Rob's Trip so far

So I am sitting in the airport in Hong Kong and wanted to give an update of my travels so far. It has been a whirlwind trip. I started out leaving Dublin last Saturday and flew to Tokyo via London Heathrow. Once in Tokyo I was able to do a lot of cool things, one of which was seeing the final day of the Sumo tournament. This is a picture from our seats. This is the SuperBowl to the Japanese. It was an earth-shattering event.

As you can see we were sitting pretty far back, but we could see the athletes just fine. The best part is when one of the Sumos falls off of the platform for whatever reason. He literally falls on top of the spectators. Some folks were really up close and personal with the action.

From Tokyo I went over to Shanghai for a conference. I stayed in the Grand Hyatt. It is one of the tallest buildings in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Mao_Tower

This is the view from INSIDE the building from the door of my room. If you have a fear of heights DO NOT stay in this hotel.

You really do get dizzy as you walk from your room to the elevator. It is an experience.

This next picture is from the window of my room. They continue to build and build in China. It was an interesting feeling.

Once you spend some time in Shanghai you really can sense why the prices for oil and metal are going up. There is a lot going on there. I thought I was in a tall building until we went to the top and looked out the window and saw this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_World_Financial_Center

This is a tall building. It really dwarfs anything I have seen, pretty impressive. The cool part though is in China they shut all the lights off at 11:00pm. It is an energy saving policy. So if you don't catch a look at the skyline before 11 you are out of luck.

From Shanghai we flew to Hong Kong. It is a cool city. I ate some strange stuff like frog, pigeon, snake, shark fin soup, and many other. I took this picture as we crossed over the water to Kowloon. Hong Kong is such an interesting mix of cultures and time. It was a great time.

From here I am headed to Sydney for a couple of days. I have some work to do and then back home to the family. I will update more later.

-Rob