Nota Bene

Finally, my Asia-Pacific tour (Korea–Japan–Singapore–Thailand) had come to an end. My physical body, if it could talk, would probably say “and thank god Buddha it’s ended too!”, since the tour sure was physically draining: flights every ~three days, and nothing much else besides work-work-work in-between. However, my mind would never say such a thing. It’s what I do, and what I love doing. It’s on trips away like this one when I feel fully alive – completely in-sync with the rhythm of life.

Bye bye Thailand! We’re heading home!…

Read on…

Hi all!

Central Bangkok river excursion – done.

Next up, as promised, it was back on land and a walk over to the Grand Palace and former royal residence. And royally grand, swish, sumptuous, splendid and magnificent it is too…

All righty. Walkies…

Read on…

Our business in Thailand duly completed, it was time for my traditional spot of micro-tourism. First things first – boat trip on the Chao Phraya river through the heart of Bangkok…

In a nutshell: beauty all around – plenty.

We pass our first “temple/palace” – a beaut – but, curiously and perplexingly, it turns out it’s nothing special – neither noteworthy nor Wiki-worthy. I couldn’t even find it on Google Maps! Rather – I could, but it’s not marked as this or that temple or palace; it’s just someone’s mansion, it seems! ->

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Korea ✅
Japan ✅
Singapore ✅
Thailand ⬜ – therefore, that’s where we’re headed next!…

My spring tour of Southeast Asia had entered its final stretch, after which would come a long-awaited few days of decompression back home before getting back into the thick of busy things: new contacts, contracts, projects, products, services and solutions – and all so as to make the world more secure, safer, better. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Rewind – to Bangkok!…

Thailand’s capital is a short two-hour flight from Singapore. Take-off, ascent, “the seatbelt sign has been switched off”, a brief pause, “the seatbelt sign has been switched on”, and a short while later you’re touching down. First up – checking into our hotel. And here’s the view from my window:

I hadn’t been here for a full 17 years! I’d been in Thailand in the interim – at conferences in Phuket for example, but not the capital. It was therefore tricky remembering what it was like here nearly two decades ago. Anyway, today – it’s like this:

Ah – some of it was coming back to me: yes, for example, on that tall, thin skyscraper just to the right of the center in the following pic, I remember distinctly… a Johnnie Walker whisky advert! Its text read “don’t drink and drive”! Let me guess – drink and walk, instead?!

As you can see, the city is densely built up. Something else is dense – and long – here: the traffic jams down below (.

Here’s a less salubrious district, just like in any other city:

And down there the streets are a hive of busy activity:

There was a hive of busy activity at our event too – especially up on the stage:

The following day – walkabout-tourism! But I’ll save that for tomorrow’s post. For now – photographic hors d’oeuvres…

The Chao Phraya river:

We took a nice long stroll around the grounds of the Grand Palace – the kings’ residence:

And a superb stroll it was too!

And several more nibbles pics:

To be continued!…

All the photos from Thailand are here.

Hi folks!

I’ve already had a +1 of Singapore tourisms. Well here comes another – the one I was originally planning, and had wanted to see for years. And here it is – as if beckoning me from my hotel window:

I didn’t know what it was called before getting there, but was informed once we arrived – by a boulder ) ->

And it’s right in the center of Singapore:

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Hi folks!

Only just coming back to my senses after a mega-hectic few weeks in Southeast Asia on business. All went to plan, all good, plus a spot of micro–tourism was tagged on too. But after such an intense couple weeks, it was high time to lie low for a while – regroup, re-center, re-balance… all that. Then I needed to catch up and finish off my on-the-road tales from the APAC side, of course…

The next port-of-call on our Asia-Pacific tour was Singapore. Hurray!

I’d been to this city-island-state more than a dozen times before, and seen plenty of its places of interest. How many exactly? Going through my posts tagged with Singapore would probably tell you that, but let’s just say “many” – especially for such a small island. But if you do click on that link, you’ll also find lots on Singapore’s main tourist attractions, events, street scenes, hotel stays, eats, and so on and so forth. (Btw, perhaps the highlight among all my visits was the time I had the honor of being at a meeting and shaking hands with none other than Lee Kuan Yew (sadly no longer with us), the founding father of Singapore. That was I think way back in 2012 or 2013.) But there were still a few places I hadn’t yet checked out – with one that I’d been wanting to see for years: Singapore’s central park/nature reserve. But that was to come later on. First up – a walk to the National Gallery Singapore in the building of the Former Supreme Court. Why? First – hadn’t been; second – locals recommended them, and here’s why! ->

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Today, aviation theme…

Window-seat air travel can be strange. There you are, ensconced, with plenty of thoughts whirling around in your head, but your brain doesn’t pay any attention to them – it just keeps looking out the window. Then, something aerial-awesome comes into view. Thoughts? What thoughts?! And then the hands reach for the camera almost automatically, and it’s “here we go again!” At least, that’s how things played out recently when flying on the short flight from Tokyo to Singapore, in this here mid-size airliner:

Right from the get-go after take-off the views out the window were fantastic. First up – the Japanese strong work-ethic, preciseness, and space-economy were in full view as far as the eye could see ->

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Food is seldom a guest on these here blog pages of mine, but when it is – it’s something really special. Like when it’s Japanese food that I’ve been eating – in Japan itself. Oh my gorgeous-gourmet-grub!…

I’m normally partial to Japanese food no matter how far away I am from the country itself, but that’s often merely sushi – which the Japanese themselves scoff it. But in the good country itself, in a good restaurant (in good company:), it’s oh-so not-just-sushi: it’s OMG-varied and interesting and simply wonderful!…

We were real lucky this time: we dined at the famous – at least among the gourmet-dining set and restaurant critics – Kamakurayama (which means Kamakura mountain). Ok, enough text; time for pics of the dishes we were served. Just a shame you can’t taste them )…

First up, of course – my starter:

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Hi folks!

I’d been meaning to put fingers to keyboard for a few days, but I’d been just too busy of late, as I’ve mentioned in my previous three posts. Finally, the much-anticipated downtime at the end of our stay in Japan had arrived, which saw most of the day dedicated to steady-tempo tourism and some free time in the evening to write this here post…

As mentioned, we were headed to Kamakura, just south of Tokyo. First up, we needed to drop by the hotel where we were to have dinner that evening (oh-my-gourmet that was too; more in that in a bit…). Alas, the hotel wasn’t a traditional Ryokan, but it was just as charming – and our on-foot tourism began right from its front door…

First up, the Buddhist Hōkoku-ji temple:

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The flight from Seoul to Tokyo takes just two hours. Above Korea it was cloudy, so there wasn’t much worth looking at – or taking photos of – out the windows. Just as well really, since it meant I could concentrate on some admin catch-up (mostly checking emails) – the kind of thing that always gets neglected on a business trip with a busy schedule. On the plane I was undisturbed for most of the way (save for the flight attendant, who kept asking if I’d like another drink:). Nearing the end of the flight, I took my first look out the window to find that the cloud had cleared and Japan was clearly in view down below ->

Read on…