The blockers on the road....

Air traveling could be a headache.  Airlines have been trying to make the passengers as comfortable as possible.  However, there are such blockers as government officials, airport administration.

Generally speaking, Thai people are polite, gentle and friendly.  But they left me a bad memory in their new airport this time.  When you have something new, you expect improvement.  Well you don't need to pay the stupid airport tax now.  The immigration gate is unfortunately going back to the Jurassic era.  Technically it looks great.  Cyber-look layout, with a tiny camera taking shots of people.  The officers are, hopelessly, very very slow.  I got stuck in the immigration for nearly an hour both arriving and departing.

I hope they will install some feedback machines, like the ones in Beijing.  

Bangkok

This is my second trip to Bangkok this year, marking the first week of three back-to-back courses.  We got a rather quiet group this time.  Bunch of Indonesians and a couple of disgruntled old-timers.  Most of them are enjoying their time in Bangkok (in fact it might be the reason why they chose Bangkok).

The muslims, as usual, have much concern over food and prayers.  They are serious on what's inside of the dishes.  The nearest mosque is 20 minutes away from hotel.  As Friday prayer starts at noon, some of them will have to go at 11:30 am.

For me, this is just the beginning.  I will have to fly to Cairo on Saturday.  It will be a long journey from Bangkok, while transferring to another flight at Dubai.  Then the next course will start on Sunday.

北京同仁堂……百年老點（1） ？

我不是在宣傳。

這一趟來北京受朋友所托去同仁堂買一種中草成藥。跑了幾家，銷售員均說在他們的連鎖店沒有這種存貨。他們還笑說，我的朋友應該是在旅遊點買的。於是我打電話回香港，朋友說他買藥的同仁堂是在天安門奧運倒數時鐘附近。藥店的裝修是古色古香，有百年老店的感覺，他還在店外拍了照。

感覺有點不對，天安門開店？租金肯定很貴。我在倒數時鐘附近逛了一圈，老店倒沒有，那裏其實是博物館，底層有幾家旅遊服務的便利店。終於明白什麽是旅遊點。沒有旅遊團的時候，它只是古典建築。

極度懷疑朋友的藥，成效是真的還是心理作用？

藥的心理作用已經不是新的概念。若干年前，哈佛大學已經做過一個實驗。實驗是這樣的，把兩種分別是藍色、紅色但沒有藥效的膠囊給志願者，並告訴他們：藍色會令人抑郁，而紅色會令人亢奮。結果發現有大約50%的人因為你告訴他抑郁或亢奮而產生相同的效果。

是否應該告訴我的朋友？

--------------------------------------------------------

備註：（1）老點：廣東話，俗稱，意思是騙人。

Beijing, are you ready?

I was unable to log in in Beijing last week. May be the hotel wanted to limit internet usage, which was free there.

Finally I got a chance to come back to Beijing this year. 11 months have passed since the last time I was here. I miss Beijing as I had a fine time when I lived here in the last 3 years of the last century. Joy was “made” in Beijing anyway. I have mixed experience in my last trip. I met the worst client I ever have but also a rejuvenated Christian who was once-a-nasty-person.

And Beijing is getting set for the Olympic Game next year. They really mean business.

The first experience you have for any place would be the airport. They are still catching up with the upgrading of the airport. In the context of customer service, however, they are close. This is something innovative. There is a panel of buttons in front of the immigration officer. If you have been waiting for too long or are not happy with the service they provide, you can press the unhappy button. (Of course they also provide a happy button.) It really speeds up the process. It only took me 5 seconds to go through border control. I asked my Australian co-trainer and he had the similar experience. And you can see smiley faces and hear “thank-you” from the immigration/custom officers. Taxi drivers are more friendly and helpful than before, I must say. Even they know that you are tourist, they are not trying to cheat you.

However, pollution is a huge problem. This is the week right after National Day Holiday. It should be a clear-blue-sky as factories stop operating for a week. When I was 30 minutes from landing Beijing, I could see the polluted air above the city. This is a consistent observation, unfortunately. An Australian who lives in Beijing put it in a serious context. She is an English teacher who travels frequently to other cities as well. In all directions, she can spot the pollution when she is one hour away from Beijing. They open the 5th Metro line on the last Sunday. But people believe that it won’t help much. I believe the Chinese government will use drastic approach next year. They really need to.

天使的歌聲

前幾天經過HMV，看見一件超值的特價品：

Barry Manilow 是我最喜歡的外國歌星之一。事實上，我第一次聽 Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber 的Memory 並非 Elaine Page 的版本，而是 Barry Manilow 唱的。

Mandy, Even now, Lonely together, I write the songs, Copacabana, 等等，都是百聽不厭的。在八十年代的後期，Barry Manilow不再活躍了，聽說他的聲帶出了問題（好像是腫瘤）。然後有一段很長的時間沒有他的消息。

這個專輯並沒有新歌，但特別之處是他選了一些別人的歌及自己的老歌，重新的錄音。更妙的是，他用了近乎清唱的方式演繹。

他唱別人的歌更是驚喜。從來沒有聽過一個男性唱“The way we were” 及“Close to you” 這麽動聽。然後是“Bridge over troubled water”。我對這首歌要求很高。我覺得這是Art Garfunkel 的專利，惟有他配唱， 就是Paul Simon 也不能勝任。但Barry Manilow 做到了，是完美的聲音。他配合另一女歌手 Duet 唱“You’ve got a friend”, 更能表達歌曲的意境。“He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother”, “The long and winding road”, “If”等歌曲在他演繹下，就更不用多說了。

這樣的一片CD，只售港幣九十九元。我不是在賣廣告，只是覺得貶低了它的價值。

Mumbai, a sad city

My first time to Mumbai.

I'm no stranger to India, though. I've been to Delhi a couple of times last year. Mumbai is used to be Bombay. (Just like Chennai, with an old name as Madras.) I am managing the risk of typhoon in Hong Kong, so I fly directly from Dubai to Mumbai on Sunday. (Even I went back to Hong Kong, I could only stay for one night.)

The front page of the complimentary newspaper (The Times of India) this morning was full of sad stories.

Three teenagers got drown at Juhu beach (in Mumbai) on Sunday. And this is the second case withing a month. Three other swimmers were saved on the spot, by fishermen. Where were the life guards?

A woman was found unconscious, bleeding, lying naked, on board a train's first class ladies compartment near Mumbai on Saturday night. Even worse, nobody bothered to help nor alert police. The train passed a couple of stations before someone finally offered clothes to cover her body and called the police. Will the same thing happen in Hong Kong?

At least 15 persons were crushed to death as an under-construction-flyover collapsed in Hyderabad. Due to poor management and bad traffic, rescue work was delayed. Flyovers in India have risen dramatically. Taking Mumbai as a reference, 47 out of 52 flyovers in the city were built only in the last 20 years. Who should pay the price of prosperity? The rich or the poor?

More tragic news. Nearly half of all female deaths in rural areas in India are below the age of 20. Why? The girl child is barely looked after. The first case of influenza or whooping cough sooner or later will come. There is a good chance that the girl will not be able to survive it.

Economically or politically, India is getting stronger and stronger. In terms of population, India will soon take over China. But how could they allow this to happen?

All rise, the President of the United States of America…

This is just another interesting group that I come across in Dubai this time. There are people from Egypt, Lybia, Sudan, Syria, Russia, UK, Algeria, Saudi, Iran, India, Pakistan, Kazakstan (the country that beat China’s Football team in the Asia Cup) and finally I have a participant from Iraq.

The number of children they brought was a record as well. All together we have 7 children attending the group dinner. As usual we play the game “who’s who” during group dinner. One of the Lybians put down something about he cheated his wife. He did not realize that we would do it in front of everybody, including his wife. Fortunately we only disclosed their secrets in the next morning.

In a leadership activity, we asked the participants to play a TV commercial as part of the marketing campaign. The most interesting shot would be the Iraqi playing the role of the President of USA. A Lybian would be the Secretary of Defence. We all laughed at it and said it might bring peace to the world.

This is also the first time that I do not pair up with Brad, the Australian trainer. Sarah, my partner this time, is a Welsh who lives in Manchester. Not surprisingly, she’s a big fan of Manchester United. Although she’s a Welsh, she has no relationship with Ryan Giggs. Sarah said she wished to have the money of Giggs.

Etisalat welcome you back to UAE

“Etisalat welcome you back to UAE.”

That’s the SMS text I received when I arrived Dubai last Saturday. This is the 5th time I come here this year. That means the local service provider keeps my data and the “machine” recognizes that I am a “returnee”.

Every time I come here, there’s something new. There are plenty of cranes around the city and there are always some building or structure under construction. I have been staying in the same hotel and I can see all the construction taking place across the road. In front of the buildings there are pillars. It will be bridges and fly-over all over the place. Their leader, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, is also putting lots of investment in education. He is building the “software” and “hardware” at the same time. He is really a visionary leader.

Talking about building, very soon the “Burj Dubai” (Tower of Dubai) will be completed. It will be the highest building in the world. I heard that they have kept extra parts. If there is a higher building somewhere else in the world completed later, they will add the extra parts immediately to maintain its no. 1 status.

Ria Bintan

Ria Bintan is a small island in Indonesia, located at the distance of an one-hour-ferry, south of Singapore. Small is a relative term. It’s much bigger than Lantau Island. And that’s the destination for our vacation this year.

Getting there was a bit indirect. We needed to fly to Singapore first. Then we traveled to the ferry terminal to take the fast ferry to Ria Bintan. Fortunately Singapore is a small country and it was just a short journey from Changi Airport to the pier.

Since Indonesia is one hour behind Singapore, we arrived at Ria Bintan 15 minutes before we departed Singapore. Getting in and out Ria Bintan also brought us 3 sets of immigration stamps on our passports. Ria Bintan is famous for golf. But we are no golfers. We were heading for Club Med.

Club Med stands for Club Mediterrannee. Obviously it was founded by a French guy. The first Club Med was launched in Paris in 1950. The service team members are called GO’s (Gentils Organisateurs, meaning gracious organizers) and we as participants are referred as GM’s (Gentils Membres, gracious members, not General Managers). The GO’s were multi-talented and friendly. They could be an sports instructors in the day time and suddenly became dancers in the evening. The GO’s would also join the GM’s over meals. In our last evening, the Circus Team of GO’s even invited us to join their special dinner.

This is our second time to visit a Club Med resort. Great improvement since then. Compared with what we had in Bali 5 years ago, the food has been improved a lot. The all-inclusive-package also covers drinks and snack now. And there is a richer variety of sports and activities. If you have kids, Club Med can provide sort-of-baby-sitting programs such that you can have some private time together. For kids who are 4-18 year old, their programs bear no additional cost. There were different programs for different age groups: 4-5, 6-7, 8-11 and 12-18. For those who was 2-3 year old, they have special program called Petit Club but you need to pay. Some resorts also provide baby-sitting service for under-2-year-old’s.

You can just leave your kids from 9:00 am until dinner time. Or you could choose to join just part of the program. In Club Med, there will be a variety show every night. Sometime, the kids will be invited to participate. On Saturday night, Joy was part of the “Four Seasons” show.

I was also invited to participate two times: once as a judge for a GO’s competition and the other time as a participant (acting as a rocking tree) in a comedy show. We have quite a number of first time in the trip. our first time to learn golf; our first time to learn catamaran sailing. And most exciting of all, we attended circus school!

Jocelyn learning the tricks:

It's Jonathan's turn:

Joy attended the school for kids, with similar challenge:

And one rainy morning, we painted our own shirts:

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Blessed are the Perthians

Perth is a great place to live. Well, yes the cost of living is high, if not unbearable. The atmosphere here is so relaxed. Everybody seems to be on vacation. And that include the service providers. Never expect the same sort of hospitality you came across in other locations. This is no five-star hotel. Sunday is definitely off, except souvenir shops which are manned by Asians. Even room service is limited on weekends. And they emphasize that there will be nothing on public holiday. You might complain about the lay-back style. But that’s their culture. That’s their values. When it comes to cultural values, nothing is wrong. They are just different.

And the people here are blessed with good environment as well. Fresh air, great scenery, comfortable climate, you name it, are so abundant that you will take it for granted. It had been raining all week. However, believe it or not, you have fine weather on weekends. The previous Sunday was just warm and sunny. (And this is winter.) Then we got showers or heavy rains on weekdays. When it comes to Saturday, we got a clear sky again. And I am on my short-sleeve black polo-tee again on Sunday.

I took another bike ride on Sunday afternoon around the Swan River. Except a bit of climbing up and down the hill in one spot, the journey is covering the riverside. I started from Perth City, along the river, and then reached Fremantle. Then I continued the ride to South Perth, before I got back to the bike-hire shop just before they close. It was a 30 km plus ride and I felt great. Bicycle riding in Perth is very enjoyable as there are well paved and marked tracks. Quite often I could dash with the top gear. It made you feel like a cyclist on Le Tour de France.

If Berne is beautiful, then Perth is pretty and perfect. (And I bet living in Berne is more expensive than Perth.)

"Winter" in Perth

It is supposed to be the winter time in Perth. Not quite a "winter". I arrived on Sunday morning. The first person I met was a ground crew from the airline. She was on a long coat. According to weather report, it was 7 degrees Celcius.

In fact, it was quite comfortable. By the time I got to the hotel, I found that it was a fine a nice day in the city. I went for a bicycle ride in the afternoon to stretch my muscles and breathe some fresh air. Eventually I had to changed to a short-sleeve polo shirt.

Unfortunately fine weather did not last long. It started to rain on Monday. Hopefully the coming weekend will be fine again, if the weather forecast is accurate. Until then, I can only keep my fingers crossed.

30 years on....

I am conducting a 7-day-course in Perth this week so I arrived here on Sunday. I took an overnight flight from Hong Kong to Perth. I watch a short inflight video programme before getting to sleep. I intentionally avoided movies as they usually last for 2 hours. I picked a music programme, featuring Teresa Carpio and George Lam. It was their recent reunion concert....their last one being in 30 years ago. The programme compared what they did today with 30 years before. It was quite a good show as both of them are good singers as well as performers. The cameras kept shooting at Lam's mother and Teresa's daughters.

It's a good programme.

大嶼山自由行

機場某某酒店在暑期推出特惠套票，住一個晚上送三餐。算一算，等于用餐送房，而且還可以參加一些興趣小組活動。所以我們在上周三、四去了一趟，順道去遊覽大澳。

上一次去大澳已經是差不多二十年前的事了，以前的‘橫水渡’已經被這道藍橋取代了。

我們坐酒店的穿梭大巴到機場後，轉乘公車到東湧，再坐11路車到大澳。下山的路比較慢，司機投訴說這路修了三年還沒有修好。我們在十一點多抵達大澳，有船家努力向我們推銷坐船遊棚屋、將軍石、看中華白海豚。兩夥人共十四人把小船都坐滿了。聽船家說，看中華白海豚最好在上午。他說得沒錯，我們拍了錄像，但來不及拍照。原來中華白海豚是粉紅色的，還沒成年的則爲灰色。每人十塊的票價是物有所值。

大澳的居民還是非常友善，仍然有那份淳樸的感覺。我們當然不忘看看那些特産，最後買了一些小玩具及蝦膏回來。

首天的行程挺豐富的，從大澳回酒店後，立即參加中式點心班、雞尾酒班等。

晚上更看了一部真人結合卡通的動畫片“Arthur and the Invisibles”，我們也很久沒有一家人坐著看完一部電影了。第二天因爲在遊泳池出了意外（前文已述），就沒有多拍照。我們退房後在機場二號樓逛了一會，感到很新鮮。那4D電影院及航空展覽館特別有趣，將來有好電影時我們必定回來看。下午我們到了東荟城，真是“大鄉里出城”，我們還是第一次在香港逛“Outlet”。

兩日一夜的自由行以交易廣場的晚飯爲結束，雖然有點不適（後來發現是非常不適），但還算盡興。

水土不服？

這次離開香港兩個多星期，回來居然病倒了。難道是水土不服？在阿聯酋其間，每天都喝瓶裝水，對香港的水可能要重新適應。先是肚子疼，然後有感冒症狀，最後是眼睛發炎。

很久沒有看醫生，一看就兩父女一起看。女兒在酒店遊泳池邊奔跑，摔了一交，皮破了。但救生員沒有料理好，傷口發炎。最後要去醫生處洗傷口，用抗生素。這次她對這抗生素的反應頗大，肚子疼兼嘔吐。也好，這次讓她好好記住永遠不要在遊泳池邊奔跑。

嫁要嫁給宣教士？

因著從神而來的感動，我們在金錢上支持了到回教群體工作的某某宣教士。太太收到她的來電，除了表示感謝外，還說會爲女兒祈禱，祝願她嫁個宣教士。

在工作上跟回教徒接觸多了，我發現他們大多是非常善良的人。在西方傳媒的報道中，可能太側重那些激進的信徒。事實上，他們都很友善。別看那些身材魁梧的阿拉伯人，他們看起來挺凶的，但言語行爲都非常溫柔。他們的祈禱生活也非常重視，沒有什麽比去他們的會堂祈禱更重要。可能是因爲他們的善良，我更覺得他們沒有機會認識主耶稣真是可惜。在中東工作時，在他們祈禱的時間，沙特阿拉伯的電視台會現場轉播麥加的情況。那個烏黑的Kaaba（見圖。不知中文叫什麽，所有信徒都向著它朝拜）就在正中，四周圍著無數人。我看到一個景象，他們都很善良，每天都虔誠的向他們的“阿拉”朝拜，但主再來的時候他們會怎麽樣？有些人很驚惶，有些人很傷心，也有些人會很氣憤，那黑色的東西變成了一個墳墓。

我們需要更多通路，更多的工人。

The wild wild group in Abu Dhabi (Parental Guidance)

Do not get shocked. Do not read this if you are under 18. You need guidance from parents.

We often play some sort of party game during Group Dinner. "Finding Who's Who" is to encourage people talking to each other to find out secret. I asked participants to write some secret, something not so serious and they didn't mind others to find out. Then they needed to identify who's who on the list. Usually we got hobbies, fears or interesting experience. At times we go something serious such as cheating in examinations and being in jail.

Wow, this time we got lots of wild secrets. Probably because of the absence of female participants.

The Kuwaiti guy on orange shirt once dated a "lady-boy". He only found it out when he went to bed with "her". The Iranian with the guitar could not last for more than 6 months with the same girl friend.

Here comes the funny trio. From left to right, Carlos from Angola, Millerand from Cameroon and Yousef from Libya. Carlos has 7 children from 4 wives. Millerand visited the night club everynight. (Infact he woke up at 1am and could not sleep again. He then went to the club again.) Yousef once dated 2 sisters...at the same time. He was caught when one of his girlfriend wanted to give her sister a surprise....



Really wild group. Back row first. From left to right. Millerand has been introduced. Gerardo the Argentinian completed a solo race across the Andes. He was in depressed mood when Argentina was beaten by Brazil in the Copa America Final. Sunny, hoho, Sunny the Indian once dated a fat, old lady....because he wanted to date her daughter!

Front row from left to right. William from Venezuela almost sold his car to a drug dealer. Carlos, the Mexican playing guitar was without car insurance for 4 months when he drove in Scotland. Buji the Indian had cheated his wife. Steve the English guy who worked in Abu Dhabi (blocked by Buji) was the quiet and normal person. He had served in the army for 12 years.

I was shocked when they told their secret....without a bit of shame.

The Libyan who dreamed about Jesus and Mohammed

Abdulwart is from Libya and he told me that he had dreamed about Jesus and Mohammed in the same night. It was the time when he visited UK. His colleagues gave him the DVD movie "Passion of Christ" (the one directed by Mel Gibson). Before that he never knew Jesus was killed by his people.

Unlike Christians, Muslims think that Jesus is a prophet. They don't know about the life of Jesus. When Abdulwart saw the scenes of people torturing and killing Jesus, he was shocked. He cried like a baby. And he saw the movie many times. That's why he dreamed about Jesus. And perhaps under the influence of his religious belief, he dreamed of Mohammed as well. He said that he'd never seen neither Jesus nor Mohammed, but you just knew it when it appeared in the dream.

Sometime movies could be controversial (I remember that there were some warning for Christians when the movie was introduced). However, they open doors to such non-Christ-believer as muslims. We could have been more open-minded.

Abu Dhabi

Although Abu Dhabi is the Capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), it is less sophiscated than Dubai. Not every taxi drivers speak nor understand English. Hotel staff are more "relaxed" and don't have an urgency on your request. Some people are saying that Abu Dhabi is competing with Dubai. They need to catch up a lot and there is a distance behind Dubai.

I come back to the hotel near beach, where I stayed in February. I was warmly welcome by a bird in my balcony:

Friday and Saturdy in the Middle East are "weekend". (Sunday is the first working day of the week.) I went for a short self-help city tour on Saturday. It was just too hot to stay on the streets for more than an hour. There were some interesting spots, including this one:

Does it look like a giant lamp from Alladin?

One Night in the Desert

As a break between 2 courses in Dubai and AbuDhabi, I went for a desert safari trip yesterday. The excursion started at 4:30pm. Well, you can't do it sooner as the temperature reached 40+ around noon. A team of 4WD Toyota Landcruiser's was on the way. If I paid more, I could try the Hummer. US$100 was just too much so I sticked to a cheaper Toyota option.

The exciting part started early when we were climbing up and down the sand dunes. It's the normal G version of the roller-coaster. But it's good enough to make you throw. The advice would be: don't eat too much before you go for a desert safari. Regreted not to bring my video camera. I managed to take a couple of photos but missed the most spectacular part.

Just before sunset we reached the camp site in the desert. I met two cabin crew of the Singapore airline. They had a two-day-break in Dubai, before flying to Moscow. The Singaporean guy was also using Nikon so he took some photos for me.

There was a camel range at the campsite. Obviously this was for tourist. 20 dirhams for a brief ride and photo-taking. 50 dirhams you can drive the quad (a small 4WD bike) for 15 minutes. I passed. A Bangladeshi worker invited me to feed and take photos with the camels. At the end he hinted for some money. I gave him 5 dirhams. Definitely not bad for a worker in Dubai.

After sunset, dinner was served. It was a simple Arabian BBQ buffet. After the "cruising" through the desert, you won't have much appetite for good food. Inside the campsite, the food, soft drinks, water, traditional costumes for photo-taking were included in the fee you paid.

There was a fine hawk for you to take photo with. She was not aggressive and not afraid of human. Seemed that she was quite used to meeting strangers.

After the dinner it was a belly dance performance. Frankly speaking, it was not as good as the one I had seen in Cairo. She dressed like a belly dancer but was not doing the dancing. But people seemed to be enjoying. The night ended with a all-light-out for 5 minutes. A quite time for everybody to watch the stars. The Singaporean broke silence by playing "Vincent" with his mobile phone. "Starry Starry Night...." There was a very bright star. It was the satellite as it was not blinking.

Fortunately, we didn't need to go through the sand dunes very much on the way back. What a night.