To sum up...

Dear friends,

This the end of this blog.

Check the photo gallery:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Danielius.stasiulis

Take care,
Danielius

6000km of China in 8 days (Part 2)

You can find the beginning here!

Hutong (small street) in Beijing city centre

The Most General Impressions

So what do I think about The People Republic of China after this trip. As Aurimas has notably expressed himself once, it’s a big village! I can do nothing else than to agree to the latter statement. We were in major business cities of China and still the sharp contrast remained. You could see great buildings (mostly massive) and at the same time, being in the city centre, see all the “semi-homeless” people in Hutongs (they have where to live, but I wouldn’t call it home), rubbish, feel the stinky smells and otherwise enjoy the flawbacks of infrastructure. When traveling with trains we saw endless small gardens with corns, potatoes or something else planted, people working in these fields and their poor houses. Due to large scales everything is usually not crowded and you can sometimes feel even alone. It was not what I have expected!

In most of the places we were the only two white guys around in the sea of non-english speaking people. It didn't feel any danger at all, but the common sense was always on. The situation was a bit better next to the major toursit attractions like the Great China Wall. Therefore, you could always feel like the king of a castle when some Chinese people asks to make a picture with you or just try to chat with you as long as you can bear. Yes, we looked very different :)! In general the people out there have easily recognizable Mongolic face features, which now let’s us to differentiate Hong Kong people from Chinese. All the beautiful girls are with fat ugly and old guys that wear massive golden chains. If you know the concept of "new Russians" so they could probably be identified as "new Chinese".

Everyone considers China as a cheap country, but I will try to disagree with this statement. In developed regions the prices are not much different than in the Baltics or even Hong Kong, although with some discount usually. Yes, there is cheap stuff as labour force is sometimes valueless, but the materials still cost. We bought some souvenirs in China and I am pretty sure we overpaid with each purchase several times (even from the official government shops). But we always paid the price that seemed to be fair to us – let it be their profit of the week. If we didn’t imagine the price we just divided by ten (not always) the original quote and then started negotiating. However, sometimes it appeared we should have divided by a hundred. It applies only to small cheap labour products like kites and etc. And sometimes you just want to scream as loud as possible NOOO to the people approaching you every 30 seconds and trying to sell “Rolex watch, DVD, Shoes, T-shirt, aaaah, I know, maybe lady massage…”. We didn’t answer to any of these proposals, I don’t imagine what would happen if we would and don’t want to know. From one Chinese friend I got to know that a copy of cool Rolex costs 30 EUR if you bargain well. Most likely I’ll get one someday. And, and, and I hate beggars!

Am I satisfied with the trip? I definitely am! I think it is valuable to understand this culture as someday it might be powerful enough to lead the modern world (if planned economy will survive). Will I go there again? Only if I have a clear purpose like to see some wonders of the nature (carst mountains and Tibet). It gave me a reference point to evaluate the rest of the world. Moreover, I was glad like a sponge-bob square pants to return to my developed and blissy Hong Kong.

P.S. The ancient history of China and all the movies about it are far more impressive than what you can see in reality (except the wall and forbidden city - it's cool for a few hours).

P.P.S. It's cold in the North!

P.P.P.S There really might be 9 million bicycles in Beijing.

(The next Post soon!)


Nimen pengyou Danielius

6000km of China in 8 days (Part 1)

Da-da-da-dam, dam, dam! Yet another exciting story starts!

It was already 1.5 month as I were in Hong Kong and the furthest I have been by then was Macao. Meanwhile most of the exchange students were already travelling to such countries like China, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, I just could not do anything else than to get more and more envious. Quite expectedly, a point in time has come when my head started whistling and soon would blow up if I wouldn’t go somewhere. Luckily, due to the reasons that only oracles could explain, an opportunity to visit China has emerged (Aurimas was keen on going and we even had to meet Simona). The plan was simple – to visit as many cities as possible and see as much feasible in around week’s time.

As I got some remarks that my articles are too long, this time I am going to try splitting it into parts. However, a risk of delays arises as I might not find time to write the other parts that frequently. So here comes the first part, giving the brief outline of the journey and a link to another post reflecting the general impressions on the planned economy giant. The next parts will cover some cities in particular.

The Outline

Some week before the start of the journey Aurimas and I had to apply for the visa to China. Eventhough we searched for the visa counter in wrong place at first, after some time we found the China travel agency, which particularly dealt with foreigners. It was pretty easy. Without much of consideration we asked a single entry visa for 30 days. As it appeared later, it would be cheaper to get one for lesser amount of time. Anyways, it was just 30EUR and we got it in a week’s time (our passports were confiscated for this period).

We had no clear strategy what should we do in China and for how long. However, we didn’t stress much about it as our strategy was an emerging one (remember SSER strategy course :). Just before leaving HK we checked what we could do in Beijing and afterwards we would get into an internet café and decide further. So in the end of the day our journey looked like that:

1. Morning train to Shenzhen
2. Flight to Beijing and 4 days there
3. Overnight train to Xi’an and 1 day spent there
4. Overnight train to Nanjing and 1 day spent there
5. Evening train to Shanghai and 2.5 days spent there
6. Day train to Huangzhou and a flight to Shenzhen
7. Evening train to Hong Kong

In total we spent 35 hours in trains for 3000km of journey, which wasn’t that bad actually. I will tell you more about this later.

What's next? My general impression on PRC here!

Comrade Danielius

come again in a week :)

Dear ladies and getlemen,

I regret to announce that this week will yield no post. However, on a positive note I'd like inform you that from 4th of October till around 11th, Aurimas and I are traveling to China. Moreover, we are going to meet Simona there and, most likely, together discover Beijing, the Great China Wall, Xi'an with terracotta wariors and Shanghai.

So, what should all this imply to you? Come again in a week and find a fresh and exciting story of the China trip!

Danielius

A long story

My greetings to all of you,

Again, I made you wait too long for this entry. I’m sincerely sorry, time is relatively faster here. Next time just remind me that it is the high time for me to write something already. You could even suggest a topic of your interest :).

This post will start with a few aspects of my life here and end up with two stories, one of which will have nice pictures.

Studies

This thing kills me every Wednesday and Thursday and is especially boring after a 5-day weekend :). The lecturers expect that I will come to all of the lectures, which might not always be true, but in the end of the day there is some flexibility available. They also give some assignments to do, which in most of the cases are just a waste of one’s time, but what can you do if not to comply with the rules… So, about each course in brief:

Mandarin. Today I had an exam of it, or rather 30 minute quiz, which will comprise my final grade. It surely wasn’t a place I would bliss. First part was listening to tape and trying to identify what is said – which initial, which final, which tone, which syllables… Sometimes the sounds were similar to the ones my imagination creates when somebody steps on a bird or tries to eat it alive. On many different size and shape birds… Oh well, most likely nobody had a competitive advantage here… In the second part one should have written Chinese characters – translate something or give an answer. It was the place where I instantly lost half of the points as I didn’t manage to learn 21 character in 1h. I could recognize them but only not to write, so to say I’ve learnt it in read-only mode :). Most likely the stress of the quiz (which was not directly observable) has contributed for such a disability. However, I managed to do it in English letters, so I should have half of the points. Aurimas did characters pretty fine :). We have weekly assignments to write characters, which are evaluated as well (I didn’t know that). Luckily, in my opinion terrible characters seemed to be appropriate to my teacher and I got “Very good” mark. The teacher should not be forgotten, I didn’t ever see so much laughing teacher. She sometimes sings us some Chinese songs and entertains by other stand-up comedies. She has worked for some 20 years in a radio station in India and currently writes some books for youth. So these “bird” language lessons are pretty fun to attend after all.

Strategy and Policy. The course name is pretty interesting and in my opinion promising, but it will be only a recapitulation of Strategy course taken at SSE Riga. The lecturer’s biography involved many managerial position, but now it seems that he is very tired, although not exactly old. There are two good things about this course. Firstly, I might finally learn the strategic concepts and models by heart as I didn’t manage to do this at SSER. Secondly, it involves a simulation game!!! Pretty poor one, but still, you know I like such things a lot :). So now I am competing against 8 Chinese teams + 1 lead by a current employee of Cesim from Finland. This adds extra pleasure. Anyways, guess who’s first after round 1 and got into the world ranking :)? You know the answer…

Marketing Financial Services. This is probably the course I enjoy the most here. The lecturer is lively (which is a huge rarity) and even brings some CEOs to share their opinion on certain topics. Moreover, the things that are taught are not boring, although I can’t remember any by now :). In general I stand understanding the culture people have here better. One of examples could be that people are ashamed of taking loans as this would constitute financial weakness. Or total dependence on interest rates as flats are very expensive here so they are backed by mortgage, most of the people work in financial sector, so their salary depends on the market, so as the flat payments. In consequence, if the market here would fall down, interest rates would go up, people salaries would go down, interest payments would go up… Not to mention that everyone actively invests into stocks :). So we’ll see a colossal collapse of HK one day, too many eggs in one basket :). Coming back to what I have to do in the course, I have a team, a team of 6 people excluding me :). Sounds like too many, and I have no other way than to agree with that. We’ll have to make a case presentation next week, we divided the job and I did my part in 30 minutes. I am used to do everything on my own, we’ll see what others will bring… In general their perception of environment is totally different than ours. We see big picture, they see only dots in it, sometimes quite many, but never the boarder. Every discussion starts with my few minute opinion ventilation and continues as if I didn’t say anything :). They need to rethink all the things through their own prism. By now I enjoy that, as I find it as “cultural learning”. We have to do something like writeups for this course every second week too.

Management of Financial Institutions. Boring…. Although, I believe we finally got to the interesting things, but it will take untill it will become interest to me. Now we are analyzing a few risk management models, the ones that come before hedging by duration. Duration is fancy and not every bank could apply it (even now) because of difficulty – most likely calculators are expensive in some Asian countries, no wonder they had crisis in 1998. Duration should come tomorrow, gonna see if it will be interesting. Last time he tried to explain what is it, but if I wouldn’t have heard of it before I’d be crying from confussion. One more intriguing detail, most of the lecturers use microphones to teach even as small as 30 people classes, which looks ridiculous. Yeah, in this way nobody has the right of speech except the lecturer, even if I wanted not to agree with him many times, I would need scream very load and finally be shut up. It seems that this lecturer lost his wife, kids and pension because of hedge funds as he desperately tries to persuade us that it is evil… without any comments it’s evil…. Evil…. Evil… He gave us some homework, boring and I don’t want to do it, but will have to. Moreover, there be a few case studies, guess about what? About evil hedge funds…

Advanced Security Analysis and Portfolio Management. Not advanced yet, not even moderate. Rather boring and confusing if you know something. Tries to be applied, but … not so much… Aurimas has a better lecturer so that one is pretty applied and cool as I have heard from him. But mine, although having many nominations and awards, doing research often on financial markets, is not that good as a teacher. He tries hard, so he get’s my respect only for this. Time will show, but by now we have managed to learn CAPM and Index model (time-series regression for beta, cross-sectional for CAPM). I got some homework, like having all the variables, find expected return or beta. Goshh, I solved such equations in 4^th grade :). I can only wait, or read the book. NOT – I don’t have it :).

So, what regards education, I follow the stream most likely as much as mandatory as I have pretty good knowledge baggage from SSE Riga.

Not so little people

When I was coming here I thought to be the tallest, the biggest and etc. - big white male shading the sun for small Asian people. It appears that people here are not like Pygmies (African tribe of very small people). Yes, I am above the average height, but you can still find some people as tall as me. Asians claim that they haven’t seen anyone taller than me, I should show them Aurimas :). Indeed, I would not have any problems here neither with clothes nor with shoes… P.S. there are some very small Asians :).

Internet ban

For the first time in my life I am afraid to use internet (even if it's slow here). They are tracking me…aaaa… There are banned people lists in the lobby of each student residence building. P2P, torrents, e-mule, SPAM, etc… all banned. Some people even got banned for listening music in online websites. Damn author rights! If they will get to my laptop, I’ll get barred for a few years most likely. It’s not a matter of university IT, it’s a matter of police! So, I don’t download anything, I don’t search for illegal software, I am even afraid to find PDF books for my courses. I am upset the most of the inability to download music as I have not taken it with me :(. Moreover, I need GPS maps for my phone. I can’t visit aound 80% of my usual websites with soft, movies and music. Leave me some encrypted *.rar files on some hosts :).

Sleep regime

It kills me! It seems that my body did not adjust to the time zone differences. If I am not deadly tired, I can’t fall asleep till some 4am (which is 11pm LT time). Yeah, very cool to lie in the bed and suffer insomnia. Especially, when next day’s classes start at 8:30. I feel tired all the day and it affects my health. But I am the most disappointed because of the wasted time… I could write a blog entry each evening if knew I won’t fall asleep, but I still believe… Problems with sleep arise because of air-conditioning as well. Without air-con you can sleep unless you are completely powerless, otherwise it is essential. The room cools down in 1h. The worst thing is the air-con shuts down at some 2-3am in the night and you have been sleeping already. So you wake up, turn it on and fall asleep again in 1h. But air-con has negative side as well – it makes me ill. So there is sleep-ilness trade-off, which I fail to solve for the second time. Two days ago I was so tired because of hiking (read below) so I wanted to sleep so much, but… I managed to cheat on my body and after lieing for 5mins I couldn’t sleep again until some 4am. Next day I woke up ill. I have travelled so far not for sleeping, but it seems I can’t without it either. I hope to get well maybe even tomorrow. I put effort into that. There is a thing I like a lot here – it’s a box of tissues. I bought a set of 5 such boxes today, which means I have around 1000 tissue – enough for a few weeks.

Typhoon!

Oh, yeah! It’s coming, it’s coming… I can’t wait to see it. First typhoon I gonna see and the 5^th this season in HK. It should strike in a few upcoming days. When I arrived to HK, the sky was pretty clear – thanks to typhoon, which clears it. Finally I will be able to make photos that would cover all HK as now because of high humidity you can’t see the HK Island from my roof-top. Typhoon alone is pretty cool as well. I hope to see some cows flying by my window or at least a few cats. It would be so fun :). Anyway it gonna be a great experience, which I will share with you after it is over.

Mid-Autumn festival

It has happened last weekend during the full moon. I still didn’t get what this celebration is about and won’t bother care about it further. The main aim of this festivity is to make or buy a lantern (Chinese paper lamp with a candle inside – like in red light districts) and eat a mooncake. Mooncake is something strange in taste but sometimes delicious. However, they are produced only during this festivity, so I won’t be able to bring it to you :(. There were 2 celebration organized for us by the university. First one, by student residence, where Aurimas and me made our own, freezed, mooncakes (wasn’t very good). In general this celebration was just a few hours in the evening, with a crowd of students. Second one was organized by exchange student club of faculty of business. We were taken to a beach where we were divided in different groups and had to compete. Guess who has one :)? Aurimas’ and mine team (which included some more people) took first place. We got a prize – a cityU bagpack (like I got from Economix once) and an expensive mooncake, which was good.

A day after, together with Aurimas we went to the city to see how everything is celebrated there. So we saw a few performances and a Fire-Dragon dance, which was quite interesting. Sorry for such a vague telling, just the impressions are gone, check the photos. http://picasaweb.google.com/Danielius.Stasiulis (13,14,15)

Philippines – a double punch into face

This time I gonna share my pain and disappointment This weekend I was supposed to have an unforgettable experience in Philippines. I was looking awesome pictures of the place I was going to go- crystal clear water, white-sande beaches, exotic fishes and corals. Ech… I was supposed to leave on Thursday, but my plans broke down on Wendesday. I had an impatience-full night on Tueday though. So there were even 2 reasons to cancel my plans actually:

Firsty, normal people get visas when they arrive to Philippines as they are from normal countries (there are around 150 of them). However it seems that from all developed countries in the world only the Baltic States need visa. Most likely Philippines thing we are some kind of banana republics like Vanatau or Cuba... You can find the countries that need visa to Philippines here: http://www.philcongen-hk.com/visas/main.htm. So, having told this fact to my travel friends they could not believe it to be true. We had bought tickets on Tuesday already, so I had two ways to solve the problem – either to cancel my flight or to try to get visa in 1 day (nobody knows if it is possible). I chose the first option as otherwise the risk of loosing my money would be to high. I appeared to be difficult to cancel the flight as we have bought three tickets at once (for two of my colleagues as well and they still were considering to go). So we did many calls to Philippines regarding the flight and found out another issue why we can’t go there.
So, the second issue was much more severe. Although we have bought tickets and the credit card was charged, the airlines told we are not eligible to fly as the card was not accepted, which brought us into hell-alike confusion. And there we were in the middle of the night with no tickets and no money in the bank account of my Finnish friend who bought it. Some half an hour of calls to Finland, more precisely to the bank, has shown that money have successfully left the account and we can’t expect any refund. Another half an hour calls to Philippines (I love skype-out for decent tariffs) confirmed that the money has reached them, but they have sent it back. So, where the money are? Nobody knows… Some say it will take 30days to come back, some claim in a week they will be in account again. I have formed an impression that they send the money in bills by regular post. That evening our motivation to visit Philippines has faded away, but it is restored now. So, I will visit the Philippines in a few weeks, after the China trip that should be in the beginning of the next month.

Awesome hiking/climbing

It was Saturday morning and as Aurimas left to school for the whole day (for debating) I could not fall asleep again. Some nice music has created me a good and energetic mood, which needed to be unleashed for some challenge. I was looking at the mountains behind the student residence since I came here and it wasn’t only one time when I was telling that someday I gonna climb there. So, exactly that day was the one when I finally had nothing constraining me from doing this.

I tried to find some guidelines on the net how to get there, but just couldn’t. Hence, I took an easy way, opened google maps, google earth and checked how I could get there. To be honest I still did not imagine how I’m going to get on top as I have identified only the location of the peak. In an hour or two I have prepared: put some music on my phone, found appropriate clothes (Peak Time t-shirt obviously:)), took a backpack, a nife, camera and 1.25l of water.

Having crossed a few streets and roadways I appeared to be in a highway as the road that in my opinion should have lead to the peak was locked. Ok, I obey the law… Not exactly :). On the highway I saw one steep stairway that has lead up and decided that there won’t be a better opportunity to climb the mountain.
Some minutes afterwards I have entered the forbidden zone and found a really nice trail leading up. To my big surprise, maybe because of the very fast elevation or a very hot sun that made me sweating like in Russian sauna, blood started sprinkling out of my nose. I have managed to fix it, but because of a big confussion it has caused, I lost my sunglasses :( (I have recognized that only after some hours).

After some more time of climbing I was shocked when confronted, with such sign:

What would sake-minded people do? Turn around. So did I. What wouldn’t sake-minded people do, but goal oriented would? Try to climb a steep cliff some 100 meters away from the sign. So did I :). Having climbed a bit I understood that this was a climbing path as there were directions marked by some pieces of cloth. I was happy because of that, but still didn’t know where it will lead (keeping in mind the sign).

The view was becoming more and more spectacular, I was happy like a small child trapped in a candy storage. I was climbing quite intensively, sometimes it was even challenging. You would not imagine how much water has left my body, drinking is really crucial in such case and my water supplies were not very appropriate.

Finally, I got up the hill and was rewarded by wonderful view not many have seen. One peak defeated! However, I was confronted with some military-alike builings as well. I still though I could be shot as an intruder until, to my big suprises, I saw a man running up. I asked him is there a way further and he nocked his head.

So, I was going further, in front of the evil signs again. Believe me or not, I finally found a sign telling that I actually got onto the trail I wanted. So what do all these bad signs mean? Most likely they left it as relics from some war. Anyways, I was moving to the next peak – Lion peak, on a mountain trail. I met quite a few locals hiking, even very senior age. I made some very beautiful photos on the way, which I am very happy with.

After some time spent running, the Lion rock was just in front of me. Signs of falling people appeared too. 495m – that’s how high I was, maybe it’s not much, but anyways it’s just a beginning. Fortunately, one man has shared his water with me so I didn't have to die from dehydration. I had a fantastic view, made loads of pictures (of course my face is flashing there a lot and I made some promotion for Peak Time too:)). You can check them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Danielius.Stasiulis/HK0920

Next day Aurimas and me climbed some other mountain and made very nice night scenary pictures, check it out in my photos.

New peak will come soon :).

That was a long post.

Danielius :)

The City of Millionaires

Have so money and wanna be cool? Don't go to Hong Kong - you won't be anything special here.

This city has over 400.000 Millionaires (in HKD, according to liquid assets) compared to the population of 7 millon. On average they have over 4 million HKD of liquid assets and total assets surpassing 10 million. In Hong Kong island, each seventh person is a millionair and one of its district's, Wan Chai, each fifth is a millionaire. I have a pretty clearly defined place where to make new friends :). Although, it is not so bad in my district either - 1 out of 17 is millionaire too (but I think that next to my student residence I could find many more as there is the most expensive living place in HK). Should I use a trampoline to success - rich daddy's daughter? Maybe it's not that bad option :).

I will provide you with some interesting facts from my friend's Lorencio's website:

World's no 1

HK is a very tiny spot on the globe, but it does have so many world's no 1. Some are a little funny though.

Technology:

The largest Neon sign outdoor - 999 San Jiu sign next to the Shun Tak Centres in Sheung Wan, Island (In fact HK is a city with the most Neon signs)
The longest unsupported escalator - G/F to 1/F, HK and Shanghai Banking Corporation Headquarter, Central, Island
The tallest concrete habitable building - 310 m, Central Plaza, Wanchai
The biggest reclamation project - HK International Airport, Lantau
The longest escalator system - The escalator system from Central to Mid-Levels on the Island spans a distance of 800 m
The longest single escalator - Ocean Park
The biggest terminal - Asia Container Terminal, Kwai Chung, New Territories
The first Braille newspaper and digital newspaper - South China Morning Post
The largest curtain wall of a building - The HK Convention and Exhibition Centre, Wanchai, Island
City with the most skyscrapers (New York the second, and Chicago the third)
City with the highest ratio of cell phone users

People:

The highest life expectancy - 85 for women, 80 for men
The lowest rate of illiteracy
The highest intake of protein among individuals
The biggest consumption of orange
The largest population of a city living in public housing
The lowest population of smokers

Transportation:

The city with the most number of Rolls Royce / capita ~1,000
The city with the most number of Ferrari / capita ~2,000
The city with the most number of Mercedes Benz / capita ~50,000
The most expensive sale of vehicle registration mark - " 18 " for US$ 2.2 million
The public bus company with the most number of passenger - Kowloon Motor Bus
The largest vehicle maintenance center - Kowloon Motor Bus maintenance center
The busiest border control - Lo Wu border

Entertainment:

The movie with the most number of sequel - Wong Fei Hung, featuring a martial arts master
The city with the most number of restaurant / capita
The largest floating restaurant - The Jumbo, Aberdeen, Island
The largest night club - The Bross, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
The busiest McDonalds
The biggest turnover of a gambling business - horse racing, the HK Jockey Club
The most expensive trees reservation project - Pacific Place, Admiralty, Island, US$ 3 millions
The tallest outdoor bronze Buddha statue - Lantau
The biggest Chinese Orchestra

Not bad :)

Danielius

Paradise

:) I have no words... Absolutely fascinating and incredible... I've been to a beach that I used to see on TV only.

Lang Ke Wan, rated as No.1 beach in Hong Kong was the destination for my Sunday's trip. Just around 1 hour from the place I live, with travel costs of around 4-5 EUR. While going there I understood that I could have spent so much of incredible time in wonderful nature of Hong Kong instead of going to eat to a restaurant or somewhere to the city. People here don't know value the beauty given by the nature and the easiness to rach it. My perspective has sharply changed now, I am going to do some hiking and more traveling around Hong Kong islands.

New challenges set, wait for the achievements. :)