Discovering a new airport!

As planned I spent the night in a new airport: Hangzhou. This is my way to discover what airports can offer, and Hangzhou had been quite comfortable. I could in fact sleep in a massage chair at the departure floor.

Also, being a quite small airport, even if it is open during the night the departure floor is extremely quite and they even switch the lights off!!

The night there was planned, but not the delay of the flights from Shenzhen. Maybe because most of China (central and north part) are having a terrible storm rainy weather, almost all flights have been delayed and some even cancelled. My flight for Hangzhou was on time as scheduled until the boarding time, then they start adding delay until they gave up and just said to wait.

Total lack of information, typical attitude of Chinese society, towards the masses that usually are too afraid of authorities to raise their head.. But after waiting for hours, the sheep there must have realized that air officers are not really officers, ie. they got no real power, differently from police or army.. so along the many hours of wait at least 2-3 times I heard shouts of angry passengers towards the air representatives. Once especially a large amount of people group around one guy shouting and probably threatening the gate officials, to the point that some of the security people arrived to calm the situation. After that, nothing changed. And the gate people keep being very unkind as if it is normal the passengers should just wait and shut up. I am happy to see even the Chinese passengers sometimes do not accept this.

At the end we were boarded around 1am (flight time was 22:05) and had a first sleep on the plane followed by a couple good hours on the massage chair!

As last note: the weather in Shenzhen had been cloudy and rainy for maybe 10 minutes.. most of the time sunny and hot as usual!!

FUNNY THING OF THE DAY – I like very much this hotel in Hangzhou because there is a pc in every room and also I had already tested my VPN tunnel with good results, but the internet explorer version is so old (6.x) that most pages do not open correctly.. so even if I will hopefully manage to post this, I did not manage to include the pictures.. I just could set the links (maybe.. if they work!)

Add — I can save the draft but I can’t publish the post!!! The “Publish” button does not appear in the screen, probably because the coding too advanced for this IE version!! I will have to use one WordPress application from iPhone (that amazingly let me open the blog even if I do not have any VPN set on the iPhone), but for doing that I have to go to the nearby Starbucks, because no WiFi in the hotel!!

20th Saku dojo anniversary – Endo sensei enbukai

20th Saku Dojo Anniversary & 19th Saku International Aikidô Kenshûkai in Saku, Japan – 2013/05.

This time I was a little farther…

Part 1:

Part 2:

I will upload soon the embukai of all the other people as well

Rinsed and happy

Here I am, packing the bag for tomorrow practice and then meeting a friend for sushi.

Hugs from Tokyo!!!

Brilliant recharge stations

I’m at Hong Kong airport and as already noticed in the departure hall check in area, there are a few charging hotspots with the common HK-UK power plug (if which I don’t have the adaptor) and… USB plugs!!

Brilliant!!!

Only pity my tablet charger is not USB type and I have still forgot to make a cable to mini jack for it. To do before next trip!

FUNNY THING OF THE DAY – Another brilliant thing is the free wifi all over the airport. And an extremely good connection!

On my way

Strong sun, more than 25 degrees and soon I’ll put my now heave backpack on my shoulders and head to the metro station. A little more than 1 hour and I’ll be in at Hong Kong border, than 1 more stop and bus to HK airport..

A night at the airport, for a change and a new entry in my airport bench experiences

Tomorrow Tokyo where I will meet in the night a good friend for a sushi dinner, best way to start this new Japanese experience!

Hombu dojo and Aikido Shinagawa Kouyukai on Saturday for getting 2 sessions with Irie sensei, and then most probably back to Hombu for 2 more sessions (but my conditions is far from top, so I will judge during the day what I can do.. thinking the week in Saku will be demanding as well!).

Sunday I have already scheduled both hombu and Rikuyokai Aikido dojo, where in the latter Endo sensei will be teaching.. and I know at least 1 would be a little envious for this, even if I do know his Sunday is usual Aikido top as well

So, cheers folks, more news soon from a land where neither my blog nor wordpress are banned

Got a cold in Shangai, but not that cold!

This would not be such a news just thinking that normally here in the south the temperature is between 15 and more than 20 while when we got to Shanghai and spent the night on some benches at Hong Qiao airport the temperature was quite below 10 degrees C.. and a constant draught coming from the elevator shaft not too far..

As companion for the sleepless moments I had the Norwegian version of “Red Dust”, nice book about the travel across China by Ma Jian, 马建, in the early 80s. Book and writer are banned in China for, of course, political reasons!

a night at Hongqiao airport

Unfortunately other news from the area between Shanghai and Anhui province (yes, where there is Hefei and Anqing, 潘雷’s hometown), passing through Hangzhou and Jiangsu province are on a completely different level of gravity: an outbreak of H7N9 flu, also known as avian influenza virus or bird flu virus, has already caused 6 deaths (as for Sunday).

The event is so serious that WHO has created a page for info about the human infection spreading.

Let’s just say that during the weekend we kept ourself far from chicken and similar products.

Today my sniffles and coughing and sore throat are healed already, so I can be sure it was never anything serious, but I had noticed already when I went to Hong Kong to practice Aikido that the usual health control at the border had more “doctors” than usual and they seemed a bit more active around the infrared cameras to check the temperature of the people in transit.. Let’s see this Sunday, when I will cross again the border for more practice!

Long time no see, Shanghai!

Tomorrow starts the 清明节, Qingming festival, or Tomb Sweeping Day festivity, 3 days off form work, at which I add a forth one and take a trip to Shanghai to meet friends I haven’t seen in ages! That mens of course that next week will be a bridge including a working Sunday.. yeah!

On the oither hand, I will manage to catch 2 Aikido sessions, one at Shanghai International Central dojo and the typical first of the month Saturday of special practice at Shanghai Xijiao West Aikido dojo. Resulting not only in good Aikido but also in meeting lots and lots of friends after ages! This will help my mind during the working Sunday!

I miss also the feeling of a big city: going to Hong Kong helps a lot (maybe even too much!! it is really crowded in the streets HK!) and the offer in restaurants and activities there is something I also major miss in Longgang. Even Hefei was better!

Anyway, soon get on my way, and some time after also bye bye Longgang and China..

I’ll miss some as well, not from Longgang though!

Have a good wekeend folks!