Leaving Bellevue

Exhausted, I went to sleep at 10:30 last night, which of course meant I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I've given myself jet lag.

Musical toilets

This evening I met a friend for drinks at the Westin in Bellevue.  He's down for the day to talk technology with some people nearby, so as I've just travelled several thousand miles, it seemed to make sense to catch up.  However, as I'd been out for the evening already, I was in need of a swift visit to the euphemism to unload my sorrows.

The Smell of Singapore

As well as the plane that smelt of farts that flew me to Singapore, and the bus that drove me to the plane and smelt similar, and the waiting area at Hong Kong International that smelt of despair and poor hygiene, my shower in the hotel smells too.

Driven in Penang

The plane was delayed flying from Singapore by an hour, so I didn't get into Penang airport until 1:20 in the morning, and then I had to get out some money, and pay that to the taxi kiosk, and then get into a slightly shabby white taxi, so I had no hope of getting to bed before two o'clock this morning.

Paranoid

We worked on our presentation until 11:30 this evening, which meant I didn't get a chance to go running. Instead I just skulked back to the hotel before I might turn into a pumpkin.

Bowling Ball Lullaby

Last night we slept badly; in the room above us a bowling-ball party was taking place. At least that's the only reason I can think of for the intermittent clonking noises that started at four this morning and continued, at five minute intervals, until we left the hotel after nine o'clock. The Marcel on Gramercy might be many things, but luxuriantly soundproofed it is not.

Truth in Advertising

As I walked up Ice House Street this evening, I saw an advert for a hotel in Macau, and like a stale madeleine, it flung me back to a memory I could easily have forgotten.

It's a good looking hotel from the advert, gleaming in a brilliant light, looking down over a verdant landscape, fountains and everything just lovely. Having stayed there, I know that it's on the main road, facing a roundabout, and looks like the outside hasn't been cleaned for a good few years. Fountains and landscaped gardens, there are none.

Of being battered, and of toilets, and the Future

Today was my first day of training in Tadotsu, and indeed the first exercise I've had since last Wednesday, if you exclude walking to the supermarket and purchasing Pringles. For no apparent reason, I couldn't sleep until two this morning, which meant the day was a bit of a struggle, as it started with a couple of hours of being thrown around by Japanese students in the morning, and then being walloped by a chap from Australia, before an afternoon session of wearing sweaty body armour in an overheated room and getting punched and kicked again. By about 4pm I was ready to drop; by half past five, having sat through a lecture delivered in untranslated Japanese I was ready for bed.

Hotels in Japan with strange names

Today I spent some time being pedantic about how you classify hotels in Japan, and not just because I'm a pedant. Or because one of my hobbies is classifying Japanese hotels. Oh no. Part of my job involves long arguments about whether to class a hotel at Chitose airport as a Sapporo hotel, or a hotel in Chitose, or both, or something else.

(One of my hobbies is arguing the toss over whether Gatwick is really in London or not, but I doubt anyone reads this for the glamourous geolocation of airports.)

Hotel after hotel...

I'm now down near the southernmost tip of Taiwan, in Kenting. The last two nights we stayed in the Big Eye Tuna hotel in Kaohsiung. This was a slightly strange hotel, as the facade of the building was made from foot-wide plastic scales, as if to confuse you into thinking it really was a tuna made flesh. Well, a mythical tuna-hotel made flesh. If the Taiwanese have myths about fish performing valuable infrastructural roles in the hospitality industry, that might well be the case.