Tough Mudder - Penguin Style

This weekend those of us in the Southern Hemisphere gained an hour as we bid farewell to Daylight Savings Time and got a bit close to our Northern friends (hooray only 14 hour difference with NYC!).

We capitalized on this time based windfall by heading to Philip Island, a 3 hour drive with Friday traffic, that turned out to be more fun than just a parade of penguins.

Coincidentally, Tough Mudder made its Australian debut on the island's F1 race track. We wandered lazily by after lunch to gawk; the first mudder wave went out at 8AM for a 3 hour romp through 28 British Special Forces obstacles over 25km of track.

Our favorite obstacles were Everest and the Slip n' Slide + Mud Wall. 

If you watch closely at the end of the clip in the back you can see the best team work in contrast to those who seem destined to wallow in the mud. The men removed their shirts and turned them into ropes to haul up their muddy mates.

Would you believe we actually walked away from this wanting to participate?! Everest was quite impressive not only because of the challenge, but because of the team work. We watched for a long time as the strong guys at the top helped waves of people make it over. We even watched a larger woman pump her fists in victory after her incredibly supportive team built a human ladder halfway up and four strangers pulled her the rest of the way.

Check out the rotund fireman on the bale watching the Mudders run through the choking smoke and flame. I think I'd rather have a Mudder rescuing me from a fire.

We were so weary from our afternoon in the sun watching people overcome extreme physical challenges, that we treated ourselves to Fish n' Chips @ White Salt.

That night we gathered on the beach to participate in uber-touristy penguin parade gawking and I realized that the little penguins also have quite the challenging journey that can only be accomplished with the help of mates. They gather in clumps off shore and then float in after dark settles on the beach. They struggle to get their footing as the waves crash and the stragglers catch up. After a few false starts, finally a brave leader sets out and the troupe follows hurriedly across the open beach to the shelter of their burrows. Not an easy feat for a one foot tall, flightless bird that's more graceful in the water than on land. This is not my video, but I'm grateful to the tourists with better equipment who managed to document the nightly penguin adventure.

 My second trip to Philip Island was certainly more fun than my first, mates really do make everything better.

Incredible India! in 12 hours

As with all marketing, India's slogan ignores the effort required to attain the promised goods. My adventure to get a visa is a frustrating tale that was a reminder of why people stay in their own countries. I was an American employed by an Australian company, on a business trip to Beijing trying to get a business visa to India. And the Indian embassy had outsourced their visa processing to a Chinese company. Needless to say, no travel agent could help me.

But I am stubborn and didn't end up in my current tangle of visas on accident. So I checked out of my Beijing hotel on Saturday morning and headed to the airport, Indian tourist visa in hand. After a four hour delay and rebooked flights in Hong Kong I landed in Mumbai (airport code BOM for Bombay, but also fitting for other reasons we will get into shortly).

The first thing I noticed was the smell. It is a tropical port on the Arabian Sea, and the moisture has made the airport a bit musty. Thankfully they are building a brand new terminal next door. The next thing I noticed was the people. It was 5am India time and the place was packed with people coming and going. On the ride to the hotel the streets were full of vegetable sellers and their wares lay about on the streets. The market would open at 7 and close at 10 before it really got hot. Most people work 6 day weeks, with the 2nd and 4th Saturday off. The market sellers seem to work every day.

HOT TIP: Looking for a flat screen tv on the cheap? You could head to Bangkok, which is what many people on my plane had done, I was amazed at the number of TV boxes stacked by the luggage carousel.

One sad casualty of my last minute trip to Mumbai was my planned snow boarding trip to Japan. So what do you do when: you have a snowboard, DHL will charge you $770 to ship it to Australia and you are heading to an equatorial country? Why, get lucky enough to have it lost en-route of course! Cathay Pacific is now doing for free what DHL wanted to charge more than the board was worth. And if that isn't finding the silver lining in a smog bound delay and a botched luggage transfer, I don't know what is.

Like China, there are lots of people around. Unlike China, they are not always industriously doing stuff when foreigners are around. In baggage claim there was an odd shortage of carts. I asked where they were and they shrugged me off saying they were outside and they would come in soon. I asked again and got a terse "as you were informed, they are outside". So much for customer service! I looked around and saw about 10 official looking staff idling about. I finally walked past all these people and fetched my own cart, I may have left the secure area in the process, it wasn't entirely clear.

When told my luggage was lost, I did encounter the blessing of good customer service from Cathay Pacific staff. They guided me through the three required forms, including my multiple botched attempts at the customs form (no dear, don't put down what it is ACTUALLY worth). And they agreed to ship my HK stranded bag to Australia ahead of me.

My fears that the hotel car had abandoned me during my luggage delay were allayed on exit. My name was on a card hanging over a railing in front of two young girls in Sarees. I was puzzled, but glad to see my name and in my 5am sleep addled brain, I thought, "maybe they do send girls to pick up hotel patrons in this country". I was thankfully brought back to reality by a friendly man in formal attire guiding me to a waiting car. He told me they will wait 2.5 hours after landing time because it often takes that long to clear the airport. This country is growing like a weed, think about what they could do with all that productive time if they reduced that to just 1 hour!

I bonded with my driver, as he had been suffering through my flight delays on this side and had been at the airport since 1am. I understood only 50% of what he said to me; I'm wondering why Indian accented English is still one of the hardest ones to understand. What I did understand was that upon arrival at my hotel, the guards checked the trunk and scanned the undercarriage for bombs. My luggage was screened to enter the hotel. China's security is far more subtle, thus easier to miss, but no less frightening.

Later on my drive around the city, my driver pointed out all the nice hotels that had been bombed. This made me ponder if this is related to why they ask you in so many times on the Visa application if you have any connection to Pakistan. It is one thing to read about these things and quite another to see it right in front of you.

But hey, I'm here and odds are in my favor that today there will be no bombing, so I got my day started since sleep seemed absurd as the sun peeked out from the horizon and the mini cricket field below came to life. I did what any self respecting American yoga student does in India, I did a sun salutation on the patio and felt the warmth of the tropical sun seep into my bones and the breeze blow away my memories of the freezing northern winter.

I shopped and I gaped and I revelled in the foreignness of Mumbai. I haggled and made a "friend", Raj. I laughed as a boy squashed his face up against his car window in the Mumbai traffic. And I turned my gaze as the beggar children approached. New York makes you cold so you can ignore the sad adult faces on the streets, but India makes your heart bleed when the children beg and you feel helpless and heartless as you ignore them.

I can only hope that this round of imperialism in the guise of commercial development helps more of them, in the long run, climb out of the slums. "They are filming the second Slumdog Millionaire here", my driver says, as we pass the sheet metal roofs and ragged underclass. The first one was a fabulous story about the triumph of love and the human spirit. I hope the second one stays true to that spirit and shines more light on this incredible place.

Loved the bright colors!

This was my first time going through metal detectors at a hotel - but not my last. 

The real Ice Man. I could have used some at that point.

Is it Iranian, is it Chinese? Who can tell, but I know they serve Coke!

Looks can be deceiving, this man is not a prince.

Why don't they sell these in Australian parks?!

I managed not to get ill on my trip to India - perhaps because I did not savor food delivered like this.
But it was tempting!!!

The Arabian Sea! 

It is time to Boogie!

Yes, that is a cow wandering in traffic. I imagine he wishes he was in a green field, holy or not, it didn't seem like a great place to be standing.

Different Four Square. 

Boy selling me something I didn't need in the midst of traffic. Nicer than a New York squeegee guy.

These gentlemen did not want me to be here. I'm used to encountering smiles in foreign places, but in this part of the slum, I was clearly not welcome. I really wanted some of that bread, but that was not happening.

Experian donated computers to this school. I got to spend the afternoon meeting some of the kids.

A version of Scrabble. I don't think my presence helped them focus.

A perfect example of product localization.

I loved the way the trucks were decorated. Like circus vehicles! I only got this photo at a gas station because on the road I was too busy hoping they wouldn't hit me to take a picture.

A school poster. I'm glad Uncle Sam is not always demanding money or guns.

Word.

An American on business in China, Employed in Australia seeks Indian Business Visa

Warning: Do not try this at home! Oh wait, this wouldn't be a problem at home...

Have you ever wondered what you'd get if you mixed Chinese bureaucracy with Indian bureaucracy and asked an American employed abroad to navigate it? If you did, it was probably a nightmare. So let me tell you my waking version.

First of all, the Indian embassy in Beijing has outsourced their visa processing. Yes, that's right, the Indians outsourced to the Chinese. The Indian embassy is a lovely new building next door to the US embassy, 美大使馆, which is easy to find and all taxi drivers know. The Indian visa processing center is in the next district, the address on the website is in English and google maps has no idea where No 5 Dongshuijing Alley is. I made a poor taxi driver go in circles in Beijing traffic trying to work it out and finally got someone on the phone to direct him. Once there, I went in the front and was promptly shown around the back to a crowded multi-country visa processing center. Thankfully they spoke English and they gave me a checklist that started me on what I consider to be a visa scavenger hunt for all the items on the list.

I remember fondly when I thought the application in Australia for a Chinese visa was hard. Those were the good old days. Now I long for the terse but efficient ladies on St Kilda road that took my form, letter and photos and returned my passport in 2 days.

I spent an entire day attempting to collect all the material for the business visa and discovered that I need an Original copy of a letter from my employer. But my employer is in Australia and I'm in Beijing, and I have 1 week before I need to leave and it will take one week to process the visa. Not going to happen.

So, what do you do when faced with a system that is not designed for your situation? You work around it! So now I'm going to fly to Mumbai as a tourist, and when they ask me why I have a snowboard with me I will tell them it is because I want to ride down the Taj Mahal and promptly get kicked out.

Summer Down Under

I just spent almost 2 months in Melbourne. Probably my longest single stay since I moved.  What have been up to that has kept me from my blog? So glad you asked!!

Underwater Adventures:

In December I became Dive Certified to 18 meters at Bay Play in Portsea. I dived the Pope's Eye and was lucky there were no nearby boat motors as I bobbed to the top. But I survived the strong current and taking my mask off in open sea water. Next up: diving with sharks in the Melbourne aquarium, live aboard on the Great Barrier Reef, dive trip to Hawaii with my bro, and cage diving with great whites with Sara.

Australian Sights:

In January, one of the hottest months in Central Australia we did a camping/hiking trip to Uluru (Ayer's Rock), Kata Tjuta and King's Canyon. It got up to 43 C/105 F. I learned that aboriginals don't like us to use the translation DreamTime to describe their creation stories since they feel so strongly that they really happened. I have photographic proof of the Devil Dog's presence at Uluru and a newfound respect for a very old culture. If you go, do not climb the rock. There are plenty of rocks to climb nearby and you are polluting the watering holes when you do.

Did you know that Australia has 500,000 wild camels and exports thousands of camels per year to the middle east? All that from a few over worked camels let loose 100 years ago.

House Hunting:

With predictions of continued over saturation in the US housing market and a ever growing immigrant population in Australia, it is time for me to buy a real asset in my new land of opportunity. I'm exploring in Prahran, Richmond, Fitzroy, Carlton, North Melbourne and South Yarra.

Working:

My regional team has expanded to include a Mobile Product Manager in Melbourne, Data Strategy Director in Singapore and Data Asset Manager in Beijing. I'm hiring an Email Product Manager in Australia to drive our Enterprise Email offerings in APAC. I have really come to appreciate the global reach Experian has and I work with amazing people at the local, regional and global level.

Next Up: working in Beijing and Snowboarding in Japan

Year end musings

I just spent over 2 weeks working in Beijing. It is my fourth visit this year and I am feeling a bit sad to leave this time. I have come to enjoy the rhythm of life in this sliver of China, despite the never ending American Christmas music soundtrack at the hotel.

It might be because I can now direct a cab driver to my office without showing him a piece of paper. It might be because I had enough time to enjoy the social life Beijing has to offer (and make great new friends!). It might be the amazement I still have for a country that pulled their cities into the 21st century in under 3 decades. 

I won't miss the smog, the traffic or the spitting. But somehow the graciousness of my hosts and the energy of the work environment makes it all worth it.

Two years ago at this time I was sitting in New York, dreaming about the next phase in my life. I set my sights on Australia as my base and Asia as my challenge. I started learning Mandarin at a stuttering pace and figuring out how to become an expat. I moved in April to Melbourne and was on a flight to China in June. My shipment from the US arrived in July and I have not regretted the move since.

Today I have a multi-entry China visa and a pile of frequent flyer miles. When people ask me where I am from, I hesitate. I am a global hobo. I was born in California, schooled in New York and now live in Australia 50% of my time and Asian hotels the other half. 

There are days when I feel a bit lonely, but usually I am too busy meeting new people to feel that way for long. I have met oil rig workers, barristers, engineers, researchers, developers, salesmen and students. They come from all over the world and have great stories. We are united by the ease of travel in this hyper connected world and the common English that is spoken by international travelers. 

I have learned not to make assumptions about the meaning of the words I speak or hear and I am always prepared to clarify a misunderstanding. The only thing that comes through universally is kindness. 

Last month a new mate went out of his way to give me a ride in the pouring Melbourne rain. Today a stranger let me go ahead of him in line because I was clearly in a hurry. I have had my colleagues regularly go the extra mile to make sure I can get my job done. Once, a stranger rescued my stuffed angry birds from a bullet train in Japan.

So as I wander this world looking for the welcome signs for hobos like myself, I always remember to smile and express my gratitude to all the people who make it possible.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my family, old friends, new friends and colleagues. As always, I look forward to a brighter year than the one before, but this one will be hard to beat.

恭祝圣诞, 并贺新禧

Single White Female Seeking Redwood for Friendship and Nostalgia

I grew up in a somewhat remote part of California, where the tallest trees in the world grow over 300 feet tall and live for thousands of years. They are the Coastal Redwoods, also known as Sequoia Sempervirens in Latin and 加州红杉木 in Chinese (literally "California Red Tall Tree"). They are also called living fossils because they are so ancient. Fossil remnants of their genus have been found around the globe in the same latitude, but until 1944 it was assumed that California was the only place they still grew natively.

My aunt Gladys, who lives in Humboldt county and visits the ancient redwood groves regularly, sent me a brochure she found from the Save-the-the-Redwoods League about Dawn Redwoods, Metasequoia in Latin and 水衫 in Chinese. These are a Northern relative of the Coastal variety whose fossils have been found in various places including Japan, Greenland and parts of the Canadian ice flows. This varietal was thought to have become extinct 20 million years ago, but in 1944, in a secluded valley in the Szechuan province of China, botanists discovered the first living Dawn Redwood. This is a scan from the brochure of one of the redwoods found in Hubei (spelled Hupeh in the caption) province in 1948.

So I was inspired to find to visit this unique discovery in Western China and ended up encountering redwoods in unexpected places along the way.

My first surprise came in the Botanical Garden in Australia. My first week exploring led me to the California section and there was an unmistakable redwood growing in the middle of Melbourne. It is probably not wet enough here for coastal redwoods, instead it is the Giant Sequoia varietal.

During one of my Asian trips I spent a few days in Japan. After an amazing meal at an upscale Japanese restaurant, I realized that their entry way was decorated by a large slab of redwood. My hosts didn't understand my excitement. But there is something quite reassuring about finding rare touches of home in far flung places.

Upon my return to Australia I attempted to find a tour company that might lead me to the Western province mentioned in the brochure since I am not yet so fluent to trust my skills outside a Tier 1 city in China. I stumbled upon a site that advertised exactly what I was looking for, but a few years too late. The tour company had hoped the lure of Redwoods would get California travelers to visit China, but apparently we are far and few between, so the tour is no more.

I then travelled to Beijing for work and while jogging in a well manicured park in the CBD, what should I encounter? Why, a Dawn Redwood, of course! A small specimen, but doing it's best to represent a proud genus.

I could now say I have accomplished my goal of seeing a Dawn Redwood in China. But I'm not quite satisfied. So I showed my brochure to a friend who is from a Western Chinese province and sought his advice. The brochure was all in English, so it took us a bit of searching and creative translation to figure out that 'Mo-tao-chi', supposedly the discovery site in Szechuan province from the brochure, was really 谋道溪 (in pinyin "mou dao xi") which literally translates to "seeking the path to the creek".

This does not result in any clear directions to the place and Google maps is quite confused by the search, but I know I am getting closer and hope to see a much older specimen in my later journeys to China.


During our search we found out that in Nixon's famous visit to China in 1972 he brought seedling redwoods from California. These are now growing in anywhere from 18 to all of the provinces of China depending on which article you read. So now I need to find at least one of those as well.  Because of how rare redwoods are, they are also known as Pandas in the world of Chinese Botany. 

As a return favor it seems that someone brought a Chinese Dawn Redwood to Massachusetts. So if you can't get to China, at least you can see one in the US, it is now over 50 years old and thriving in Mt Auburn Cemetery

Fukushima - personal perspective

I'm no expert in energy in general or nuclear power. I'm just a traveler and observer and this is what I see about the reaction to Fukishima.

I work in Asia Pacific, a massive area that contains billions of people who all approach life a bit differently. My job is to find solutions to problems that cross as many boundaries as possible and when they can't, optimize locally. 

I just spent almost two weeks in Beijing during their best season, Autumn. There were actually days I saw the blue sky and enjoyed walking outside - but still the ash fell on my keyboard and made me take notice. And those were notable because of their rarity. Beijing is not the worst in terms of air pollution in China; Linfen regularly disappears from satellite images because of the pollution from coal factories. It has been shown that the smog from China impacts California, compounding their own locally produced problems. The three of us who spent more than a couple of days in Beijing all ended up sick - all side effects of pollution.

I arrived in Tokyo carrying my cold and spent 24 hours sleeping it off. When my body recovered I opened my window to a view of the famous Shibuya intersection. Famous for how crowded it is. And yet, there was the blue sky. The mega city of Japan bustled with people and industry, yet it was not choked by coal. Why? Because a large portion of their power is nuclear. 

Fukishima was a horrible lesson in how risky nuclear power can be, and now 76% of Japanese want to reduce their dependency. Understandable given their recent tragedy. But what if the poll were phrased: "Would you rather have continuous air pollution that makes your people sick or the manageable chance of a nuclear meltdown?" I say manageable because despite the system being as complex as it is, and despite all the earthquakes and human mistakes over the decades of Japan's growth, this is the first time they came this close. If anything, this should serve as the warning light on the global control panel for nuclear plants to improve, not shutdown. We get better when we make mistakes and we learn from each other. If we give up on this technology that we know so much about we probably go back to the dirty, cheap choking coal, because, sadly, the next generation of energy sources is not ready to produce the amount of energy we need. 

Perhaps this is just what Japan needs to be the ones who produce that new energy source that does. They are restricted in their energy use here and barely made it through the summer without blackouts. Necessity is the mother of invention after all. I'm all in favor of that, and wouldn't it be ironic that their use of nuclear power led to their freedom from it. No one can plan innovation, we can simply do our best to create environments that allow it to happen. And then hope that a miracle (like a near meltdown?) happens.