were walking by rooms with loud hip hop music playing and all kinds of weird stuff going on. The whole time me and another guy were just looking at each other going "WTF are we doing here?!?".
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| Me in my uniform reviewing all of the "services" |
After insisting that we just wanted foot massages we were taken to a floor with about a hundred recliners. The floor also had a restaurant in case we were hungry. We got to our seats and the foot massages started (we all had masseurs). We were able to order beers (so I guess technically we did get drinks on this little excursion). Then someone came by and tried to upsell us again, and our Mandarin speaker gave in and ordered neck massages for us. Luckily we didn't have to get out of our recliners and soon, some masseuses showed up and started going to work on our neck and shoulders.
I don't typically get massages...they're a bit uncomfortable for me...so this experience was unsettling to say the least. After our massages were done, we were lead back to the locker room where I had to change in front of my helper again. I would have liked to take another shower, but that didn't happen. So I took one when I got back to the hotel. Not surprisingly, 2 days later I came down with Bronchitis!
Shanghai, China - Grand Hyatt Shanghai
I was not feeling so hot when we got to Shanghai. There was a pharmacy near the hotel, so I went to get some medication. The ladies working there didn't speak English, so I had to play charades to try and explain what was wrong with me. They handed me what was probably the only medication in the joint that had any English on the package. Here's a few excerpts from the description of the medication on the package:
Name: Loquat Cough Syrup
Properties: The product is brown liquid; with fragrant smell sweet and slightly bitter and pungent flavor.
Functions and indications: Ventilating the lung and resolving phlegm, relieving cough and asthma, used for treatment of common cold and cough.
Bad Interaction: still indefinite
Well, I definitely needed some lung ventilation, and I just kept my fingers crossed that the nothing would interact negatively with the Loquat Cough Syrup. It actually didn't taste that bad. No worse than the cough syrup in the US. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to help much because I had to skip the second day of the training and go to a nearby clinic to get some antibiotics. Luckily, I was able to see a Western doctor (he was from Delaware) and get some real drugs.
Being sick in Shanghai was no fun, but I started feeling better by the time we got to Busan.
Busan, S. Korea - Park Hyatt Busan
The hotel was located right on the water which was great because we had Sunday to ourselves. What was even cooler was that there was an air show going on literally right outside the hotel. It was just like the air and water show in Chicago, and I got to catch the grand finale (instead of the Blue Angels, it was the Korean Black Eagles).
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| Korean Black Eagles....I know these photos really suck |
So that was my trip in a nutshell. Each hotel we stayed at was great, and we got to eat a ton of great food (couldn't blog without mentioning food). My favorite was probably the Korean BBQ we had in Busan. We had Kobe beef cooked at the table with a bunch of other great side dishes. Awesome.
Jill was able to meet up with Diana in Cambodia while I was on the first leg of my trip. She doesn't have any photos from there, but she did say that she had an awesome time. She just got back from Tokyo for work and said that trip went well too. I told her if she had anything more to share from her trips to post it!
Sorry for the long one this time.
Til Next Time,
Luke and Jill
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