On the 11th April the
day after returning from Cairo I was back at Heathrow again this time for our
flight to Delhi where we arrived seven and a half hours after leaving London. On
arrival and having heard so many stories about the food and drink causing
“issues” with ones digestive system I asked the crew for two litre bottles of
water for my stay in India. We arrived at the hotel at about midnight with a
pickup booked for 9am or 3:30am London time. The following morning our meeting
at the airport was similar to the one in Cairo just with a different type of
tea but just as much eye rolling by our Indian customs agent. The only other
thing I remember was random cows on the urban roads during the drive back to
the airport and me thinking “so this really happens in India” When this finished we were back to the hotel
for a couple of hours before meeting our country manager again for a meal and
the trip back to the airport. We arrived at the airport again at 10PM for our
midnight flight to London and were greeted by the news that the flight was
overbooked and were we prepared to volunteer for a downgrade from business to
premium economy. As a sweetener there was £500 of BA travel vouchers on offer.
I asked if there was a chance of an upgrade to First Class and was greeted by a
Smile. Thinking of the yet to be booked family holiday I immediately
volunteered my colleague and I for the downgrade on the understanding that if
we were not needed and space was available we would be upgraded to First Class.
My colleague spent much time in the lounge moaning at me for volunteering us
both but was quite happy when we were approached at the boarding gate with two
first class boarding cards. On board it we were personally escorted to our
seats and offered a set of “pyjamas” for the journey a quick trip into the
toilet to get changed and I emerge in my white suit looking like I am a
forensic officer in a police drama. The departure was just after midnight and
with the aid of the first class duvet I slept most of the way back to London.
Over the next couple of weeks I
visited Stockholm, Helsinki and Berlin for the scoping meeting s before finding
myself back at the airport for the next long haul trip. This time we were
covering off Tokyo Seoul and Beijing. So on a Saturday morning I found myself
back at Heathrow for the flight to Tokyo. After an uneventful 11 hour flight we
arrived at 9AM on a Sunday morning. With no meetings until Monday we had time
to kill. Our first discovery was that our Tri-band phones did not work in Japan
so we were out of communication with the rest of the world. We agreed that we
would first go down to the airport we would be using for a quick look and then
go into town. My colleague said I will fix a cab but I thought it would be much
more fun to take the subway, having read so much about how busy the subway is I
just wanted to try it. The fist and biggest issue is navigating the map. The
photo that starts this piece gives some idea of what you are faced with. There
is no English translation so the first thing was to work out which station we
were in and mark it on our paper map. Then we needed to find out where the
airport was which we eventually did. With this marked it was as easy as
navigating around London. With this done we then moved onto buying a ticket.
The machines had no English translation and our Japanese was sadly lacking however
cleverly the map indicated how many yen we would need so it was a case of
feeding the machine the coins and waiting for the print out. The Ticket
inspectors realising we were not locals were very helpful and after lots of
bowing we were on our way. The airport done we went for a look around the
Shinjuka shopping district, this area is mind blowing with so many neon signs
and the world’s supply of electronics. It was in this area we discovered
Pachinko this is a peculiarly Japanese pastime and as far as I could see
involves tipping ball bearings into a machine not dissimilar to a fruit machine
and in return receiving more or sometimes less ball bearings out from the
bottom of the machine. All this takes place in a very noisy neon lit arcade.
You have to see it to believe it.
The meetings on Monday were well organised and
this time there was no rolling of the eyes by our customs agent. The Tuesday
saw us at Tokyo’s domestic airport for our early morning flight to Osaka and a
connecting flight to Seoul. The flight was due to depart at 7 AM when the
airport opened. We were aware that there were about 16 other B747’s departing
almost simultaneously each having about 500 passengers on them and therefore
decided that we needed to be at the airport by 5:30 AM to avoid the rush. On arriving
at the airport it was a ghost town and we checked in with no issues at all. By
6AM it was getting busier but the Japanese business men are like machines and
did exactly what was expected from them exactly when it was expected and as a
result there were no queues anywhere. With 500 passenger booked on our flight
boarding started 20 minutes before departure and was completed on time. The
flight to Osaka took us past Mount Fuji and allowed some great photos to be
taken. We arrived in Seoul later in the day and with meetings planned for the
following morning. I have no real recollections of Korea and after our brief
and unsatisfactory meetings it was off to Beijing. We flew on Air China and
were the only western people on the flight; back in 2004 it was clear that Air
Travel in China was still a novelty for most people and as soon as the aircraft
touched down and whilst the aircraft was still on the runway the passengers all
stood up and started to get their baggage out of the overhead bins.
Our Hotel
in Beijing was a modern affair and whilst working on this project I stayed
there three times in rooms with similar views and during this three month time
period the pace of change in China was there to see. The view from the room on
my first visit in early March was out over the city and directly in front of us
was an old fashioned low level housing development, by the time of my second
visit in mid May the view had gone along with the housing development and the
construction of a high rise development had started. By the time of my final
visit there high rise was in place and already towering over the Hotel.
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