I Love China

As we once ordered McDonalds live on our podcast, I can’t deny I occasionally surrender to the urge to eat junk food, mainly as it’s convenient when I don’t have time to go out myself to buy some lunch.

So today I ordered a big mac meal and 5 chicken nuggets and as is usually the case, the delivery guy arrived in about 10 minutes with my meal. Every past order has been dealt with so effectively I don’t bother checking what’s inside and this time it came back to bite me – there were no french fries.

I ran out to the lift lobby but the delivery guy was long gone. So I called the hotline (4008-517-517) and told them what had happened. They apologised and said they would arrange for the fries to be sent.

A few minutes later I got a call from the actual branch. They said they realised they had forgotten the fries and that someone was on their way to deliver them to me. Excellent. Then she asked if I would mind cancelling the call to the hotline, which puzzled me somewhat.

“Er, what do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, can you call back the hotline and tell them we didn’t forget the fries?”

“But you DID forget the fries” I replied.

There was a nervous laugh on the other end of the phone and then she simply said okay and that the fries would be with me shortly.

The delivery guy arrived and was again very apologetic, explaining the fries were in a different compartment and that’s why they were missed. He also asked if I could call the hotline to cancel the missing fries order.

I suppose they get punished if a customer complains, perhaps even have to pay a fine. But I’m sorry, I’m not going to call back and say it was MY mistake and that the fries were in the bag all along. I’m surprised they even asked. Okay, I’m not THAT surprised!

Yes folks, the Oscars are happening RIGHT NOW (it’s still Sunday night in Yankee Doodle Land), hosted this year by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin (both stars of romantic comedy It’s Complicated). In fact, they just started. Who will win the big best picture prize? Will Dingle lookalike George Clooney win best actor for Up In The Air?

I have to admit, I’ve not seen any of the big nominated movies except Avatar – I loved it but doubt it will win any of the big categories – but I’m still going to make a few predictions based on what I’ve heard.

Best Actor – Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart

Best Movie – The Hurt Locker – Miss Beverly thought it was boring but I’m guessing it’s because she’s a girl :-p

Erm, that’s it. Oh, and I predict Avatar will win best “3D movie that features blue people” of 2009!

What are your predictions / opinions?

UPDATE : Bingo! As predicted, The Hurt Locker wins best picture and best director for Avatar director James Cameron’s ex-wife (and the first ever woman to win) Kathryn Bigelow and Jeff Bridges wins best actor for Crazy Heart. Now I have to pull my socks up and actually see these two movies.

My flight back from HK to Shanghai was probably the worst flying experience I have encountered, and believe me, I’ve had my fair share of bad experiences.

We were due to leave HK at 7pm when I went to the gate, I was told Shanghai airport was closed due to fog. I guess the fog eventually cleared up because we were able to take off 2 hours later at 9pm. On our descent in to Shanghai I watched as the altitude dropped from 10,000 metres to less than 100 metres. “Ah, we’re almost home” I thought to myself. Then suddenly, I could feel the aircraft speed up and we started to climb, higher and higher. This has happened to me before, once when landing in Beijing there was something on the runway so we had to circle round while they cleared it away. No big deal.

After a few minutes the pilot announced that the fog was very low and he was going to try again. Ok, so perhaps we’ll be another 10 minutes, I thought.

After two more tries, the captain announced it was just not going to happen and he was diverting to Hangzhou which is about 180 kilometres away, so about a 20 minute flight.

We landed at Hangzhou at around 1am. I noticed the skies were very clear, perfect weather for landing. The captain then announced that the immigration officials had gone home so they were being contacted and we had to wait on the plane until they returned and we could be processed. In the mean time of course, we were waiting for news of the weather in Shanghai and if it improved, we could fly back straight away.

It was 3 hours before we finally were allowed off the plane. Several other planes were diverted so there was actually a wait for the earlier planes to be processed first. So at 4am, sleep-eyed, we went through immigration and collected our luggage and were told to head to exit 3.

There were 3 coaches waiting there and passengers rushed to put their luggage in the compartment below before boarding the bus. The problem was, the luggage compartment was too small so many people had to take their luggage on to the bus, which meant many seats could not be used. I’ve been in China long enough to know in these situations you have act quickly, so I threw my suitcase in the hold and rushed to grab one of the last remaining seats on the last of 3 buses. As I expected, about 25 people were not able to find seats and were standing by the bus looking anxious.

It was by now 5am and we all wanted to get to our hotel which the airline had arranged so we could get a few hours sleep. We didn’t know what the hold up was until we started to hear shouting and realised there was a man standing in front of our bus, refusing to let us get on our way. He was screaming “how can you lave us here in the middle of the night, I demand a full apology” etc etc. The airline representative explained the 2 buses that had already left would return to pick them up as soon as they had dropped off the first batch of passengers, but this wasn’t acceptable to the irate passenger.

Many people on the bus were exhausted and keen to get some sleep, so it turned in to a bit of a tussle between the two groups of passengers that got slightly physical. The people on the bus were saying things like “why are you being so selfish and not considering others who are tired and want to sleep”. I think they had a point but the stubborn passenger refused to give way. I get the feeling he was starting to feel he was in the wrong but couldn’t back down or he would lose face which would be a fate worse than death.

Eventually, someone managed to convince the man to move away from the front of the bus and we were on our way to the hotel which was about 30 minutes drive away in Xiao Shan, a small city near Hangzhou. By now though, the Shanghai fog seemed to have reached Hangzhou and I was quite horrified to see that the driver’s visibility was down to about 2 metres at best, but this didn’t seem to discourage him from driving at great speed. In spite of this, we managed to get to the hotel at around 5.30am and again, quick thinking on my part meant I managed to grab a room ahead of most of the other passengers and was soon enjoying some much needed sleep.

The next morning we were given two options : a bus back to Shanghai (about 3 hours) or we could be taken back to the airport and flown back. I did not want to risk further weather related delays so I opted for the bus as did almost all of the other passengers.

I finally arrived in Shanghai at 1pm the next afternoon, a full 18 hours after we were due to leave Hong Kong. Luckily I had taken an extra day off work so I didn’t have to go in to work, but on the other hand, I spent the rest of the day catching up on sleep and basically wasted an entire day off.

You may or may not be familiar with Japanese fast food chain Yoshinoya. They have many outlets in north America and China, selling mainly chicken and beef rice sets in a fast food format. I don’t go often, it’s not the pinnacle of fine dining but now and then, when I need a rest from 10 course lunches at one of the many Bund establishments, I slum it and head to Yoshinoya.

It’s lunch time so there’s a fairly long line. The woman in front of me has ordered food that comes to 27 and passes 30 rmb to the cashier. Now this is one of my pet peeves coming up right here. In England if it came to 9 pounds and 1 penny the cashier might ask if you happen to have a penny so she can give you back one pound change from 10. But here they take it to extremes for the simple reason that many establishments cannot seem to get the hang of preparing small change in advance. So the cashier pulls a funny face and asks the customer if she has 2 rmb coins so that she can give her a 5 rmb note back rather than use up precious coins. So the customer opens her back and rummages around for 5 minutes trying to scrape together a couple of 1 rmb coins while the queue gets longer behind me.

From experience I can guarantee you the cashier had 3 rmb but wanted to conserve the coins and therefore decided it was better to try and squeeze a few more coins from the customer.

Meanwhile, the customer in the next line had ordered his meal and took out a 100 rmb note to pay. The cashier looked at him and asked if he had anything smaller. The customer replied that he didn’t and even opened his wallet to show the cashier. Then to my surprise the cashier asked if he could pay by credit card instead! But it gets better. The customer indicated he did not possess a credit card and asked if any of the other cashiers had some change? To my horror and amazement, rather than ask his colleague if she had some change, the cashier said to the customer “I don’t know, you are welcome to try” and then waved him off. The shell shocked customer just walked over to the end of the next line and queued up again. If I was the customer I’d have taken off the silly hat the cashier was wearing and forced it down his throat.

I often feel I could make a fortune as a consultant to places like this, giving them advice on how to improve service and efficiency and ultimately drive profits. The only thing that’s stopping me is I don’t know if they’d be interested.

The irony is, there’s a huge ICBC bank branch right opposite this restaurant!

As it’s Fashion Friday I should start with some news about WoAi’s favourite UK clothing brand Superdry, which has enjoyed a 94% growth in turnover in the latest 6 months of the financial year, helped by numerous mentions on this blog as well as high profile customers including David Beckham and Zac Effron. Of course, I was raving about the brand way back in 2008, well before its recent success. I gave up wearing FCUK years ago because it was everywhere. Now that Superdry has grown, I might have to search for another new brand to wear!

On the back of this amazing success (in a global recession) of course helped a lot by my blog posts, the company is planning a stock market flotation. I’m happy to see a brand I endorse do so well, especially iven that it’s British and Britain’s economy needs all the help it can get. No seriously, there’s talk of a double dip recession and a collapse of the British currency. Thank God I am in China – will the last person to leave England please turn out the lights!

And on that cheery note, let me wish you all a fabulous weekend. Next week, more on my Hong Kong / Singapore trip with mum (the HK part) and details of the worst journey of my life so far – the flight back from HK to Shanghai, which took 16 hours!

Travelling around Asia during the lunar new year when millions of Chinese are also travelling has had its ups and downs. Okay, it’s mostly downs. But it’s also quite amusing.

My mother was freaked out on the flight to Singapore which was almost completely full of mainland Chinese on a package tour. She pushed open the door to go to the toilet only to find someone already in there and of course, they didn’t bother (or didn’t know how) to lock the door. So she tried the next one along and it was exactly the same: door unlocked and someone inside going to the toilet!

Then on the way back from Singapore, she pushed open the toilet door and there was a guy inside the toilet reading a newspaper. I couldn’t control my laughter when she returned to her seat, shaking her head with a disapproving look on her face.

On the same flight, as we were taxiing to the runway and seconds from taking off, one woman decided it was the perfect time to go for a stroll and I watched in shock and amusement as the flight attendant came running down the aisle shouting at the woman to get back to her seat.

And of course, the man in the seat in front of mine decided to recline his seat as far back as it would go just before we took off. On a bad day I would have just used a firm arm to push the seat back to the upright position forcibly, but I was with mum and on my best behaviour, so I just let that one go.

Ah the joys of lunar new year travel … actually, it wasn’t all bad. When we arrived at Singapore airport to fly back to Hong Kong, there was a massive line to check in and my heart sank when I realised we would be lining up for hours. Then something weird happened. One of the security officers made an announcement for any English speakers to come forward. Almost everyone stayed where they were and I was led to a separate area to be taken through the security questions and then ushered to a check in counter and was checked in withing 3 minutes while the huge line was still there. I have no idea why. Perhaps there were only a small number of  security officers who could speak Chinese.

I was flying with United by the way and was surprised when boarding at HK airport to find an additional security check at the boarding gate. Is this normal procedure for American carriers? I had a bottle of water (that I had taken from the airside lounge) taken away from me which was a bit disappointing.

Perfect weather again for day 2 and once again, we took it at a leisurely pace, starting with a south east Asian buffet lunch at Straits Kitchen at the Grand Hyatt which was recommended to me by several Singaporeans including Miss Beverly. It was quite convenient too as I just happened to be staying at the Grand Hyatt for my two day stay.

I did each region one at a time. This was the Indian selection. By far my favourite though was the Laksa.

After lunch we walked around Orchard road a bit more and amazingly, bumped in to Singaporean blogger Jill and her cousin in a shopping mall. I mean, I know Singapore is small, but not that small!

Dinner consisted of Mez’ze, falafel and kebabs at Cafe Le Caire, an Egyptian cafe on Arab Street in Kampong Glam, near Little India.

A mosque spotted on the short stroll from Arab Street to Little India.

And well, that was about it for Singapore. We had a 6.50am flight back to Hong Kong, which meant waking up at 4am in order to make the 4.30am car pick up. Ouch!

More on the flight in a separate post. Goodbye Singapore, it was short but sweet …. and hot! I’m missing Chili crabs and Laksa already.

I have to say, the two days I spent in Singapore with mum were an absolute delight. The weather was gorgeous – hot, sunny, blue skies. The people were warm, polite and friendly. And the food was not exactly difficult to cope with. Here are a few pictures from day one.

With mum atop the world’s tallest Ferris wheel, the Singapore Flyer (yes, it’s even taller than the London Eye).

I must confess, I’m a bit of a lazy traveller. I’m not the type to get up at the crack of dawn and proudly tick off 4 or 5 places on a must see list by noon. So we actually started day one rather late, around noon, with a cheap lunch at the Food Republic food court on the 4th floor of Wisma Atria on Orchard Road. Then we did a bit of shopping but after an hour or so I was ready to go back to the hotel for a rest. We didn’t head out again until around 6pm, just in time to catch sunset on the Singapore Flyer (tickets are $29.50 Singapore dollars for adults, and $23.60 for senior citizens – I anticipate lots of immature jokes about me being a senior citizen, so go ahead and get it out of your system).

Our capsule. We all took turns to get in the way of eachother’s photos, although there was one woman in particular who did a fantastic job of ruining our shot by walking in front of my camera not once but three times – you stupid dopey bitch!

Enjoying a Singapore Sling at The Long Bar, Raffles Hotel

We walked from the Singapore Flyer to Raffles Hotel to try the world famous Singapore Sling cocktail. The walk was a bit longer than I thought (about a kilometre) and perhaps given the heat, a taxi might have been a better bet (sorry mum).

The cocktail was of course invented in this very bar and it seemed like almost every customer was on a pilgrimage to try it.

Exterior of Raffles Hotel

Newton Circus Hawker Centre

After cocktails at Raffles we headed for chili crabs at the Newton Circus Hawker Centre where there are scores of tiny stalls selling all sorts of local specialities. Mum’s a small eater so all we had was chili crab, tiger prawns, a plate of kai lan vegetables and some rice.

Yes, it is touristy, no, it’s not particularly cheap, but it was still well worth including in a two day Singapore itinerary.

Then it was straight to the hotel for a much needed rest so that we’d have enough energy to get up before noon on day two ….

I usually fly Dragonair which is more popular with Hongkongers as it’s a HK based airline with HK flight attendants, but today, my flight to Hongkong was exclusively mainland Chinese on a big package tour. I know this because I have a HK ID card and bypass the HUGE immigration lines at HK airport, but it was at least 20 minutes before the first person joined me at the baggage reclaim carousel. I guess all the HK people left for their home city before the holiday started.

It’s fun watching Chinese venturing outside of the mainland for the first time and seeing their reaction to certain situations. And so I was quite amused when the guy in front of me had a look of both horror and surprise in equal measure when the flight attendant came round with the food options and informed him there was no fried rice! I should add it was barely 10am and fried rice was the last thing I would have wanted to eat.

Of course my own relatives are no better in this respect and I do remember being very disappointed on a road trip from Toronto to New York City when I was much younger with a bunch of older relatives. Every city we came to, the first mission was to find Chinatown and get some rice.

One thing you have to get used to when living in China is saying the phrase “happy new year” for about 2 months from December till February. First comes the regular new year at the end of December and then about 5 or 6 weeks later, the lunar new year which this year fell on 14th February. And so on Friday there was a sense of deja vu when I wished my colleagues a happy new year and said once again “see you next year” as I did 6 weeks ago.

It’s a 7 day holiday again here in China, the biggest and most important holiday for all Chinese people. The view across the city at midnight on the 13th was quite spectacular as the entire city let off fireworks and firecrackers at the same time. If you’ve never experienced it, I can highly recommend it.

And now that’s all out of the way, I’m heading south to Hong Kong where my mother has flown to from London for a few weeks. I’ll be picking her up and then heading even further south to Singapore for a couple of days, just so I can remind myself what it feels like to have the sun on my skin – it’s been about 4 months – and then it’s back to HK for a few more days before heading back to Shanghai.

There’s not much on the agenda other than eating and shopping and spending some quality time with Mrs WoAi senior before she heads back to London.

So all that’s left for me to do is to wish you all (again) a happy new year.