So, I’m typing my first document on my new work computer; it’s a nifty little thing – teeny weeny and powerful, with a metric fuckton of hard drive memory. So I am one of those wankers that you often see in Starbucks, writing on a computer – except mine is a Samsung, rather than an Apple. Although don’t think I wasn’t tempted; there was a gorgeous little 10” MacBook Air in Fortress for about HK$8000 that was very tempting indeed! However, I need this laptop for work and the fact is the ubiquity of Windows makes it simply more practical to get a PC rather than a Mac.
I didn’t take a trip to the Wan Chai Computer Centre (two floors of electronic geek heaven, by the way, right next to the Wan Chai MTR station - tell them I sent you) on a whim. I needed a replacement laptop as I dropped my old one – in front of a group of senior executives from a multinational soft-drink manufacturer that I was training in Shanghai. So, having comprehensively knackered it, I concluded it was a sign from the universe, telling me it was time to trade up – hence the new machine.
While I practice getting used to the keys, I thought I’d jot down two random thoughts on the journey so far:
Shanghai traffic
Shanghai is officially a megacity and is generally considered to be the fourth largest city (by population size) in the world. The traffic has to be seen to be believed: and even when you see it, you won’t believe it. If you can imagine four lanes of traffic jammed into two “official” lanes, all of the drivers bouncing between the accelerator, the brake and the horn, you’re beginning to get a rough idea. Now throw in a variety of mopeds, scooters, bikes and assorted other vehicles and you're getting closer. Seriously, I have never seen so many bad drivers! Although, weirdly, I didn't see any examples of roadrage or a single accident!
The knock-on effect of this traffic volume is that getting anywhere by road is… well, a challenging experience, shall we say. For some reason, the hotel I was staying at was 20 kilometers from the training venue, a journey which took over an hour to complete. In fact, it was quicker for me to drive from Banbury to Heathrow (and park) than it was to get to the training venue.
And the pollution… oh boy, the pollution. I’ve been to Shanghai before so I was kind of prepared for it but it’s still pretty bad. After only two days I had a sore throat and the whole trip probably took a couple of months off my life.
Weird things happen – and so do good things
If you’ve ever seen Lost in Translation you’ll have a fair idea of the life of anyone who travels a lot – well, except for the whole meeting/falling in love with Scarlett Johansson, of course – and this trip was no exception. Breakfast at the hotel consisted of the usual cereals and a cup of tea, accompanied by George Michael’s Last Christmas and assorted other Christmas songs. The upside of the journey was that I met a lovely trainer from Beijing called Ivy, who was invaluable when it came to translations (native Mandarin speaker, so I guess that helps) and a lovely person to boot. A trip to Beijing is definitely on the cards for later in the year, methinks.
No comments:
Post a Comment