Beijing

Okay, I've fixed my "firewall issues" (by fleeing the People's Republic) and I got a few minutes to put together some of the almost interesting snippets of video online. I hadn't been here since 2004 and it was amazing to see how much had changed. Behold my short trip to the Financial District of Beijing, China:


I was scheduled to fly home on Friday from China, but a business emergency has made me divert to Mumbai, India. Soooo . . . I'll probably have some video from there later this week.

c3ns0r3d

So you may have noticed that the usual stream of boring posts, strange pictures and pointless video clips has come to an abrupt halt this week. This is due to my trip to Beijing, China where I have been both surprised, and somewhat honored, to learn that my blog is censored behind the Great Firewall of China. And while I have found a hack to workaround this (I am currently sitting at a Starbucks near Tiennaman Square), it has stymied my attempts to upload videos.

So look for new updates sometime this weekend when I make it Mumbai, India.

Tiger Live

Here is the video that I threatened you with earlier this week. It chronicles my free day in Singapore two weeks ago.

Some setup, since the video audio is somewhat soft:

I went to Tiger Live thinking it was the home of Tiger Beer, one of my favorite beers in the world. Instead it turned to be a cross between a night club (they have several inside) and Disney world. If Walt Disney had taken a lot of acid in the '60s. At one point in the "experience," they actually showed hops "having sex" as a metaphor for fermentation. Unfortunately (or fortunately), they didn't let me take any video inside but I did get some video at the bar (they gave you a few free beers afterward. I think it was a reward for sitting through the "experience").

To add insult to injury, it also turns out that you can actually tour the brewery.

I also captured some video from near my hotel in Clarke Quay.

Here's the video:

And the Chickens Return

In the ongoing saga of my neighbor's "farm", it now looks like the chickens are back.


The llamas can't be too far behind. I hope.

Seoul Food

I still haven't finished editing my cinematic masterpiece on Singapore, but I did cobble together some footage from yesterday night's trip to a traditional Korean restaurant here in Seoul.


This video is embedded with Google Video, which lowers the resolution and quality a fair bit. If you want to see the higher resolution (640x480) and quality (H264 encoding) version, subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or your podcaster. I changed this over to Revver because Google Video was doing strange things with the images. You can subscribe to the iTunes feed, click here. You'll get each video as I upload them and you can sync it to your iPhone :>

I'll post my video from Singapore once I get home and I can make some sense out of it.

FFF: S'pore

A quick trip to Southern Asia this week. A day or two here in Singapore then on to Seoul for a week of meetings. I've got a full report on my escapades (in video form no less), but I wanted to post a quickie while I was thinking about it.

Behold the awesome McSpicy. Not a ordinary chicken sandwhich, nor wayward Spice girl, this may be the best FFF that I have ever had. Part chili sauce, part pepper and part chickeny goodness, this is a clearly superior local creation. With fries and a drink, it set me back about USD$6. But it was a "whole chicken chop."



I heartily recommend it whenever you are in Singapore. With a diet coke.

48 Hours

Spent last weekend visiting my old hometown Chicago. It was a super quick trip (in on Friday afternoon and out Sunday noon) to meet up with Ron and Fred, but I managed to hit maximum nightlife even while being pretty sick.

We managed to "visit" Stanleys, RedFish, Portillos, US Beer, Goose Island,Cubby Bear, The Barlycorn and a few others that I don't think I can remember. I think the best part of the whole weekend was finding out how little my old neighborhood had changed over the past few years. Sure there were some new buildings and such, but most of my old haunts survive.

I'm off to Singapore right now. As I type, I am sitting above my gate in Hong Kong International Airport waiting for them to kick me out of the Red Carpet Club. I hope to have some movies to post this weekend, as I have a my Saturday free.

Last Stop

After another overnight flight, I arrived in Australia for the last stop on the magical tour. Wednesday was a business breakfast and lunch with executives. While the lunch was non-descript business, we had spectacular location in the Circular Quay cruise ship passenger terminal. The weather was absolutely perfect. This is the obligatory shot of the Opera House from the balcony of the terminal.


Unfortuantely, I didn't get much of a chance to enjoy the weather. I had to immediately jumped on a plane down to Melbourne for another set of meetings. Up early for breakfast presentation to partners, a quick stop into office where I got to have massive flat white at Metro with colleagues. I've never posted this in my months of work down in Melbourne (which is a curious ommission with my peroccupation with java), but Metro makes two sizes of latte: just right and larger-than-your-head. Young Brett got a larger-than-your-head flat white to cope with the nocturnal adventures of his young son:


I got through my lunch presentation and headed directly back to the airport and Sydney. That night I caught up with Niall for Indian food at Karmas then some drinks. He took me to a new bar in the Rocks -- The Argyle. It was a bit too trendy but pretty nice. Lots of open space and different areas.

And they had Asahi on tap. Thumbs up there.

With that my little trip was done. I caught a 747 back to San Francisco the next morning.

Singha Stop

Another quick stop on my around the world trip brings me here to Bangkok. I haven't been in Thailand for about 4 years (since an ill-fated bank deal) and much has changed. They have a new airport (more in a second), a lot of new buildings but the same old traffic. I have to say that I am pretty disappointed in the airport. While other places in Southern Asia have some of the best airports in the world (Changi in Singapore and KLIA in Malaysia), Thailand appears to have bungled theirs. Exposed concrete beams, crazy long immigration lines and a total lack of amenities make me feel . . . like I am in an American airport. Except for the purple sword wielding ninjas Buddhas.

But enough bitching. I got a pretty nice hotel (Grand Hyatt Erawon) and a day or two of downtime somewhere most people pay good money to vacation in. So what did I do? Drink. Yeah, spent almost my entire Sunday sitting in a beer garden drinking beer and writing (which i am really behind on).


That is not to say that I wasted my entire weekend. I did get a chance to see a few things along the way to the beer gardens. The easiest was right next store to the hotel: The Erawan Shrine. Apparently this was built to appease superstitious locals during the construction of the hotel and has remained for hte past forty years. It's pretty packed twenty hours a day or so. I took this photo around 11 PM on Saturday night.


I'm off to Australia to round out my trip.

Just Stopping By

Blew through Kuala Lumpur today. Arrived early on Friday morning, express train to the city, straight to some client meetings then out for a drink with some old friends. Up early on Saturday to catch my flight to Bangkok.

This is a rare moment of zen while I wait for the client to show for coffee in the Hilton Lobby. Past my Adidas is Julan Tun.