Trip 3 - Hong Kong

The return flight for this trip included a 12 hour layover in Hong Kong. Knowing this in advance, I made reservations at the Marriott, and fully intended to tour the city as much as possible given the limited time.

When I arrived at the hotel, I asked the concierge where to go. He recommended taking the train to Hong Kong and then to the Lan Kwai Fong district. The train station was in the conference center adjoining the hotel, so it was easy to catch. 100 Hong Kong dollars (about 15 US dollars). Since it was dark (10:30 pm) when I started, there wasn’t much to see until I got downtown 30 minutes later. The train station is near the high-end shopping district (Prada, Louis Vitton, Coach, etc.) which were all closed.

Even though it was late, there were still a few people walking around in the area. As I got closer to the district, though, more people were around. It was really apparent when I arrived. The concierge had told me it was the night-life district, and he was right. It looked like a huge street party all the way up the hill, with music blaring from every bar. It seemed to me like the bars were competing to see which one could play the music loudest. I paused at a Ben and Jerry's to get a scoop of Chunky Monkey, and ate it all the way up the hill. After a little while, I decided to join the revelry and had a beer at one of the bars. The first one I went to (called Insomnia) had a sign out front for "over-25s", saying that under-25's had priority, and that "snappy dress" was required. So I moved on. I didn't think my jeans would qualify as snappy. I went to a bar across from Insomnia (perhaps it should have been called "sleepy" - hah) and had a beer where I could watch. It was lots of fun. Saw one girl hang from her knees on a bamboo scaffold. Pretty hilarious.

So, after my beer, it was a little after 1 am, so I decided I should go back. When I got to the train station, the customer service told me that there was no more trains. Uh-oh… now how to get back? I found a taxi, but all I had left was HK $100 - he said it would be 300, but he would take me to an ATM. Well, I eventually got back to the hotel (around 2 am).

One other interesting memory: When was on the way to my room, a woman (probably older than me) came down the hall apparently having trouble opening their door. So, nice guy that I am, I went to try to help out, even though I don't speak Chinese. Their group included an older man (her father perhaps). I took her key and it opened on the first try. So I was their hero for the night - a nice American.

The next morning, I met a girl in the airport who had been there for 11 hours. She didn't opt to get a room, so she was tired. She told me that she had been going to school in Shanghai, then a semester in Bangkok. More information than I needed - I suppose she felt "safe" talking to me.

A travel note: the Cathay Pacific flight to NYC used a Boeing 777-300ER. This is one of the newer models, and has lots of passenger goodies. It has personal video screens (like all 777s) with many movies and shows. There is a camera under the fuselage which allows you to see what's going on outside. Also, each seat has a power plug that allows you to plug in your computer with a standard power supply. Very nice. Cathay Pacific service is very nice. They even have a video on exercises to do in flight.

Trip 3 - KL

On my second trip to Kuala Lumpur (KL), I was able to start earlier in the day, since I arrived early in the morning. I started out at City Centre, but then quickly went to Petaling street.

Petaling street is in Chinatown and is where you can buy inexpensive items (read "knockoffs"). There were booths lining the street that sold everything - DVDs, purses, watches, you name it, and everything is negotiable. After I found something to buy, the quote was for 250 Ringgitts (about 75 dollars). I told him what I wanted to pay, and then held out for that. I'm pretty inexperienced with negotiating a price like that, so I probably didn't get a good price, but, hey, it was fun.

After I went through all the booths and then got a Starbucks (they're everywhere), I rode the monorail to the Bintang Walk shopping district. There are a lot of the high end stores there, Coach, Burberry, etc. and several malls all decked out for Christmas.

I ended up in a mid-priced mall where a singer was giving a Christmas concert. After shopping until about 5, I returned to the Cyberview where I met up with Mike for dinner.

Sunday ended up the only day that we didn't have a thunderstorm. Apparently it is the rainy season in Malaysia. The rain and lighting is pretty spectacular. You could see the thunderstorms rolling in from the straits southwest of KL.

One of the nights, they had set up for some sort of beauty pageant (I think) - they had the big movie lights, a camera boom, and lots of people to set things up. It took them 3 nights to set it up, and it was all gone within 24 hours. Another evening, the rains had finished, so they were carrying tables from the conference center already set with glasses and all. Then another storm came through, and they had to move everything back into the conference room. On the day that I left, there was another thunderstorm.

Trip 2 - Berlin

On this day, we decided to go to Berlin. The Autobahn was a lot of fun, and we were able to crank our rental up to 170 km/ hour.

I am sure that you are aware of the history of the Wall, and we were there for the 20th anniversary of when the Berlin wall fell.
If you don't mind, I'll take this chance to let you know a little of my memories of when the wall fell. In November 1989, I was working in Matsuyama, Japan. Since it was the first trip, we were staying in apartments, and had little contact with the western world. In late November, a consultant came over from the US to work with us. One evening at dinner, I asked him what was new in the world (literally). He answered that the Berlin wall fell. We thought he was kidding, until he showed us a newspaper. Pretty amazing that I missed that significant point in history.

Back to the current story...
We parked next to the Bundestadt, which is the seat of the German government, and very near to where the Berlin wall had been. The line to visit inside the Bundestadt and the glass sphere behind it was very long, stretching outside and half way across the area in front. Time is short, so we passed on the line.

The next stop was the Brandenberg gate, which was located just east of the Wall and served as a symbol of the suppression. Interestingly, the U.S. Embassy is now located next to the Brandenberg gate. I have to believe that this was intended to show that East and West Germany were united again. Walking inside the gate, there were many interesting people. Several street artists pretending to be statues, soldiers, etc. were there, acting it up for the tourists' cameras. There was also a peace meditation taking place, inviting any passer-by to join.

After passing through the tourists, we walked down to Checkpoint Charlie. This was the main gate that was used to pass from East to West Germany. When we got there, we found a construction wall with pictures, several tourist shops, and a private museum. It was less than spectacular. No - it was downright disappointing. We did notice that the path of the wall was marked by brass plates put into the street and sidewalks.

Wanting to see some of the wall, we checked the guide book to see if there were any sections still remaining. This took us to the East Side gallery. This gallery is a section of the wall that was kept intact and is used by artists from around the world as a painting canvas. It was very interesting to see the different paintings which generally depicted the artist's feelings about freedom and the fall of the wall.

It was a long walk from the gallery, but we saw several interesting things that showed the age and modernity of Berlin today. There was a auto service station that had regular fuel along with a hydrogen filling station and a car recharging station.

The Berlin mayor's residence was a huge building, that I think was left from earlier times.

After passing the art museum, we ran across a barricaded section of the road. Hmm... no one we asked seemed to know what was going on. Must be some VIPs who were going to do something. There was a local fair, so we grabbed a brat and a beer, and decided to wait and find out. So we waited for quite a while, then saw some people bringing wreaths to the memorial for fallen soldiers. Interesting, but pretty much a waste of time.

On we walked, back to the Brandenberg gate, noticing the brass plates in the street. Went to a souvenir store and bought a piece of the wall. The people who gathered up the bits of concrete were definitely entrepreneurs. The street performers were still there, but the peace meditators had left.

All in all, a pretty good day of being a tourist.

Trip 2 - Prague

We had been talking about going to Prague in the Czech Republic. So on this Sunday, we got in our car, set the GPS and off we went.

The highway was great until we got a little ways into the CR. The highway between Dresden and Prague is under construction - a fact that neither the map nor the GPS made us aware of. The signage was OK, though, and we made it to Prague with little trouble.

When we arrived at the city, our first stop turned out to be the city square to get some tourist information and figure out where to park. The square was grand, surrounded by old churches and other buildings. After we got some local funds (CR uses the Korony). Many shops do not accept the Euro), we went up into one of the church towers where we could see the whole city, including the square below and the castle on the hill.

After getting oriented from the steeple, we started walking toward the castle. This took us across the Charles River bridge, which was lined with vendors selling paintings, photos, and other souvenirs. The castle is quite a climb from the bridge. Once there, we rented the headsets and went on the tour.

The Prague Castle is the largest in Europe, and includes the St. Vitus cathedral. St. Winceslas is buried in the church, and there are several interesting chapels inside. One of the stories was when the Czechs were being attacked by the Romans (check this), they made loaves of bread in the shape of babies. When the attackers saw them eating the bread, they thought that they were actually eating their babies. Thinking this, the attack was called off, since it was so barbaric that the soldiers couldn't fight.

After touring the castle, we moved down the hill where we found a crowd waiting for the astronomical clock to strike. The church where we initially went up in the tower has a clock that was built in the 16th century (?) that shows the time, phase of the moon, position of the sun, and the sign of the zodiac. Figures come out when the clock chimes the hour. Rather than fighting the crowd, we found a seat at the restaurant across from it. Then we could watch the clock and eat at the same time.

Going home through the construction detour was interesting, as the GPS kept trying to take us back to the non-existent road. A long, tiring day, but it was quite an adventure.

Trip 2 - Leipzig

On this trip, I came to work with the client in Leipzig again. This time we had a rental car and the notion that we would sample as much of the area as we can. "We" includes my co-workers, Scott and Mike.
One of the adventures was to sample the local cuisine. Most of this has been quite good, but one of the firlst days we went to the Gasthaus near the hotel. Since this was a traditional German gasthaus, seating was family style, sharing tables with the other guests. The menus were in German, allowing the selection itself to be an adventure. I ordered the butcher's plate, which, according to the menu, included sausages and pork. Sounded good. When the platter came, it was on a butcher's block platter, and direct from the butcher - as in raw. Well this was a surprise. The actual dish included raw ground pork (called mett), head cheese, uncooked sausages, and other indistinguishable raw meats. I did taste most of the items, and was able to share with the others, but much of it went uneaten. As I said - an adventure.

On Saturday, Scott and I went into Leipzig to see what we could see. We parked underground, and when we came up, it was between the opera house and the performance hall in a large open plaza. We walked through the city center, noting that we could get a pizza every 10 feet or so.
We toured the St. Nicholas' church, which was one of the newer churches in town. This church has an interesting history. In case I haven't mentioned it before, Leipzig is located in the area that was East Germany for many years. Many of the city leaders met in the church every Monday to pray for peace. In 1989, the state police had been used to disperse a demonstration nearby. On the following Monday, the prayer group decided to meet as usual, not knowing whether the police would arrive to arrest them all. Tensions were high when the meeting ended, but when they walked outside, they were greeted by several thousand people holding candles. According to the tour, this is how the revolution began. Very moving story to me. (for more, read this.)

Resuming walking around, we found a mysterious pair of blue pipes. These pipes come out of the ground, go through the west end of downtown and end. By end, I mean that they don't go anywhere - just cut off. This wouldn't be too unusual, except that they are pretty big - probably 18" in diameter, and they were well engineered with proper supports, etc. A mystery yet to be solved.

Next we went to St. Thomas church (Thomaskirche), which is where Bach worked as cantor from 1723 to his death in 1750. Scott had heard that they were going to have a choir concert. Instead they were having a Motette. This was a performance of singing by a quartet of choir members along with a brief church service. The last piece that was performed was a piece that Back had written while at the church played on the organ that Bach used to compose it. Very very cool hearing a piece the way that the original composer probably heard it.

We then went to see the largest monument in Europe, located in Leipzig. The monument was created to celebrate the victory against Napoleon. By the time we got to the monument, the visitor center was closed, so we could only explore the outside up to a point. The monument has several statues of men that are really large - probably like Egyptian statues. Even though we could only climb up to the first level outside, it was pretty high, and the view was fantastic.

We joined up with Mike, and went to dinner at an Italian restaurant across the street from St. Thomas Kirche. Very good food. Interestingly, when I talked to my mom afterwards, she recommended the same restaurant. Small world.

Trip 1 - Malaysia - work days and going home!

The first day is always the hardest. Lots of jet lag means you get up late and still feel bad.
I did get to see several cool things during the day, though. The hotel was kind of a resort, with small 4-room buildings scattered over the property. The hotel is apparently one of the nicer ones in the area, and hosts several major events. My room was pretty came complete with mosquito nets, which I used every night after I saw several of the little buggers flying around. Along with the necessity of using bottled water only, it really makes you appreciate home. I got pretty good at rinsing my toothbrush with the bottle.

Walking around the grounds gave lots of interesting sights and sounds. In the morning, I could hear the Imam calling out the prayers (a few miles away!).
There were interesting birds, plants, and animals that you don't see back in the US.


One other interesting thing that I noticed was that the satellite antennas were all pointing straight up, rather than at an angle like in the US. At night, I also noticed that the moon and planets were directly overhead. It made sense once I thought about it - Malaysia is near the equator, and the satellites and planets would all be directly above the equator. Like I said - Interesting.


I was staying in Cyberjaya, which is a suburb of KL that was built to attract high-tech companies. There were lots of the major companies there (Dell, IBM, etc.) along with some other interesting buildings (World Health Organization for instance). When I went to work for the first time, the shuttle from the hotel went through the nice new buildings to the end of the road. I was thinking "That's interesting - there are no manufacturing plants here."

The shuttle continued on, and in the distance, I could see the plant. The plant is in the middle of an area being developed for manufacturing, but it is the first building to be built.

The plant was very new and nice. Most of the offices are still in the construction trailers, along with the cafeteria. The cafeteria consisted of a covered areas with picnic-style tables and a cooking/serving area. The cooks would make what you wanted or you could pick from the buffet trays. The food in the trays looked like a possibility, but I chose to eat freshly-cooked food while I was there. Nothing worse than being sick half a world from home.

The trip was successful, but very tiring. Remember what I said about the office starting their day after you have already worked 1/2 day? It is much worse in Malaysia. The office started work at 8 PM Malaysia time, so any meetings needed to be scheduled late in the evening. This meant that I had to go to bed late every night, and get up early to go to work the next day.

We left very early in the morning on Friday. After dinner (Thursday), I asked the desk to request a taxi for 1 o'clock. They said "in the afternoon"? I said "No - tonight." Our flight left at 3:30 AM. It was amazing how many people were at the KL airport at 1:30 AM, and I was stuck in a long line when I got there, but I made it.

The flight on Qatar Airlines went through Doha, Qatar, where we needed to change planes and spend a few "quality" hours. We arrived in Doha at 6 AM, went through security on the way in, and waited for several hours before going through security again.
Once we left Doha, we were finally on our way back to the US. The flights were understandably long - I was able to watch 7 complete movies on the flights, plus get a little sleep. By the time I got home, I had been traveling for 32 hours, but it was still the same day as I had left (Friday).

Trip 1 - Malaysia - arrival

Getting to Malaysia was interesting. Got to the airport in Berlin 2 hours before the flight, and proceeded to stand in line for 1.5 hours waiting for Air France to check us in. There were only 2 people handling the entire flight. Patience wins out. We thought we would need to run to the gate, but it turned out that the gate (and security) was (literally) right behind the check in desk.

Charles DeGaulle airport in Paris is the least traveler-friendly airport I have seen. When we got there, our flight was not yet on the departure lists. We figured out that we needed to go to terminal A. Following the signs for terminal A would have landed us in the baggage claim area. Hmm... we decided not to go that way, so we stood in line for a transfer agent to find out where we needed to go and perhaps get our boarding passes.

The transfer agent was helpful, but couldn't print out boarding passes. She told us to go down the hallway (which did not say terminal A), through passport control, and follow the signs. So we did. In the middle of the airport, we went through passport control - which gave us our exit visa from the EU. Seemed a bit odd - here we were in Paris, and we were officially out of the EU. Whatever!

Finally found some signs for terminal A, which led us to the end of the hall, downstairs, to a waiting room for a bus. Finally got on the bus (after the group going to terminal B was told that they had missed their flight), and ended up at terminal A - a LONG way from the main terminal.

Terminal A was built in the early '70s, and was opened to great fanfare and publicity, according to the photos in the terminal. Lots of Pan Am 707's in the pictures. Unfortunately, it looked like they had not done many upgrades since then. It was laid with a central hub connected to satellite terminals by underground walkways. The effect was a concrete spider laying on its back. Not a good way for a spider to be.

When we finally found our gate, we found the Malaysian airlines transfer desk. We suspected problems when we met the agent, who hand-fed our boarding passes into the printer (using another airline's passes). She also had a job application on her desk. Interesting.

Well the flight was OK, but the meals were interesting. Sitting next to the boss for 12 hours was not optimal. Arrived at Kuala Lumpur (KL) at 6 am and caught a taxi to our hotel.

The hotel didn't have our rooms ready (it was only 9 am), so we went to eat breakfast. By the time we finished, one of the rooms was ready, so we moved all of our stuff into the room and proceeded to figure out what sights we wanted to see.

You know, traveling with the boss is not a good thing. There was one and only one thing he wanted to see in KL - the Petronas towers. So off we went to see the towers in the hotel shuttle.

When we got there, we went straight to the ticket booth (tickets are free), and got tickets for 5:30 pm. Since it was now 12:30, we had lots of time to kill. Ate lunch in the mall under the towers, where they had many western favorites alongside local flavors.

After lunch, we went in search of the Hard Rock Cafe to buy boss' boys some shirts, then to a Hindu temple that he though looked like it held promise. The Hard Rock was - well, the Hard Rock. Same as everywhere else. The Hindu temple was draped in scaffolding and netting, so you couldn't see anything. Oh well.

Walking back to a taxi stand, we went down Petaling street in Chinatown. (Does every major city have a Chinatown? I wonder about Shanghai...) Interesting place - lots of vendors with inexpensive watches ("Rolex"), handbags ("Coach"), etc. Didn't buy a thing, though I could have bought a "real" Coach bag for 7 dollars.

Lacking anything else that boss wanted to do, we went back to the Petronas towers. After 10 minutes in the gift shop (typical junk), I decided to check if any tickets had been turned in. Nope. So then I decided to be the ignorant American, and get in line anyway. The ticket taker told us that it wasn't our time, but we could wait to see if there was room. I guess she liked me, because she turned others away, then let us go early.

The Petronas towers were pretty cool. They are the tallest twin towers in the world. The observation deck is 42 stories up, though the towers are > 90 stories tall. Petronas is not from Harry Potter, but is the Malaysian oil company. The towers are their main offices. The view of KL was good, but it was a bit hazy.

The Petronas towers are built as a Faraday Cage, which allows lighting to travel along the outside of the towers. This protects everything inside.

With the tour ended, we decided to go back early. The hotel shuttle didn't pick up until late in the evening, so we took the trains. There is a regular train that goes to the main station, then you can pick up the train to Cyberjaya (where the hotel is). Boss wasn't too keen on the trains, but I had no problem with them.

Got back to the hotel, and my room was ready (yay!).

Trip 1 - Germany

Traveling to Berlin was not much of a problem. The trip from Detroit to Amsterdam was on a 777, so I could pick the movies I watched. Didn't sleep much, and sitting near my boss for the whole time was interesting.

After landing in Berlin, we (my boss and I) had to navigate to the hotel near Leipzig. With my trusty Avis map, we got onto the Autobahn. Figured out where we were, and had no problems, but had to remember to stay in the right lanes if we were merely going 130 (kph).

The client offices are pretty cool. They are located in an area north of Lepzig call "Solar Valley". There are lots of wind turbines around and a field of solar panels. The office buildings even have solar panels on 3 sides.


Working consisted of lots of meetings and long hours. At 1 pm, the rest of the company on the east coast came to work, and some people though we should work the rest of the east coast day also.

Anyway, we finished all the work we needed on Friday, and drove up to Berlin to spend the night - ready for an early morning flight to Malaysia.

The traveling begins

Hopefully, this blog will help to keep my family and friends updated on my far-flung traveling for work.

Since I am starting this blog after the fact, I will attempt to catch up with some of my thoughts on the first trip which started at the beginning of October, 2009.

My boss called me to make reservations on a Friday to leave for Germany on Monday, continuing on to Malaysia the following Saturday. Researching the travel took a few days. From Malaysia, it was the same distance to go back home traveling east (over the Pacific) or west (back through Europe). Unfortunately, the cost was less to go back over Europe. If it had been my choice, it would have been the Pacific, as that would have completed a round-the-world trip!

The final routing for the trip was St. Louis to Detroit to Amsterdam to Berlin (Tegel); Berlin to Paris (DeGaulle) to Kuala Lumpur; KL to Doha, Quatar, to Washington, DC to St. Louis. Quite a trip over a 2-week period!

So... Off I go!