#36 - Beyond the smoke curtain

Stanford University Campus

This is sneaker traveller's survival story - how to survive from a natural disaster.

It was spring 2010 and I intended to stay at Palo Alto California only for a couple of days - a quick workshop and then back to home, sweet home. Weather was nice, so I enjoyed early jogging at the Stanford campus area prior to working days. I love the beauty of Stanford parks, historic buildings, as well as academic atmosphere. Especially the monument listing the numerous Stanford Olympic medallists and world record holders impress me very much.

Stanford Olympians

It was 14^th of April 2010 and the last travel day was supposed to start when I woke up early in the morning. My phone indicated unusual amount of missed calls and new messages; mostly something about potential flight problems. That did not bother me too much, because I was heading back to home that evening. The hassle started when I entered the office. All the European colleagues were on the phone trying to confirm their flights. That’s when I realized that something serious has happened. The volcano called Eyjafjallajökul had erupted in Island and the ash cloud was threatening transatlantic flights. The hassle continued the whole working day, but nothing helped. I was stuck to California. Only Mr K. was lucky enough to be rescheduled to an earlier flight via Germany. However, the luck was temporary and the next morning he was back in California, because the flight returned back to San Francisco one hour after departure.

The weekend was approaching and I had already seen Palo Alto. I booked a hotel at the Fisherman’s Wharf, drove there through the beautiful highway number 1 and started enjoying my first visit to the San Francisco. The weekend was hectic, but I enjoyed a lot. I was driving, running, and walking all day long to see all the major attractions. With such an intensity I managed to see in a weekend as much as normal tourist sees in a week, for example Golden Gate Bridge, Golden gate park, Pier 39, Alcatraz, as well as the huge re redwood forest at the Muir woods. Also the dining options satisfied me. I must admit that San Francisco is one of the nicest tourist cities to visit. I look forward getting there again.

Muir Woods had bigger trees than
forests in Tampere

Favorite area for relaxed jogging

On my way to Alcatraz. Almost like a boat trip to Viikinsaari in Tampere.

The weekend was gone and it was time to make tactical thinking. In order to improve our changes to get back to business in Finland, I and my boss Mr P. decided to take a flight to New York. Our travel agent booked us a nice hotel in New York. I was able to look at the at Times Square straight from my window. Together with Mr P. and Ms L. we enjoyed the atmosphere of Manhattan for a couple of days, for example the stunning Broadway musical Jersey boys. One of my daily routines was jogging at Central park.

New York Times Square

Jersey Boys stuff

I was especially happy to finally get my iPad from the 5^th Avenue Apple Store. I had been unsuccessfully chasing the brand new gadget in two Palo Alto Apple Stores, as well as in two San Francisco Apple stores.

iPad among first ones in the world

All that sounds like a dream vacation. However, the trip was not all about relaxing tourism. It was actually very stressful and exhausting. Every late evening and every early morning I made my routine call to the travel agency in order to ask for the potential flights back to Finland. My shortest waiting time for those daily calls was 70 minutes, thus shortening every night about three hours. Persistency was finally rewarded when I was one of the first ones flying back to Finland after the situation normalized. Thinking afterwards it felt like an unnecessary panic. I should have enjoyed the tourist days and wait for someone to call me back to Finland. I was really exhausted, but happy when I returned back to home.

Sunny bridge leading to Golden Gate Bridge

Lessons learnt:

Don’t worry, be happy.

Take it easy - There are things that you simply cannot impact anyway.

#35 - Permilles and Line dancing

Go Mavericks

After arriving to our hotel at Dallas we were hit by the tight training course schedule. The brave volunteers headed right away to the American Airlines Center, the home of Dallas Stars NHL team and Dallas Mavericks NBA team. This time the ice was covered with a parquet floor and Mavericks was playing. I was impressed with the skills of Dirk Nowitski, as well as Steve Nash who was very quick but seemed so tiny (only 6 ft 3 in, 191 cm) compared to other players. That was the best basketball event I have ever seen and at the time of writing it was the only one, as well. The arena, show and the atmosphere were really exciting.

Our training was arranged at a hotel next to the golf course, so I enjoyed my early morning jogging in the putting greens before the golf players woke up. Also the lunches at a terrace next to golf course made a deep impact to me. Especially the lunch discussion about the very tight drunk driving limits in USA, especially in Texas.  US colleagues were complaining their tight laws. The limit of 0.1 means that you cannot drink almost any alcohol if you drive, they protested. They were also envy about the loose limit 0.5 in Finland. I was a bit confused after the lunch discussion, because I had always thought that the drunk-driving laws in the USA are looser than the Finnish ones. However, later on I realized that we Finns spoke about permilles while the Americans spoke about percents. You should know that in this subject matter it plays a big difference. Anyway, do not drive if you drink is the best rule in my opinion.

Cowboys on a ride

The course was very educative. We were even practising local line dancing at Billy Bob’s Texas, the world’s largest Honky Tonk. Unfortunately I have kept the line dancing skills latent, because I have not had an opportunity to shine with the skill during the last two decades.

Anyways, even if the trip was educative, I was a bit disappointed that I did not see any of the Ewings out there, no sight of JR, Bobby, Jock or Miss Ellie.

Lessons learnt:

There is always time to have fun.

The triangle of Dallas, Billy Bob's Texas and our hotel

#34 - Finnish tango

On air - Finnish tango in the sky

Couple of weeks after the most famous 9/11 date I was flying to Dallas USA with a group of Finnish colleagues. On our first flight to Chicago I followed different kinds of people, as well as different ways of travelling. Some people skipped the airline meal and started sleeping as soon as the flight departs, some people enjoyed meal with wine, some people enjoyed watching movies, and some people listened to their favourable music with their noise cancelling headphones. All that was regular, but on the other hand, that was the first time I heard an airline passenger singing Finnish tango with high volume in the middle of the flight. After a couple of beers and cognacs every Finn becomes a tango singer. Mr. K got a lot of audience with his singing. I felt so lucky to sit in front of the singer. Even the non-Finnish passengers far away from the singer seemed to note the talent, so tens of passengers were following the singer. Despite the success, Mr K. did not pursue professional singer career after the trip.

At the Chicago airport the US airport security control was heavy duty due to the recent 9/11 hits. Despite of that, I managed to fool the system by walking through the metal detection gate with a mobile phone in my pocket. I realized to have some hidden talent, a positive sign for future job opportunities. However, our tango singer, Mr. K. was less talented fooling the US airport security system. The officers were trying to arrest the noisy singer, but luckily a group of colleagues managed to change the mind of the officers.

Lessons learnt:

Quality matters (not only quantity or volume).

#33 - Agile implementer

One may consider cross country skiing as a way to travel and therefore worth of mentioning in this blog. Some decades ago Finns used to ski daily to school and work, but not anymore. The interest of the people has changed or the people have got lazy. Talent is temporal, so remember to keep up your competences.

I used to ski a bit when I was young, even in some competitions. Ten years after I had finished my active skiing career, I decided to refresh my memory once more. I enrolled in Pirkka ski race from Kankaanpää to Tampere (check the route from http://www.pirkankierros.fi/hiihtokar.htm). 90 km is a fairly long distance and I had practised almost double that much during the whole winter. It should be fine, I thought. I also believed that muscles have good memory, so it will be actually a piece of cake. Let me explain how it eventually went.

As a skilled professional, I made a clear strategy and tactics for the race, i.e. Finish the race – no need to hurry. Good plan, half done. The rest is just implementation.

I found my 10 years old skis and waxed those the previous evening. My wife, who promised to be my custodian, drove me early in the morning to the starting point. The area was very crowded, so I made first change to my tactics; Instead of going to my real starting position at the end of the queue, I chose one of the first rows among the top skiers.

The first ten kilometres felt perfect and I had good speed. The muscles really seemed to remember my exercises back in the history, so it was time to change to the third tactics. I was hungry for a big challenge and set myself a target time for the race.

Everything went perfect the first 20 kilometers until the first long downhill started. I could not anymore keep the speed to follow my peer competitors in the queue. Even if I made a lot of work, plenty of skiers bypassed me in the downhills due to their better skies. I just had to accept that and do my best. Just before midpoint I felt really tired and it was difficult to climb even a tiny uphill. Midpoint service point was approaching, so it was time to change to my forth tactics, i.e. eat so much food at the service point that it covers the participation fee. 

After eating and resting for couple of minutes, I continued the journey. However, it was not so easy because the muscles in my legs started to have cramps even in small uphill. It was time to take the original tactics into use again. 

After few kilometres when the route crossed the highway, I suddenly saw our car bypassing me. It was time to take into use the fifth tactics; i.e. stop the car, quit the race and take an easy ride back to home. I was waving to my wife, but she waved back and continued driving. 

Easy ride to home was not an option anymore. After thinking a while I decided to continue the race with sixth tactics which combined the original and the fourth tactics, i.e. no need to hurry and eat as much as you can to recover the participation fee. 

The journey continued slowly and painfully. Suddenly after 80 kilometers I felt energized and was not suffering the cramps anymore, so I took into use my seventh tactics; i.e. finish the race as soon as possible.

I was tired, but very happy after the 90 kilometres. My finishing time was 6.23:50. It felt so good to relax peacefully the rest of the day. What a journey! Never again. However, at the moment of writing, I am re-considering that decision.

Lessons learned:

Be well prepared.

Retain your agility - be ready to change according to situation.

Talent is temporal – it is only your responsibility to keep up your competences.

Sneaker Traveller in Pirkan hiihto ski race

#32 - A usual day in China

The Great Wall

Beijing by night - The dark area probably has a ready made sky scraper already.

We all know that China is a great country. For example the Forbidden city and The great wall – interesting historical places to visit, but also huge national achievements. If you think that everything is big in the USA, everything is even bigger in China. Once they decide to implement a change, they will do it big way.

The difference between the rich and poor people is huge. One example of the Chinese luxury is the Shunjing spa in Beijing, the biggest in the world according to Guiness World Record. The complex was so big that it was difficult to see the wood from the trees. My friends told me about a pool where you can swim together with fishes and enjoy the small fishes biting your skin. I wanted to visit that pool, but never found it among the 90+ other pools. It is easy to get lost in such a spa area. In Finland we are used to enjoy luxury of a spa where you have three pools; one for adults, one for children, and maybe an additional hot water pool. Imagine if you multiply all that by 30 and increase the temperature of all the pools by ten degrees. That is the Chinese way and it keeps the world economy growing.

Peak into luxury -
Tiny and modest entrance of the Shunjing spa hotel, the biggest spa in the world.

Protection on to wall

The other side of the coin is the majority of Chinese people. I cannot even understand the poor conditions, but I had once opportunity to see the daily living of a Chinese middle class. One of the highlights of that trip was an excursion to Chinese school and family. It was an eye opening experience. We were visiting a school and couple of families at an industrial area outside Beijing.

Chinese school girls and boys playing

The school was really like a kindergarten to me, except the tight education process. High stonewall with pieces of broken class on top of the wall were protecting the children against unexpected visitors. Classroom had very tiny beds, some toys, whiteboards, and books. The headmaster told us that the children started to study Chinese, English, and Math as soon as they started the school (i.e. kindergarten at the age of one or two years). They had monthly test in order to verify the progress. They also slept daily naps, as well as played outside. That’s a tough competition in which the best get good education and well paid profession, the average get their job at the factory and the worst have to be innovative to survive. However, Chinese face the same kind of competition everywhere, e.g. traffic and sports.

Home of a middle class family

Preparing food for a family

I was lucky to visit an average income middle class Chinese family. I do not know how could they have two children, despite of the republic’s one children policy (i.e. you have to pay a lot in order to have two children in the family). Only the husband of the family was employed. He was working at the factory close by and the monthly income was about 200 €. The family was very lucky. They were living in a house without any rent, because they were taking care of the old man who owned the house. In addition to their one room, they had also permission to use the washing room of the house. Next to their bed there was a stove that was heating the room, as well as their food. They had also a very innovative system to heat their double bed, i.e. a long copper pipe that conducted hot air from the stove to the bed. It should be warm to sleep under the blanket even if they did not have afford to keep the room very warm. Big portion of the monthly salary was used to buy their mobile telephone, as well as their monthly telephony bills. They needed to use mobile Internet in addition to speech calls in order to stay in touch with relatives. They were originally coming from countryside, but they did not have afford to visit every year their families. One tiny room for a double bed, stove, small TV, and a mobile phone. That’s where the mother, husband, and two children of an average income Chinese family lived happily.

Innovation against cold winter nights

Lessons learnt:

Customer insights - Seeing gives more than reading.