So this beeyoutiful team in Red stymies the All Blacks. I think they play dirty; the team in Red, that is. I mean, who brings a beverage cart onto the field? And the tripping foul is negated by the pillow and blankie I guess. Heh.
Taken from the Park Hyatt at the top of the Shanghai World Financial Center. That's the Jin Mao Tower in the foreground and the Oriental Pearl Tower in the back. The fog rolled in so thick that night that flights out of PVG were delayed for hours the next day. I know, because I spent six hours at the FM lounge waiting for my flight back to Singapore.
Image via Wikipedia
It just gets easier and easier to do things in Mainland China. During my last trip, I broke down and purchased a China Mobile prepaid SIM for use during my visit. It makes things a lot easier when you're out there.
It was a lot simpler to buy a SIM card than it was before. Here's what you need to do:
1. Find a China Mobile (they have better coverage) store.
2. Walk inside and ask if someone can help you in english (对不起，你会说英文吗?).
3. Bring Passport and unlocked GSM phone; the former to register your SIM card and the latter so the staff can test it out for you.
It really was that easy. Here's a site with more detailed information. It's a couple of years old, but the information is still valid.
I ran the SIM card on my unlocked Nexus One. Phone calls and SMSes went through fine. I was able to purchase a data bucket to run Google Maps, the internet, Foursquare and most importantly, Google Translate! For standard GSM phones however, you will be running on EDGE. If you're wanting 3G speed, I've read conflicting reports that China Unicom has a prepaid 3G service. Unlike most prepaid service in Asia, you can't punch in a USSD code to pull up your balance or to purchase services. You need to call 10086 and press 2. Service is 24 hours and their English speaking staff is pretty good.
One more thing; Boingo Mobile works with a lot of the pay-hot spots around Shanghai. So if you have that service, you can always save your data by logging onto Wi-Fi.
So, the moral of the story is: be adventurous and ask! Usually people will be nice enough to be helpful, especially if you try to speak Putonghua. Which I can't.
Image via Wikipedia
Once again, I'm out here in Singapore getting over my jet lag and preparing for adventures further afield. Since my arrival on Tuesday, it's been a non-stop blur of seeing friends, making new ones, numerous makan sessions and a civilized evening at a hidden Cigar Club that involved, yes, eating some home cooked Singapore food on account that it was Hari Raya Haji on Wednesday.
Unlike my usual trips to Asia, this time I will not be stopping off in Hong Kong. However, the craving still hits for proper Hong Kong cuisine: yum cha and won ton noodles. Thankfully, both can be (temporarily) sated during my time here in Singapore.
I went to Hua Ting for yum cha. Hua Ting is inside the Orchard Hotel, just where the famous street begins. It is, probably, the fanciest restaurant I have been to in Singapore (I usually visit hawker stands and what not). When I was there, the restaurant was configured with large tables for the family lunches that occur on public holidays.
They're known for their yum cha but surprisingly, the menu had less items on it than a typical place would have. It was a case of quality, not quanitity as the go-to standards were pretty good.
Again, it IS a "nice" place so it's appropriate for family meals, taking the inlaws out or a semi-serious date with someone interesting. The best part, according to my friend who lives here, is that the total price is very reasonable. No tacky add on charges for a napkin or tea, which makes this a rarity in Singapore indeed.
Hua Ting Restaurant at the Orchard Hotel
442 Orchard Road,
238879
Singapore
+65
Image via Wikipedia
Din Tai Fung is a Taiwanese restaurant chain that's known for its xiaolongbao (soup dumplings). They're maybe a step or two away from being perfect, depending on which location you visit.
The great thing is that they're all over Asia so if you're in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo,
Malaysia, Indonesia, mainland China, Australia or even Taiwan, you're not far from xiaolongbao goodness. If you live in the USA however, you're very far from xiaolongbao goodness as there's only one location outside of Los Angeles and that location has mixed reviews.
Within Asia, all the locations are at an equally high standard. Some locations are more equal than others. For example, the Tsimshatsui location is considered one of the flagships because of its Michelin Star and its larger, more varied menu. Because of its location and its accolades, it's also one of the more expensive locations. Compared to this, the Xintandi location seemed like a bargain even though it was in an expensive part of Shanghai and in spite of the inequality of the exchange rate (which will hopefully change in about a year).
The appeal of Din Tai Fung is not necessarily the special-ness of the menu (aside from the xiaolongbao, whose equal I cannot find in my half of the world) but that the menu is prepared to the highest standard and that the service in the restaurant is also top tier. That's not saying much, if you were to mention the Tokyo or Singapore locations; service SHOULD be good. But to get that caliber of service on the mainland or even in Hong Kong is a special thing. When you visit a Din Tai Fung (in Asia), you will get xiaolongbao hand folded 23 times and it will be delivered to your table scalding hot. Remember to scoop it out with your soup spoon and nibble the side like a beaver so that the soup pours out of the dumpling into your spoon. Sip then gulp. Failure to follow these guidelines will probably lead to a burnt mouth. The beef noodle soup will be, erm, beefy and satisfying. The noodles will had that neat al dente snap. The veggies will be locally sourced and fresh. And although it won't be a lomantic night out, it probably would qualify as a FUN night out. Lomance is handled by the alleyways and bars of Xintandi...
Hawker's Noodle Soup, Taiwan style
Fried Pork chop over aforementioned noodles
DTF style siu mai
Image via Wikipedia
The City went nuts last night (in a good way) as the San Francisco Giants won the National League pennant. Horns blared, lots of people yelled in joy and an M-80 went off on my block. The World Series begins next Wednesday the 27th at PacBellPark. It would be nice to go, but I'm not willing to donate body parts for game tickets. Guess I'll watch it on TV.
The comparision in the video is actually more akin to Great Britain that spent itself into irrelevancy creating the welfare state than to the Romans and Greeks (that are currently spending themselves into irrelevancy). This video has nothing to do with xenophobia but has everything to do with the stupid leadership on this side of the ocean in both the Congress and the White House. Time to bounce the bastards!!!]]>
Image via Wikipedia
On a whim (back in May), I purchased some round trip tickets from San Francisco to Hong Kong via Vancouver on Air Canada. The all in price was US$600 which is a real bargain!
It's one hell of a positioning flight but it put me within 2.5 hours of Shanghai and the Expo. I cashed in miles for a Business Class roundtrip on Dragonair. Due to a really tight schedule, I spent a total of 8 days away from my house which meant only 3 days in Shanghai, which were filled with debauchery, closing bars and getting back late late.
But more about the nightlife later. On the last full day in Shanghai, I visited the Expo. If I could take one memory back from the Expo, it would be queues. Lots and lots queues. All of them shared one thing; that they were really looooong!
So instead of showing you boring pictures of a never-ending queue, I'll instead show you some pix of the Expo at night.
All roads in the Expo lead to the China pavilion. It's deceptively large. That means that you can see it from everywhere and it looks kinda big. Then when you are next to it, you realize it's REALLY big.
As you move away from the China pavilion, the rest of the regions of the world present themselves. You walk through Europe then Latin America. Here you can see the Brazil pavilion with what is supposed to be a soccer game but is actually a Windoze error message on the jumbotron. Embarrassing! For Microsoft...
UPDATE: Since my new webhost is MT friendly, many of the plugins that require back end support that 1&1 refused to support now work. Picture resizing now works and most importantly, the virtual tide of comment spam that I've endured for the last year has ceased and updating and republishing this blog no longer involves a 500 error after 5 seconds. Yay.
Image by warrenski via Flickr
Staying in touch is more important than ever in this fast fast go go world. And for that, the luxe flashpacker uses local prepaid SIM cards. In most countries, it's pretty easy to purchase a local SIM. Walk into 7-11, walk out with a new local number that's a bargain to make calls and even more so to send SMS on. Some of these SIM cards even allow you to roam, making and receiving calls and SMS, albeit at a really expensive rate.
Sometimes it's not necessarily worth the bother to purchase a local SIM for a 3 day trip; that roaming will be fine since all that will be sent is SMS. That's what I thought on my recent trip to Shanghai via Hong Kong. I have maintained a New World Mobility prepaid roaming SIM for a few years now. I can receive and make calls/SMS in the US and Singapore with it. Considering that mainland China is 40 minutes away via KCR, it should work there too, right?
Nope. As soon as I landed PVG, I turned on my phone and tried to call my friend who was to meet us at the airport. I manually selected China Unicom and CMCC (China Mobile) and registered on their networks respectively and tried to make a call. China Unicom said my call was "Barred" and China Mobile asked me to pay my bill. No roaming this trip. SMS went through fine both ways. No calls. So what to do? After having to make a call desperately, I fired up my AT&T Sim locked iPhone and made a 1 minute $4.00 phone call. No more!
When I returned to Hong Kong, I picked up a new prepaid from Peoples (AKA China Mobile HK). They have a prepaid that has China roaming, slightly cheaper prices for aforementioned roaming and most interestingly, a Guangzhou phone number in addition to the HK number. Since it's part of China Mobile, it should work over there. And we will see in December...
Now, here's my recap traveling with the Nexus One on my Asia rounds.
Singapore/StarHub Green: In Singapore, I have a prepaid SIM from StarHub that I've maintained (recharged to keep my number) for 7 years. Each time you recharge, your number stays active for 6 months afterwards. StarHub has a new recharge called "Happy Stars" (yes, that's its real name) that gives you 120 minutes, free incoming calls and 30 MB of 3G data, all to be used in Singapore and lasts for 30 days. Perfect for an unlocked smartphone!
The StarHub network was adequate. Data speed was fine, averaged 800 mbs downspeed. All my apps on the N1 worked. GPS and navigation was fantastic. One minor hiccup is that Google did not program the N1 with the APN info for the Singapore carriers. Strange since the N1 has been officially released there. I found the info on the net and plugged it in. All worked fine. This becomes important later because in Hong Kong, I couldn't get onto data. In Singapore, it's "success".
Hong Kong/New World Mobility (CSL) International Roaming Prepaid: I have also maintained a prepaid line in Hong Kong for several years. AFAIK, NWM is the only carrier in Hong Kong that still that has free IDD (dial 1678) to first tier countries. On previous visits, I used an older Sony Ericsson phone, the K850 in Hong Kong. It was one of a few phones that SE made that was quad-band GSM and tri-band HSDPA which usually means it will work in the USA. I purchased that phone in Hong Kong and it may have been provisioned with NWM APN settings. When I use my SIM with that phone, I get a big "H" on the top of the screen and I can access the internet. When I put the SIM into my N1, no data. It made calls and SMS just fine. Just no data. I need to research to find what the APN settings are and verify that these settings are here in the N1. So in Hong Kong, it's "inconclusive".
I'll post my opinion on the Android OS compared to the iPhone OS later.
]]>I took this vow a few years back when shortly after taking office, Brown imposed an £80 airport tax for people who fly in "premium" cabins and a £40 tax for those in economy. Either way, it's an outrageous tax that was supposed to be "for the environment". Except after the first year of the tax, forensic accountants found out that the money collected went to the general fund, instead of the "environment". As a result, I vowed not to visit the UK until Brown was tossed out.
Except now we have Cameron, allegedly a Tory that sounds more like a limousine liberal. If he's truly a Conservative, how about repealing all those airport taxes imposed during his predecessor's regime?
If he doesn't pan out, maybe they can draft Jeremy Clarkson for PM? It's not like if it hasn't been tried before. His manifesto reads a bit libertarian to me...
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