Finally Back Online!

Apologies for the long absence. First it was the busy holiday season (brother and sis-in-law in town for a week, last-minute shopping, party-planning etc.), then it was Hong Kong's internet access blackout from a damaged submarine cable caused by an earthquake in Taiwan. I had no access to my gmail account or my yahoo-hosted accounts for several days. Life without internet access just comes to a standstill. Couldn't even get onto zuji.com to book my hotel in Hanoi for 2 Jan! Anyway, big sigh of relief now that google sites are accessible again. *Phew!*

Promise to post pics of kapok and Stanley's beautiful new public toilets when I get to Macau tomorrow evening to prepare for the Casino Royale NYE party. Finally, got a game worked out, but still a few odds and ends to take care of, like picking up some Champagne and creme de cassis for kir royales. In the meantime, check out this cute, little upstairs shop called onefineday (3/F, 85 Queen's Road Central on the northeast corner by the escalator; T: +852 28106805) started by four women with backgrounds in advertising. They have a great selection of books and magazines on travel, living and gastronomy, cute gifts sourced from the owner's extensive travels and a great selection of CDs.

Inbox Worthy Events: Save Star Ferry Demonstration Tonight, Global Youth Fund, Venice Biennale Forum

Arrived at the office this morning greeted by 30+ of FS's bright, cheery Form 6 students (they were on their way to a picnic, but the got stranded when it started to rain.). They were all sitting on the floor with an awesome picnic spread, which included boxes of Krispy Kreme of course. I was scanning my inbox while munching on fish balls and chicken wings while listening to them question FS about her love life: "How long have you been dating your boyfriend?", "When will you get married?", "How many kids will you have?". It all brought to mind Deborah Solomon's Questions for Dr. Louann Brizendine in this Sunday's NYTimes Magazine. Dr Brizendine, whose debut book is "The Female Brain", explains why "a women's brain structure a good deal of her behaviour, including a penchant for gossiping and talking on the phone".

"The hormone of intimacy is oxytocin, and when women talk to each other, they get a rush of it. For teen girls [and I would have guessed that FS's inquisitive Form Six students were all around 17 years old] especially, when they're talking about who's hooking up with whom, who's not talking to whom, who you like and don't like -- that's bedrock, that excites the girl's brain," explains Dr. Brizendine in the article.

Nothing like real life observations of scientific theory. But what I really wanted to know from the girls was how they would respond to Global Youth Fund's This I Believe essay project, for which an e-newsletter had landed in my inbox. In addition to believing that it would be a waste if beautiful girls did not get married and have children, I wanted to know what else these girls believe in? What are their "personal philosophies, core values and beliefs"? I had met Charles Tsai, the executive director of Global Youth Fund over the summer in Vancouver and was really impressed by his idea to start a fund that invests in projects, selected by youth around the world through a democratic process, addressing some of the world's most urgent challenges such as climate change, poverty, disease etc. So it was great to read news of some of their most recent accomplishments.

There are two other events that landed in my inbox this morning, worthy of a plug:
TONIGHT, 15 December 2006, 7pm: There will be a demonstration to save the old Central Star Ferry Pier from the wrecking balls.
Tomorrow, 16 December 2006, 2-5:30pm @ Permanent Exhibition Gallery, Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre, Kowloon Park, Haiphong Road, Tsim Sha Tsui: A forum of Hong Kong's
Venice Biennale (Architecture) exhibitors. Vice Versa was the first exhibition of Hong Kong architecture at the Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition.

Saved by Google Translation!

English is a fairly universal language when it comes to the travel business. Even when it comes to making bookings at rural ryokans in Japan, I've managed with emails in English. Finally, I hit the limits of English being the universal business language when I tried to get a confirmation for a hotel booking in Sendai, Japan (home to Toyo Ito's Sendai Mediatheque). And Sendai is a city, not the countryside!

For this particular trip that I was planning for a client, I had corresponded in English with Saryo Souen, a ryokan in the nearby onsen town of Akiu as well as a hotel in Matsushima, all without problems. But when it came to booking Sendai Kokusai Hotel, my emails went unanswered. So I resorted to calling. All seemed to go well in English until I asked for a confirmation by email. That did not happen. So I got FS, one of our Japanese-conversant partners to make the call to no avail. Finally, I caved and turned to online translation tools. I normally use online translation tools to read emails that come in in a different language (for example, the one in Spanish from Ecuador confirming that a transfer had been made). But up to now, I've shied away from using them to send translated versions of my correspondences. Because reading what I see translated for me in English, I figure the recipient at best would be laughing out loud, and at worst would be absolutely puzzled. But I was at my wits' end with Sendai Kokusai so I decided to give Google's Language Tools a whirl (Normally, I use Alta Vista's Babel Fish, but for some strange reason, I decided to give Google a try).

The first email I shot off got a reply within an hour. The reply, oddly enough, came back in English. But the reply had misundertood my request (to change a current booking to a different date. Instead, they thought i wanted to extend the booking to the new date.). So I simplified my email to read (of course, I have no idea what the Japanese really says. I was simply going on blind faith that it said I wanted to book a double room for the night of 19 December):

Subject: 緊急: 2006年の12月19日予約

仙台貴重なKokusaiのホテル、
私は2006年12月19日に1夜の氏のためにXXX 1つの二人部屋を確保することを望む。 電子メールによって確認しなさい。
本当にありがとう、Winnie

The reply came back promptly:

Dear XXX

Thank you for your E-mail.

Your reservation is completion.

On 19,December 2006.

For 1 night,1double room 2people.

Room charge \21945(tax included)

Thank you

Sendai Kokusai Hotel

Reservation Desk

Finally! Success after a week of unanswered emails and long-distance phone calls (thankfully, there's Skype). So two useful lessons learnt:
1. A poorly-translated request in the recipient's language is appreciated and therefore worth the effort.
2. Be careful how the original text is phrased before translation. Keep ideas and sentance structure as simple as possible. Otherwise, meaning can get lost in translation if not totally warped.

Tidbits: Kapok, Kahn and a Bryn Mawr dinner

Was going to blog about Kapok, this really cool shop at 9 Dragon Road in Tin Hau (T: +852 2549 9254), which has a beautiful, huge tree smack dab in the middle of this rather quiet street. But, me being my usual absent-minded self, I forgot my camera, so post will have to wait till Thursday. I only found out about this shop because daytauchung.com hosted a party there on Saturday night after having taken a group of AA (Architectural Association) students on a tour of Hong Kong.

Instead, just had to mention this NY Times article by Nicolai Ouroussoff: Restoring Kahn's Gallery, and Reclaiming a Corner of Architectural History, at Yale. Mainly because Kahn's Yale University Art Gallery was my favourite for the "Y" entry in Little Cream Book: Architecture. In the end, though, Kimbell Art Museum won over Yale as the Kahn representative. Reading the article made me a bit nostagic for the 3 years at Bryn Mawr I spent living in Erdman Hall (another Kahn work), by choice I might add (Erdman was one of the least favoured dorms on campus since most found Erdman cold). At least I can rest easy that Erdman Hall will not go the way of 1 Broadcast Drive, an apartment block in which I spent one year from 1979-1980. The Hong Kong government auctioned off the site a couple weeks ago. Sino Land won with a final bid of HK$1.94 billion or US$240 million (HK$9,868 per square foot)! In Hong Kong, you know you're getting old when your childhood memories start to disappear.

Digressing back to Bryn Mawr, had dinner on Friday at Lumiere (chosen out of practicality, but food turned out to be pretty good, although the bar ambiance was a bit to loud for diners) with a handful of alum and Prof. Toba Kerson, who's in town with her neurologist husband Dr. Larry Kerson to present a paper on the depiction of epileptic seizures in films at the 5th International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health in Hong Kong this week (her thesis is that while depictions of other chronic illnesses such as cancer and AIDS in film have changed dramatically over the decades, depictions of epileptic seizures have not and continue to reinforce stereotypes). Definitely not a topic that comes up much at your typical Hong Kong dinner table conversation, but it was one that I found fascinating. She's trying to compare films across many cultures as well but hasn't come across any Chinese films yet. I'm still trying to come up with some, but coming up blank. Anyone with ideas?

Carbon Neutral Travels

Those who read my previous post about watching An Inconvenient Truth on a flight back to Hong Kong from JFK will know that I stopped driving in Hong Kong because of this film. Of course, there was a bit of irony in the fact that while I was watching this film about the climate crisis, I was contributing more than 3 tons of CO2 to the atmosphere.

I was reading the online preview of this Sunday's (10 December 2006) New York Times Magazine and came across Michelle Higgin's article, Carbon Neutral: Raising the Ante on Eco-Tourism. It got me thinking about how much CO2 production my travel planning business enables each year. Most of my friends and clients would probably qualify as globetrotters who contribute at least 11 tons (or 22,500lbs) of CO2 each year from their flights (To qualify for Marco Polo Club Gold Status, you need to fly 60,000 miles). Now, there's a way to offset these carbon emissions and theoretically make one's jet-setting carbon-neutral (would also need to factor in hotel stays and drives). To calculate how much CO2 is produced, check out this calculator from Sustainable Travel International (STI also allows you to offset by buying CO2 offsets from myclimate.org). The article also mentions terrapass.com, which also has a very user-friendly site.

I did a bit of comparison shopping between the 2 sites for the cost of offsetting a round-trip Hong Kong to London Heathrow flight:
terrapass.com calculates the flight as 11,959 miles, emitting 4,664 lbs of CO2. From their site, I could buy 2 packages, each offsetting 2,500 lbs of CO2 for US$9.95 each. The total cost: US$19.90.
sustainabletravelinternational.org (partnering with myclimate.org) calculates the flight as 19,286km (roughly 11,984 miles), emitting 3,68 tons (roughly 7,360 lbs of CO2). From their site, a total offset would cost US$48.76.
As would be expected, the Europeans are stricter with their calculations than the Americans.

Now I know what I can get all my ski-bunny, performance car-driving, jet-setting friends and family for Christmas. Also, from 2007, WANLILU Play will use STI's calculator (because a report published by Clean Air-Cool Planet, released on 5 December 2006, ranks STI/myclimate.org as one of the "top performing" providers of retails carbon offsets. For a great discussion of this somewhat controversial report, check out this blog entry on World Changing's site) to calculate the amount of CO2 emissions for all the flights our clients. For clients who choose to buy carbon credits, we will match their carbon offset purchases up to 10% of the fee we charge for planning their trip (our minimum planning fee is US$1,000 per trip). Of course, I will do the same with my travels.

Nan Lian Garden, Starbucks vouchers

A couple of cool things:

NAN LIAN GARDEN (The site's only in English, but here's the link to the LCSD info page in English.)
I visited the gardens yesterday evening with some family friends. We were led around the beautiful T'ang Dynasty style gardens by SC who has been volunteering with them, helping out with the website and various marketing and PR efforts. The gardens opened to the public just last month. I had already heard a lot of praise for the gardens from friends who have been. Normally, gardens aren't really my sort of thing, but I was really impressed with Nan Lian. First of all, it's so easy to get there! From the Diamond Hill MTR station, there are clear sign postings for the gardens that you can't help but find it! It's less than a 5-minute walk from the MTR. Once inside, I was really impressed with the quality of its design and construction (haven't seen such high quality of construction in HK in a long while!). I wish I had gone during the day so I could have taken more pictures, but suffice it to say, it is evident everywhere that a lot of heart and soul went into the creation of these gardens (the vision of the head nun at Chi Lin Nunnery. SC told me it was her dream to create a sort of T'ang Dynasty-land, an urban oasis of calm). The biggest surprise was the vegetarian dinner we had. It was delicious! So if you can get a group of 10-12 people together to tour the gardens, definitely worth booking a table at the second floor restaurant (set menu). If you're just a small group, you can also dine at the ground floor restaurant. There's also a tea appreciation pavillion (a pot of tea here costs HK$120, there's a limited menu of dim sum snacks). The garden is open to the public free of charge from 7am-9pm. There are limits on the number of visitors allowed to visit (1,000 people at any one time), so try to avoid weekends.

I love this detail here. This is on the corner of one of the pavillions to allow the water collected from the roof to flow down. They were so civilized back then! In present-day Hong Kong, we still have to contend with the nuisence of drops of condensation from air conditioners dripping on passers-by below.

STARBUCKS CHRISTMAS VOUCHERS
I just discovered a really cool thing about Starbucks' Christmas vouchers, which I stupidly had not realized in previous years. They're HK$250 for 10 vouchers, each good for a tall beverage customized any way you like it. Every morning, I order a double, tall, light toffee nut, non-fat, no-whip latte, which costs HK$33. With the Christmas vouchers, I save HK$8/day! Needless to say, I bought a whole bunch that should last me until they come out with Chinese New Year vouchers. Funnily enough, that same morning, I came across this Business Week article on how Starbucks is doing very well from sales of their loyalty cards. Don't think the cards would fly here, since we can pay using Octopus cards (HK's cashless payment card that's one of the great things about living here), but I love the fact that pre-paying for 10 coffees (which I would run through in less than 10 days), gives me a 24% discount!

Urbanespaces dig up designer diggs in Singapore

It's always fascinating and inspiring to come across other people who merge their passions with their work. Hajar's email introduction of urbanespaces, a "boutique real estate firm in Singapore specializing in architecturally distinguised, unique properties", landed in my inbox this weekend. I clicked on the link and was intrigued by this very trendy-feeling site (Mercan Dede's music paired with a series of very arty photos). Then I started going through the site and came across a lot of beautiful properties in Singapore for sale and for lease. I like this one in East Coat, whose asking price is S$2 milliion, but if you go through the listings, they're all pretty nice. And then it made me wonder why a company such as this took so long to appear (Hajar says the company's only slightly over a year old). How did it all start? Hajar wrote: "Generic real estate depresses me and I realized this when I first saw a truly well-designed house that was up for rent." And so urbanespaces was born. But what really got me interested in the company was not just their focus on beautiful properties (a lot of companies do that elsewhere in the world), but also their desire to do good and be an active participant in the creative community (for example, organizing an architectural tour for the Singapore Design Festival and an exhibition having to do with critical theory in architecture). In the works now is a charity flipbook project to educate Lebanese children on the dangers of cluster bombs (Hajar's all-time favourite city is Beirut). Am looking forward to hearing more about this project.

Bay Area Theatre: Shotgun Players' The Forest Wars

I love posting about friends' projects! Kevin Clarke emailed about the Shotgun Players' production of The Forest Wars, a play written and directed by Mark Jackson (Lisa Drostova of San Francisco Magazine wrote that Johnson's 2003 The Death of Mayerhold was "one of the best new plays to come out of the Bay Area in years"). Kevin is performing in the play, which opens at The Ashby Stage in Berkeley tonight and runs through to 14 January 2007.

Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli

Featured: (L-R) Thu Tran, Drew Anderson, Kevin Clarke, Erin Stuart, Reid Davis

THE FOREST WAR

Local phenomenon Mark Jackson, creator of the critically acclaimed The Death of Meyerhold

returns to Shotgun Players with a new work that is finely tuned and stunningly staged.

The Forest War is high theatrical tragedy, with lovers torn apart, cruel villains, political intrigue,

and a sense of melodramatic fun keeping pace with the drama. Though it takes an ancient form,

the debate over violence, politics, and personal opinion is one that we're all facing daily in

newspaper headlines, television broadcasts and around our dinner tables.

Previews: Wednesday, November 29 and Thursday, November 30
Opening: Friday, December 1
Runs: Thursday - Sunday through January 14, 2007
All performances at 8PM

SPECIAL NEW YEAR'S EVE PERFORMANCE AND POST SHOW CELEBRATION

NO PERFORMANCES THE WEEK OF DEC 18-24

TICKETS / INFO / DIRECTIONS

www.shotgunplayers.org

+1 510-841-6500