Dave Sabol

I’ve always dreamed of seeing the beauty and grandeur of the southern-most continent and my trip last yearto Santiago, Chile would have been the perfect opportunity. I didn’t have the chance/time to make the trip but vowed that I’d visit again, perhaps taking a cruise to enjoy the natural beauty. That was at least until today! It seems a specially designed cruise ship built to withstand the danger of the iceberg infested water met it’s match in Anarctic waters.

Thankfully, nobody was injured. Amazing that although we are as technologically advanced as we are, mother nature still has a few tricks up her sleeve.

There is an obvious gap between when I last posted and now. I can rationalize why in two broad strokes. The first was travel time. I left Hong Kong on Monday, 26 January 2007 at 10:00 PM (local time) or Monday, 26 January 2007 at 9:00 AM (EST). I touched down at SFO (San Francisco International Airport) at approximately Monday, 26 January 2007 at 6:00 PM (PST) or Monday, 26 January 2007 at 9:00 PM (EST). Despite the outward appearance that I was time-travelling, the flight across the ocean was still 12 hours long. Then after a couple hour layover in San Francisco, I boarded another “redeye” flight for Philadelphia and got in around 6:00 AM on Tuesday, 27 January 2007.

For me it was an exhausting trip home because I couldn’t sleep on the flights. Don’t get me wrong, I tried, but I guess I couldn’t get comfortable enough to actually sleep more than a few hours at a time. The flight was quite full, so there wasn’t any additional room to try and get more comfortable. Add to the lack of space the turbulence that we encountered as we crossed the Pacific and you can understand why it was tough to get some sleep.

I won’t let the less than ideal flight home tarnish what was the trip of a lifetime. I really felt like I worked hard and played hard and had the opportunity to not only represent my organization to the best of my ability but also learn and grow, personally and professionally, as I experienced Hong Kong for the first time. I can’t say that I got the chance to see everything that I wanted but afterall, it was a business trip and I was being paid to work, not sightsee. Additionally, I saw enough to know it is someplace that I would love to visit again and take Laura and Andrew along.

Having had some time to reflect on the experience, I know I have a long way to go before I become a seasoned international traveller. I have to learn how to pack for maximum scenariors with a minimal amount of extra gear. No matter how organized I am or how much planning I do, I still overpack. I have become a big follower of theOne Bag website and all of the advice and resources he offers. If you are planning a short or long trip that requires some smart planning, I highly recommend you visit this website.

Part of my packing issues revolve around my lack of good luggage. Sure I have some really nice general use luggage, but none that I would want to lug around if I had to. I really paid attention to what foks were using and think I need to do some research into something that will work for me. So many options, so little time. I also struggle with the fact that much of the work I do revolves around technology and I need to transport key pieces of technology with me (digital recorder, digital camera, web cam, adapters, flash drive, laptop, etc.) that I am unwilling to send along ahead of time. As such I carry a decent size wheeled laptop bag. It’s not giant, but it is one more piece of luggage that I have to deal with. When you take into account my primary piece of luggage, perhaps a garment bag for my suits (a man has got to look good when he is presenting), a laptop bag for all of my gear and then a backpack for reading materials, incidentals, passport, tickets, jacket, etc. and you can see where I am running into problems.

My goal prior to leaving for my next trip is to assemble the right kind of luggage to cut my needs down to 3 bags total, that means I have to think about what I really need to take versus what I am impulsively taking because it would be nice to have.

Other lessons learned…never underestimate the amount of time you need at the airport for check-in. If you think you need 2 hours plan for 3. Sure you may end up having way to much time but it’s far better than having to rush or missing your flight. Skype is also a godsend. I used it extensively during my trip to keep touch with my office and my family at home. If you are so inclined you can also use a webcam at both ends to do video calls, which was really nice because I did miss seeing Laura and Andrew. Finally, I think it’s tremendously important to have at least a basic understanding of where you are going. You really should do your homework as no two places are the same and it helps you meld into and respect the culture of the place you are visiting.

I’m sure there is plenty more that I learned, but for now I will leave it at that. My next trip isn’t too far away, so I have plenty of preparation to do to get ready. Until then, all I can say is that it’s great to have the opportunity to travel and see the world, but at the end of the day, there is no place like home.

The combination of the time change and the hectic schedule really does a number on your sleep pattern so it was nice to be able to sleep in to a relatively late 6:30. It’s not the same for all of the staff from my organization as some will be staying on for a few additional days to run a large follow-on conference and associated events, but for me today is the last day in Hong Kong.

My plan for the day was relatively simple: sleep in a bit, get up, eat breakfast and then meet my colleague to go do some shopping. I had made plans with two of my colleagues to do just that but as with almost everything else in life, things don’t always go according to plan. Because we are in town for a few more days we had to do some preparation for the next phase of the event and because these events are quite large and since our organization is based in the U.S. that means everything has to be shipped, stored and then staged until the time of the event.

Everything that my group needed made it to Hong Kong on time, but the challenge was getting it all to our set-up location from the shipping department at the Hong Kong Convention Center. When we arrived to do what was supposed to be 30 minutes of set-up none of our material was there. It then took the better part of the morning to get it all tracked down, set-up and working the way we needed it to. As a result my colleage wasn’t able to leave the convention center.

Despite that fact, myself and another colleague decided to take a cab and head back to Stanley Market one final time. It would be my third trip, but admittedly the first two I didn’t head in with a plan. This time, however, I had a list and knew what I wanted to purchase. Now it was just a matter of getting there, getting what I wanted and coming back to the hotel. All said things went exceptionally well and I even tried my hand at “haggling” for a better price, which I found to be fun and also learned that I was really good at it too.

In all honesty, my biggest challenge was using the ATM machine to get some cash. It works the same way that our machines do in the U.S. and you have the option to do the transaction in English, which I really appreciated, but when it came time to enter how much money I wanted to take out, I was stymied. I had planned to take out US $100, but found that the machine only worked in Hong Kong Dollars. Needless to say it took me a few extra minutes to do the conversion and figure out that I needed approximately HKD 700 to equal US $100. Another learning experience for me and a sign of my U.S.-centrism.

Despite that small hurdle, the day couldn’t have went any better. I got what I wanted at the market and as I write this, I am just finishing up my room service pizza (see Dad I told you they had great pizza here). I just have to pack my suitcase and wait for my designated pick-up time and be in the lobby waiting for my ride to the airport.

I am a bit sad to go as I found my experience to be extremely worthwhile and enjoyable. The weather here has also been phenomenal with daily high temperatures averaging in the upper-50’s to low-60’s, so it really made the trip that much better. However, even knowing that I am heading home to the cold and possibly snowy weather so typical in Pennsylvania this time of year, I can’t wait to see Laura, Andrew and my mom and dad.

All good things must come to an end, and for me this trip is pretty much over. It’s been a phenomenal cultural learning experience and I am so glad I was able to be part of it.

I decided to write about the past two days at the same time because honestly they were more about work than anything else and since I was doing the same thing two posts seems rather redundant. We kicked off our Leadership meeting early Saturday morning and my job was to run a demonstration table showing off our online learning offering. This is not the first event like this where I have done the same thing, but the people are always new and my presence seems to generate a lot of buzz and interest.

It’s tough to talk about something as generic as showing people how to use the Learning Management System and how they will benefit from using it with any type of excitement only because it’s really a sales pitch that I make to them and I back it up by showing them everything that the system has to offer. This isn’t to say that I am not passionate about my job or the program that I am responsible for, because I am, but my passion comes out in the presentation rather than in my writing. Suffice it to say, I had a good deal of traffic, perhaps more that I expected and I had a chance to meet people from all parts of the region. That was probably the most exciting part for me.

It’s hard to believe that something as common place in the states as online learning is still really in it’s infancy in many other parts of the world. It’s even more startling that the usage rate of my system is so low. However, when you get out into the field and start talking to your users you quickly learn that the low usage can be attributed to a lack of awareness, time constraints and sometimes even fear and confusion. It’s always good to have that understanding and it allows me to not only refine our program in response to these issues, but it also helps me sell the program more effectively when I know what the objections are.

As a bit of a side note, part way through my first day of doing demonstrations my system stopped working. Now had our choice of vendors been a small player or one who didn’t have a supposedly outstanding reputation in the marketplace, I wouldn’t have been surprised. However, when our system went down without so much as an email advising us that it would and at such an inopportune moment, I was pretty pissed off. I have been working with these types of systems for quite some time and one of the benefits to using a vendor to provide, host and suppor the technology is the comfort level you have knowing that there is a guaranteed level of reliability. I guess not in this case. I spent a few hours trying to figure out the problem and even tried reaching the vendor’s help website only to find that that was down too. Finally, I was able to reach them over the phone where I found out that it was a planned outtage and that I had been notified the week prior. The suspicious part about that was the fact that I never received any such communication nor did my system admin.

This is just another in a long string of issues I am having with my technology provider and is the last straw for me. I had planned on moving to another vendor later this year anyway, but this definitely gives me reason to fast-track the idea.

Since, I couldn’t do my demonstrations, I packed up my station and turned my attention to supporting the overall event. I was really frustrated and really didn’t want to talk with anyone, fortunately for me, the event was almost finished for the day and there was little to do. The day concluded with a nice cocktail reception with live music at one of the hotel’s restaurants (JJ’s), so I was able to unwind a bit. After the reception myself and a colleague joined our manager in her room, ordered Pizza and simply chatted the rest of the evening away.

Today (Sunday) was largely a repeat of Saturday with a few minor differences. First, my system was finally working, although the laptops that the hotel provided for us to use to give the demonstrations were not…luckily I had my laptop and could simply use that instead. In addition, I was giving a presentation on the status of our E-Learning initiative. Our meetings are a combination of general sessions where all attendees are present, break-out sessions where smaller groups gather and educational tracks where individuals present to smaller groups of folks. So as part of my participation in this event, I was asked to present.

Having done a number of presentations in the past and being a classroom teacher for a while, I love being up in front of an audience, but admittedly, I still get nervous. The one thing I had on my side was the fact that I had prepared well and am quite passionate about my topic. So while most of my day was spent doing demonstrations, answering questions, and helping users with some of their issues, my mind was obviously focused on the presentation. I was in the unenviable position of presenting in the final slot of the day against two other really good topics, so I was a bit concerned at the number of attendees that I would have. As luck would have it, I ended up having a very good turn out.

Sometimes no matter how well you prepare for a presentation, when you allow it to be interactive (i.e. rolling question and answer as part of the presentation) you can get bogged down or lose the interest or control of the audience). I decided to give it a shot despite the challenges associated with this type of approach and am quite thankful that I did. In the end, it was a pretty fast-paced but indepth presentation where a lot of information was exchanged and a lot of great questions were asked and answered. In all honesty, I was really blown away that the hour that I had to present went as quickly as it did but from the informal feedback I received my presentation was very well receieved. I am sure I made some mistakes and didn’t meet everyones needs, as is the case when you are presenting to folks from around the world who don’t always speak English as their first language, but overall I feel very good about it. I can’t wait to see my official evaluation so I really take my presentation to the next level the next time I give it.

After my presentation was complete, my day was pretty much finished except for atteneding a closing session and helping break down some of the event site. By this point in the day after going full throttle for over 10 hours, I was pretty exhausted. But even though the formal part of our two-day conference was completed, we still had a offsite cocktail hour for all attendees.

About a half-hour after the event closed, all of the attendees and our staff boarded 4 large tour buses for short ride to the Lumiere restaurant which is located at the base of the International Finance Center (the tallest building in Hong Kong) for a reception. I wasn’t really into the whole idea of “being on my game” for another few hours, but again, when it’s your department and organization hosting the event, you don’t have a lot of say in what you do and don’t do.

Despite my lack of energy and enthusiasm, I am really glad I went because I had a chance to see a few people that I wanted to catch up with and had a few really great conversations. The time seemed to fly right by so I guess you could say my hesitation was a bit unfounded. That was really the last formal commitment I had so as the reception wound down, I felt an air of relaxation come over me. After a few really hard days of work and play, I could finally relax a bit.

Some of our staff decided to head out for dinner as a team and we ended up at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. I could go on and on about how good the food and company was, but lets just say it was a fitting end to an outstanding few days. Tomorrow night I depart Hong Kong and head home and for as much fun it is to see places you have never seen before and meet people you may have spoken to but never formally met, there is nothing as comforting as the idea of coming home to your own bed and the company of your loving family.

I do have some time during the day tomorrow that I can use however I see fit and I hope to be able to get out and pick up a few last minute gifts, other than that, my time will be spent unwinding and packing.

Well for anyone who is really paying attention to the details of what I have been writing, it should have been quite obvious that I mentioned the fact that I am on a business trip yet I have spent an inordinate amount of time sightseeing. In all honesty, it hasn’t been all play and no work and a considerable amount of work was getting done, it just wasn’t the primary focus for the first few days. When the organization that I work for books our travel it is done in such a way that allows us to acclimate to where we are working. This is largely because once we get going we are literally on for twelve-to-fifteen hours per day so we need to be rested, pleasant and focused, hence a we are given a few days where there is work to do but more task-related types of things that allows us to work in short bursts.

Today was the first day that I had a number of commitments that had to be attended to. For the large part my work begins Saturday and runs through Sunday, but there are pre-meetings and face-to-face discussions that have to take place, if for no other reason than the convenience of getting to spend “face time” with people we work with via email and over the phone.

I had breakfast with our I.T. guy at one of the hotel restaurants. From there we headed to our “war room” or operations center to see what work had to be done. For me the work was largely focused on preparing materials for the conference / leadership meeting we were holding and I had to put together folders for each attendee. Most of the work that is done in preparation for our meetings is in no way related to what I actually do, but part of the obligation of being on site is doing whatever needs to be done. Considering the fact that developing the type of learning program that I am responsible for, switching gears to something a bit more operational is always a nice change. Plus, I am someone who likes to see if he can overlay a process on everything, so putting together folders that requires a number of different components is always a great challenge.

After completing that work, I was asked to sit in on a meeting with my manager, our director and one of our members who has been playing a very key role in one of our initiatives. This is more consistent with the type of work that I do on a regular basis, and while the topic of conversation was very engaging and interesting, the location was even moreso. Instead of meeting in a more sterile meeting room or one of the board rooms that we have access to we met on the 30th floor of our hotel in the Executive Club. From there you not only had a wonderful ambiance but also had a commanding view of the Kowloon skyline! It was hard to stay completely focused on the meeting because I was totally enthralled by the view.

The meeting lasted a few hours and by the time we were finished it was almost dinner time. Since I had no plans for the evening, I figured it would be a great night to get some additional preparation work done on the presentation I would be giving over the weekend and perhaps order some room service. So much for that idea! I no sooner got back to my room that I received a call that a bunch of my colleagues were heading over to Kowloon to have dinner at the Hard Rock. Since I love going to the Hard Rock, and have done so in a number of other locations, I couldn’t resist.

We met in the lobby of the hotel a few minutes later and we worked out our logistics. Half of our group decided to take the ferry across the bay, while the other half opted for a cab ride. I was one that decided to take the ferry as I had already experienced a number of cab rides and really wanted something different, plus I simply love being on the water. Now I have been on a number of boat rides in my life, and this was really no different except for the absolutely stunning view of Hong Kong that you had as you made the crossing. Hong Kong is a beautiful city, but it really comes to life at night because most of the buildings are lit up and actually change color as part of the informal light show. And while I have a pretty commanding view of the city from my room, seeing the entire city at a distance was pretty phenomenal.

Once we got over to Kowloon we were off and running to meet up with the rest of our group since we knew they made it to the restaurant far more expediently. Despite our desire to hurry we couldn’t help but be taken in by the sights and sounds and spent some time just looking around. Another interesting coincidence happened as well, it turns out that the ferry station is located on Salisbury Road, which also happens to be the same name as the street that I grew up on and where I live to this day. After taking our time and getting our bearings we were able to get the restaurant pretty quickly.

Our other group had been there for 20 minutes so we proceeded to sit down and order our dinners. The one beautiful thing about going to a place like the Hard Rock, especially if you have been to it before, is that the menu is pretty similar regardless of where you are. I ordered my usual, the Pulled Pork sandwich, largely because I wanted some comfort food after eating food more common to the Asian culture for most of the week. After dinner we hit the gift shop and picked up some great souvenirs. No trip to the HR is complete for me until I add a new shot glass to my growing collection so it was a nice addition.

It was already quite late when we wrapped up so we decided to call it an evening. Of course we could have taken a cab along with our other group but we decided to experience the underground. While not too different from any other subway I was on, it was remarkably clean – almost spotless – and added yet another type of transportation to my growing list of modalities that I used while in Hong Kong. It also gave us a chance to see more of the city at night because the train station we needed to get off at was quite a few blocks from our hotel.

I promised myself when I left for this trip that I would really take in all that Hong Kong had to offer. With a few days remaining, I feel like I have already accomplished that, but I really am excited to find some more things to do.

Fortunately for me, my numerous calls to U.S. Air and Singapore Air finally paid off, at least in terms of giving me some peace of mind. Little did I know that the concierge at the Grand Hyatt was on top of the situation from the moment I checked in. Around 10:30 in the morning I received a call from the hotel front desk asking if it would be ok if they brought my luggage up to my room. Needless to say I was ecstatic. It’s hard enough being so far away from home, but it’s even worse when all you really have is your laptop bag and the clothing on your back. I guess the travel addage is true…there are only two types of luggage: carry-on and lost, and it served as a great learning experience for me and tip for future trips…take at least two days of clothing in a carry-on bag just in case.

Shortly after getting my bag and unpacking I took a long hot shower and put on some clean clothing. Never in my life did I think that something as mundane as clean clothing elicit such happiness and relief. I no sooner got dressed that I received a call from my colleagues asking if I wanted to head out on the town again and possibly make another stop at the Stanley Market since our first visit was really too short to really explore everything the market had to offer.

We first headed to the Craft Market, which despite it’s rustic sound is actually a pretty high-end shopping area / department store. It is really unlike anything I have ever seen and what they sold was really quite extraordinary. We only spent a limited time there before realizing that we weren’t going to find many deals and those that we found were still quite pricey. That didn’t stop us all from making a few purchases, but we knew the Stanley Market is where we needed to go to really do some shopping.

Our group consisted of 5 of us and we took a cab on our next adventure. An interesting aspect of Hong Kong travel is that the taxi cabs are allowed to carry 5 passengers instead of the more typical 4 passengers (1 passenger per seat belt) that we are accustomed to in the U.S. The taxi ride from our hotel is approximately 20 minutes, largely due to the winding nature of the roads and the fact that traffic is quite heavy during the day. It was definitely a ride of a lifetime as our driver bobbed and weaved through traffic and got us to the market quickly (and a bit shaken up as well).

I headed off on my shopping adventure with a member of our I.T. staff who is travelling with us and we had a blast. Stanley Market is located quite near the water and we came to realize that the surrounding area is quite similar to the boardwalk at a typical beach. We spent quite a few hours exploring the surrounding area and visiting a number of really quaint shops. In the end I made some fantastic purchases including a tremendous oil painting of the Hong Kong skyline that I am going to give Laura as a gift. Between the weather, the adventure and the company, it was definitely a fun day and I was left with a lot of fond memories.

We headed back to the hotel, dropped of our purchases, and met up with a few more members of our group to head out for dinner. We chose a Japanese restaurant in our hotel and I had the experience of eating things that I had never tried before like tofu, seaweed, and a few types of raw fish. My main course was an Austrailian beef steak that was marinated in soy sauce and it was delicious. From what I was told, it wasn’t a traditional Japanese meal and seemed to be more of a fusion between Chinese and Japanese. It was good and very different, but I’m not sure that I could do it every day. The evening ended there as we have a pretty busy schedule ahead of us tomorrow.

Well, after taking the great tour of Hong Kong we headed back to the Grand Hyatt to catch our breath, eat lunch and figure out what we were going to do next. On these business trips we work hard and play hard, so we try to maximize every bit of time we have. We decided to have lunch at a hotel associated with our hotel called JJ’s, a Thai restaurant. Instead of trying to order for ourselves we asked our waiter to order a representative sample of everything on the menu that we could share among the group. Truthfully, I never had Thai food before so I can’t really say how good it was, but I can say that it was tasty and I really enjoyed the way Thai food combines sweet and spicy flavors into many of their dishes. Like many other Asian foods, I think Thai food is definitely an acquired taste, but I can say that my introduction led me to think it was another type of food that I would enjoy just about anywhere (so long as it was good!)

Lunch consisted of many courses and lively conversation and I think we spent a few hours there. The group decided that after lunch they would freshen up and then head over to Kowloon (across the harbor) to do some more shopping at the “Night Market”. As for me, I was feeling pretty tired and dirty by then, so while I wanted to go and experience some more of the area, I thought better of it and decided to stay at the room. I took a shower (which felt great) and then crawled into bed for what I thought was going to be a short nap (it was around 4:30). When I woke up, it was 11:30 PM. I guess I was more tired than I would have thought. The downside was that I hadn’t eaten dinner and my minibar didn’t exactly have a huge variety of treats to choose from. I spent the next few hours trying to get in touch with Singapore Air and U.S. Airways to try and figure out if my luggage had a chance of arriving today.

It was a very frustrating experience for me as everyone I spoke with didn’t speak English very fluently and I found myself explaining my situation over and over with little success. An interesting tidbit is the fact that the customer service folks at Singapore Air, who I would have expected to have more difficulty with English actually spoke it considerably better than the customer service representative at U.S. Airways. Go figure. By the end of my time on the phone I felt somewhat confident that my luggage was indeed enroute and I should be receiving it at some point during the next day.

It was now around 3:00 AM local time and I figured I should try to catch a few more hours of sleep. I didn’t feel tired, but I wanted to try to equalize myself so I could be effective during the remainder of my time here. Unbelievably, I fell right to sleep and woke up around 7:00 AM local time. My mission for the rest of the morning was to find my luggage. I was tired of being a captive in my room and wanted to be able to get out and my luggage was the key to the whole equation.

Fortunately, after a few unsuccessful calls to the Singapore Air luggage desk I finally contacted them. They said that my bag had been on the flight and was in the process of going through customs. The minute that it cleared customs, they would ship it to the hotel. That was a few hours ago and I don’t have my luggage yet, but I know it will be here soon.

I had no sooner checked into my room that I received a call from my colleague, Judy, asking if I wanted to go on the guided tour of Hong Kong that had been arranged for our group. Despite the unknown location and status of my luggage, the fact that I had been travelling for almost 2 days and hadn’t had a shower and didn’t have a change of clothes, I agreed. I guess from my perspective, I figured everyone who I’d be with would understand my situation and I knew that if I didn’t do it I would long regret it. Below are some pictures that one of my colleagues took during the tour. I did bring my camera but unfortunately, the extra battery and charger are in my luggage. Trailing the pictures is a bit of dialogue explaining what I saw.

Our tour guide, Grace, arranged a half-day tour that would give us all a good overview of Hong Kong. We started with a Sanpan (small motorized boat) tour of the Harbor particularly focused on the giant floating restaurant (Jumbo) and the boat people. The Jumbo is one of the major sites to see in Hong Kong and is supposed to be a fantastic restaurant. The boat people were called this because they were fishermen who had literally given up living on dry land and instead lived on a houseboat when they weren’t out to sea fishing.

After finishing our tour on the water we headed for dry land, and more importantly to the large public markets that are somewhat famous in Hong Kong. In these markets you can find anything from classic Chinese craft pieces to brand name, designer cast-offs. The prices here are also quite excellent and if you are feeling lucky, you can engage in some negotiation.

We spent approximiately an hour at the markets and I was able to pick up some staples to get me by until my luggage showed up and a few gifts for Laura, Andrew, my mom and dad. It was a lot of fun and my only complaint is that an hour was simply not enough time to spend in such a large place. Oh well, at least it is only a short taxi ride from our hotel, so I may sneak back later in the week.

From the markets our next destination was Victoria Peak. The Peak is one of the highest, if not the highest, locations on the island where you can get a breathtaking view of the business district and harbor. It was very much worth the windy ride up the mountain to reach it. Here is a website that gives you more information and the ability to see some panoramic views from the Peak: The Peak Hong Kong.

After spending some time there, we then took the funicular (cable car) from the top to the bottom. I have ridden funicular’s before but none that took on such an extreme mountain. At times I am certain we were at a 60° pitch. It was a lot of fun and a nice way to conclude our tour of the island.

Well, after a 14 hour flight, I finally made it to Hong Kong. The Singapore Air flight that I took was crowded but comfortable and the time seemed to go by pretty quickly thanks to sleeping for almost half of the flight and reading a great book for the other half. (More on the book in a separate post). The most amazing thing about the flight was the flight path we took. If you have never taken a international flight you would assume that the old addage “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line” would apply. However, in this case it isn’t true. Instead of flying directly across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Hong Kong, the flight path took us over western Canada, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, Siberia and then down the Eastern Asian coastline.

The above graphic isn’t the exact flight path, but it is pretty close to what we actually did. I wasn’t aware of this at the time, but found out after inquiring that it has to do with the curvature and rotation of the earth. Interesting stuff.

The plane touched down a little after 6:30 am and the deboarding process went quickly. Making it through immigration was a non-event as they have a pretty efficient process in place to minimize everyone’s wait. The final hurdle that I had to clear was claiming my luggage and finding the car that would take me to the hotel. I should have known that something was bound to go wrong since everything had been going so smoothly. I tried to find my bag on the luggage carosel, but after 10-minutes of fruitless searching, I came up empty handed. I even had extra help as the COO for the Association that I work for was on the same flight and was searching along with me.

I approached the Singapore Air luggage desk and they told me that it was likely still in San Francisco probably because U.S. Air never indicated that it had to continue on with me to Hong Kong.

Not a good way to start a trip to a city you have never been to before and that is literally thousands of miles away from home. Despite my frustration, the airline did step-up and gave me 450 HKD (approximately $58.00 U.S.) to help me pick up some basics (toiletries, etc.). It should help a bit, but I just hope it arrives on the next flight in because I didn’t pack much in my carry-on luggage.

With every negative there is always a positive to counteract it. In this scenario was the fact that the hotel had a car waiting for me (a super-nice Mercedes) and they made sure that the ride to Hong Kong Island was very enjoyable. As an added bonus, I got to have an enjoyable conversation with my COO and got to know him a bit better. From what I could observe on the ride between the airport and hotel, Hong Kong looks like a fascinating place and I can’t wait to get out and do some exploring. The hotel we are staying at – the Grand Hyatt – is nothing short of phenomenal and I was treated like a international dignitary from the moment I got out of the car. In fact, I had two people assigned to me to carry my luggage and take me to my room. They also inquired about any additional needs and I explained my luggage issue. My assigned Concierge took it as a personal assignment to track down my luggage.

Considering it is still early, this day has been a roller coaster. Hopefully, I will be able to find some balance between good and bad, and just be able to enjoy the remainder of my time in HK. More to come…

Well, after over an hour delay we finally got of the ground from Philadelphia. Admittedly, it was a lot better than I make it out to be. The only good part about having 5 hours between connecting flights is the fact that you have plenty of time “just in case”. For me, I spent the 4 hour flight doing some preparing for my upcoming meetings and reading. The San Francisco Airport is pretty big, not on the scale of O’Hare or Atlanta, but a lot bigger than my home airport (Lehigh Valley International), and it’s really nice.

Getting through security was a little more intense than I have experienced previously but overall it wasn’t too bad. The biggest difference is the sheer diversity in the International terminal. It’s really a great mix of men and women, young and old, from around the world. I think that is probably the best part of travelling for me, experiencing the diversity and culture. I learn something new on every trip and from the looks of things, I am in store for a great learning experience.

I considered the first leg of my adventure the warm-up for what was in store for me during the San Francisco to Hong Kong leg of the trip. While I did ok, I got a bit restless at the 3 hour mark around the same time I finished reading the first of three books I brought with me. I decided to start off the trip with a book titled Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel. I chose the book for a few reasons. The first is the fact that the authors name is oddly close to my own name. In fact a simple juxtapositon of vowels would create my name. The second is the fact that I needed to get outside of my reading rut. Lately, I have really been focused solely on education, psychology, business and technology and while that is what my career is about, I decided to branch out a bit into something different. Finally, something that I don’t really talk about that much is the fact that I have a bachelors degree in History (and Political Science – I was a dual major) and am a certified Social Studies teacher in Pennsylvania. As such, I taught Geography at the middle school level and it is an area that I really love.

The book was highly rated both on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. It also received rave reviews from the New York Times and Newsweek. Since my reading time is really important to me, knowing that I am getting a good book is pretty important to me. The story was how a tradesman – actually a master carpenter – was able to take on the establishment in the 18th century and figure out a very effective way to determine a ships position in terms of latitude (which was easily solved long before) and longitude. The longitude portion of the equation is where John Harrison was able to create a time-piece that accurately kept time in the harsh and often unpredictable environment of the open ocean. The problem had been attempted to be solved by the likes of Galileo and Sir Issac Newton and Edmund Halley. As the story develops it is a true battle between the competing areas of astronomy and engineering. And in the end, the solution lie in the development of new technology that proved to be reliable, accurate, and extremely user-friendly as compared to the tried and true methods of taking numerous calculations over many hours and then using algorithms and charts to make the determination which only the most seasoned and educated sea captains could do with any degree of accuracy.

I am not doing the story full justice in my brief explanation but it was fascinating. My only complaint is the fact that the book seems to bog down in the middle as many of the early theories of how to solve the problem were tried and ultimately failed. Otherwise, I found the book to be extremely well written and researched despite the fact that the author didn’t cite and footnote (to her own admission) as is common practice with books of a historical nature. It was a perfect travelling companion and just fed into my amazement of how far we have come in a few centuries.

Now, as I am sitting in the International Terminal at Gate G95, tired from my travel, I am looking at the plane that will take me across the Pacific Ocean. I am actually awestruck by the size of the 747. I have flown on some big planes before, but I have never been on a 747 prior to this trip.

While the picture isn’t what I am currently seeing, it is the exact plane that I am flying on. I can’t wait to get inside to see what it’s like. I’m not sure how much I will really enjoy it as I plan to sleep as much as I can during the flight. Although, even as tired as I am, I am not sure that I could possibly sleep the entire 14 hours of the flight. Fortunately for me, I have another two books that I can read so I should have no shortage of things to do during the flight.

Tomorrow is another day and I can’t wait to see what it has in store for me.