Travel to the South-East Asia: Hong-Kong and Taiwan
Business meetings - the last day
05 February, 2004
Morning. Under the door there is a fax from May Chen (Gigabyte) - I always knew she is a fantastic person! "Mr. Kuzin, we found your hat. Please call us!"
Remember when the hat was left in the taxi while we were riding in the taxi that rushed to the airport?
The fugitive is found!
We can vividly imagine all employees at Gigabyte examining Andrey's hat and trying it on-))
The boss decides not to call himself on so important business but ask our May (from IT Mediagate) to find that out.
We are going to some several "meetings", important and serious enough. I am sadly looking at the boss' attire and again trying to persuade him to buy at least a pair of new jeans because his favorite and permanent are on the verge - two fresh holes are about to appear on the part we sit on. I vividly imagine the possible scenes, am telling it to Andrey - he is laughing and telling me he will show them to all and convince that it is a Russian tradition, very trendy. I strongly doubt that some will believe to it, but who knows - Andrey is able reading lectures and good at persuading the audience!-))
Some lyrical digression.
The local damp air makes even my hair curl, and Andrey's hair turned into a mop of curls, so local ladies look at the light and curly chevelure with envy, asking him to touch it. Their own coarse, dark and straight hair can't be waved at all, which is frustrating for them. There is a real complex over here regarding the "non-European" look - a girl is regarded the more beautiful, the closer her face features look European. For many it is important over here how well they look in a film shot with a digicam - you can see that it is important for all, many are asking to retouch the head-spots with Photoshop, which is funny. TV commercials advertising the cosmetics for bleaching and improving the skin are broadcasted round the clock over here. |
We are sitting in the hall of our hotel, waiting for May; today we are all the day either with her or Jean-Pierre.
May is late, that is "she is on the way!" - I am learning English at leisure-))
Andrey is learning Chinese, practicing pronunciation and repeating for 100th time: "I love you" (in Chinese). The personnel passing by are smiling.
Learning Chinese...And here is quite an ordinary scene - a typical English-looking governess with a Chinese baby, that is, knowledge of a pair of languages from the early childhood is guaranteed. She is trying to make the tiny, toy-looking baby understand something and he seems to be listening to her attentively. Wonderful!
I am putting it down in a notepad and PDA (for which I am immediately reproached by the boss - are you Dr. Watson?! ):
"Kuzin-tradition" - once every three months in Taiwan!
"Kuzin style" - hat, awesome jeans, a sports-jersey with a brand of some computer company or in hieroglyphs...
"it's in the bag!" (or, more precise, in the hat) - Andrey's motto...
Here is May rushing into the hotel: - How is it going?
- We've got a great joy!
- Have you acquired a huge advertising budget?
- No, much better! We've found the hat!
- So, what is the joy about? - says May in surprise.
She is looking inquiringly at my notepads and the PDA, the boss is explaining that I am writing a "tour story". May is rejoicing immensely and explaining to me that I am a very good girl, we are on hugging and kissing terms with her all the time because...
We tell her that we received a fax from Gigabyte and ask May to call there instead of Andrey to find out all about our "beloved" hat, she is calling and strikes a lively conversation with her namesake (there is a difference in writing their names, which is lost in pronunciation) - we are taking an opportunity to strengthen ties.
It turns out that local taxi drivers never look for dullard passengers, but hand everything left over to the "lost and found" department. That is what our driver did - handed the hat over to police at the airport, which is absolutely logical because we can fly back through that way only. As Andrey later made sure, taxi drivers NEVER steal, nothing at all and return everything and always - otherwise, you might lose your job which is highly valued, and there are lots of those wishing to take your place. May Chen has done an immense investigation. Having said a lot of appreciation to her, Andrey found out that he could get his favorite hat right in the airport at the police station before the departure.
We headed for a new and distant district where there are also a few high buildings, but we were in a huge office block where several thousands employees work - I couldn't find a spot from which to take a picture of the mountain house... Half the first floor is taken by cafes and restaurants to feed the huge number of working people.
The office of Info-Tek Corporation is below Gigabyte Group, bearing the trademark Giga-Cub - just imagine!
You can't sort this all out... I am a bit tired of English and am not so attentive while listening to what we are told and shown - for the 5 days I've seen a bit too many companies. Here we are having a first contact, but thanks to May - she tells about 3Dnews so good that even myself would not be able to tell it in Russian, let alone Andrey...
But, as my sometimes very wise boss says: to have a successful cooperation, "you should look into the eyes of each other and beg saying "she-she-nee" ("thank-you" in Chinese)!".
At the end of the meeting, we are seated to the taxi, driving to the hotel and for the very first time since the arrival we are again going to the mall for lunch, not in a restaurant.
To the very Food Court - I simply can't help telling about it again because we were very impressed - a huge hall with shops and tables, with cafe shop-windows all over the walls with varied food from all the world, but Chinese food is predominant of course. We both, at home and over here, would prefer their local food (at that we always agree, unlike all other questions!) - this freshly caught seafood is simply beyond any comparison, so tasty it is! The lunch is made up of a huge plate with noodles and "seafood", all is so thick that the spoon stands upright. There was no single time we were able to eat our dishes completely - I presume a plate is served for several persons - but Taiwanese cope with it quite well, the hall is crowded, the people are cunningly catching the thick out of the multi-colored plates (every cafe offers crockery of own color to facilitate collection afterwards).
It's high time we went to the hotel - over there we are having a meeting with DFI, also a contact. They all arrive together with JP (Jean-Pierre) and we are again talking about the business, cooperation, showing the site's statistics, and again samples, samples...
In the evening, we have another Peking-style duck at which we are to meet Irena Chang, a representative of Cetra(Taitra)... Meanwhile, we have a coupe of spare hours, and JP is leading us to look round the new building, almost complete future symbol of Taipei. This building is called 101 (one-o-one), since it is the highest RESIDENTIAL premises on the planet. just imagine - 101 residential storeys!
Against the building's background - JP and Andrey We are walking and looking round the building - how smartly the sales premises, cafes, restaurants, bars are planned... Right over here they hold presentations - at a distance we can easily recognize the so familiar display screen for demonstrations, a lecturer, a lot of journalists, and some half-naked lady is singing something, deafening all and distracting the audience from the topic.. That was IBM presenting their new notebook X40.
Presentation in the building We enter a huge book-store, as big as half the floor, there are books from all over the world, we yearningly watch the huge albums of Beatles - we won't carry them, a great pity.
We return to the hotel for a while together with JP, on the way we ask him many questions about the regular life... There is a lot of reasonable things over here - for instance, the shrinking digits on the screen of every traffic light letting you weigh if you are in time to cross the road during the seconds that left.
Evening. We are again in the same family restaurant with May and JP, a farewell party in Taiwan, we are enjoying the Peking-style duck...
Our duck is being carved 
Jean-Pierre, May, and I - the duck is finished...
(that is we - click to enlarge)It's a great pity that Irena (Taitra) was unable to come to us, but today she is busy with a very important thing - together with all the municipal administration she is carrying the head of a huge, many kilometers long magic dragon - a closing of the New Year holidays is celebrated.
We watch all that over TV live - so picturesque, joyful and nationwide holiday, we wish we went there if it were not for our departure for Moscow early next morning!
Just another lyrical & statistical digression.
It was counted that for a week (let alone the beer and sake at restaurants) we have drunk a 0.75 l of whisky, Andrey - 0.76 l of tequila (he was also helping me at finishing the whisky!), that is 0.75 liters a day divided by 7 makes 100 grammes a day, which is incredibly a sober lifestyle. 100 grammes even for me at leisure is not felt at all, and for the lifestyle full of presentations and meetings it is almost "prohibition"!
A quiet evening - we are summing it all up... Counting how many meetings we've had, what else is left... The things are all packed - there are so much of them, but not much of hardware, we asked our hosts to send it over to Moscow. We wouldn't have been able to carry it over to the place on our own (by the way, when we returned to Moscow, DHL brought me something every day).
6 February, 2004
In the morning, we are woken up at 5 am local time, that is 1 am Moscow time, so we are going to have a really challenging day with all those changes of time zones.
We quickly go downstairs to have breakfast for the last time, although don't feel like eating, so we drink coffee and juices. Despite the early hour, there are many guests of the luxurious hotel are already having breakfast and hurry for work - very unusual!
We are heading for the airport on a limo ordered for us by JP. Amusingly, a taxi costs 1500 Taiwanese dollars, and a limo is 800 if ordered in advance.
The last photo in Taipei - 1 
The last photo in Taipei -2
The last photo in Taipei -3The biggest adventure is to pick up the hat at the airport's police-station. First we are trying to find out where the station is. At the "info" they don't know where the police office is… Finally, Andrey leeched to a policeman who led him to the office. In a big room, there is a storage of lost and found things, many shelves filled with whatever passengers contrived to leave - suitcases, bags, video- and photo-cameras...
- We haven't got any hat, why do you think it's at our place?
- Let's see, I am sure it is there! There it is, lying on on the bottom shelf, with a tag attached thereto!!!
They took a copy of my passport, home address, finger-prints, and filled a pile of papers.
The happy Andrey put up with all that and as a farewell asked him to be taken a picture of, which caused an awful stir, then they found a policeman in new uniform - we hardly persuaded him.
I am standing with the luggage, waiting for Andrey - here goes the proud cowboy in a hat!
The hat. (A Lyrical digression)
In the end, the hat failed to go out to Taipei, it was traveling by taxi and came back to the airport to wait for the master over here!
The hat came back to the head - by the way, I wonder what the phrase "a head without a hat" will sound in other languages - "a head without roof"?-))
Maybe it's worth writing a fairy-tale about the hat?
It had a lot of adventures in its life, didn't it?.
It was bought in Las Vegas at Comdex, then traveled to Moscow, it was left in cars of another Andrey's girl-friend (new times - girls are nowadays at the wheel, they don't drink at parties and presentations, and give their boyfriends a lift, not the way it used to be in former times). A hat left in somebody's car had to go through a long way, but for that there was needed another meeting, for which there were desire.
Once, together with a lady brought to a foreign country the boss went to the cinema and left his hat at a sushi bar. The next day when we drove there to rescue it, the hosts brought it to us with the words "It's the most valuable thing we've ever had in our bar!"
There were so many times our hat was left at most unexpected places, but it was lucky, unlike its predecessors lost for good - it has never been left in a Moscow taxi where things are never returned from! So, having traveled from Taipei airport to Agora-Garden hotel and back, having rested among lost and found things from all over the world, it is again there, on the native and beloved head-)))
So many people have used it to take pictures in You can pick up a huge photo gallery partitioning it into subsections - ladies, RuNet, LAN parties... There are photos of people in this hat at different intoxication stages, in varied extents of .. ehhmm.. disrobing, photos from many countries of the world where the hat has been to together with the master...
All in all, the HAT is a talisman and lifestyle!
Credo - a single, but in a Hat! |
We pass through the controls, hand in lots of luggage and immediately rush to the "smoking room" - how else can it be? A German restaurant, traditional coffee with whisky, I am rushing over to souvenir shops....
Andrey is making up a review for Monday - "if not me, who else will do?"
Page-making at the airport - the hat is on so as not to be lost again!
(click to enlarge)
I'd better read while he is making pages...We buy some whisky - for gifts and for Andrey's good sleep and calm road to do without smoking. A short flight to Hong-Kong, there we again rush over to the smoking area...
A bit of "hand luggage"
Duty Free advertising at Hong-Kong airport
Hong-Kong airport - mountains on the horizonBoarding on a native Russian plane, a pile of newspapers - so pleasant! The pretty air hostesses, but they are far forty-something. Andrey is reasoning - why there aren't young? Perhaps to keep passengers sitting and prevent them from flirting during long hours of flight!
We were immediately recognized as fellow countrymen and asked to walk deep into the saloon and take a couple of rows for sitting and sleeping. Law-abiding Chinese will be sitting patiently at their seats each, while we were given travel rugs, pillows, so we laid down putting legs on the folded seats in front of us - very comfortable!
My beloved boss drank most part of the whisky bottle and turned into creativity - he started inventing a film scenario which we'll finish writing together, sell it and become millionaires because the film is going to be a super hit!
The plot is worked out quite thoroughly, only a small part is left to think out - how will positive characters will save mankind from negative?-)))
Finishing with the last grammes, Andrey was shouting among the strongly asleep passengers, inventing new turns of the plot until he woke up a cartography expert sleeping nearby who was embracing a one-liter bottle of vodka in the sleep. They both discussed the merits and shortcomings of vodka and whisky while tasting the last grammes from both bottles, then the boss' boon companion fell asleep in the middle of a phrase.
Andrey was trying to continue work noisily at the scenario, but I persuaded him to concentrate and think over the happy end of the film.
On closing the eyes, he immediately fell strongly asleep and slept well through the whole flight.
As always - some photos of sunset at 10000 meters in the skies.
And there it is - our Moscow of a cold February day that meets us with chill, slippery ice, traffic jams (my folks couldn't get through to Sheremetyevo to meet us!), with news on explosions in the underground... Yeah, so sad, but "it's our Motherland, son!"
We get the luggage, load it on a trolley - you'll never carry the heap over to the taxi on your own, get into the car and start out old new life, calling around our relatives and friends - what bad is going on?
Our magic trip has come to an end. Thanks to all who made it happen and helped in all the ways!
Note:
Once I finished writing it when Andrey is again in Taiwan, - for a whole month!
Here are the links to his photo coverage - he wrote only because there was time, but here he won't ever finish once started - an eternal lack of time!
Addendum 1 (made by me based on the photos sent by Andrey) - Taipei in May
Signed personally by the boss in Taiwan (at leisure time after Computex, meetings with all the companies and crowds of journalists in need of his help and care):
Addendum 2 - Taiwan, Keelung; 23.05.2004
Addendum 3 - Taiwan: Shuttle, at home party; 24.05.2004
Addendum 4 - 29.05.2004. Three days before Computex
Addendum 5 (photos taken by Pavel Sinyakov)- Meetings at Computex-2004
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