North Queensland Risk Tour

Every year, one of our Gen Re guys takes a group of people on a car trip for a week through Northern Queensland to show different types of risks that we reinsure.  This year I was lucky enough to get invited to attend along with two of the girls in our Shanghai office.  It was a full week of driving of about 700 miles over the 5 days.  In my mind, the landscape of Australia looked like the Crocodile Dundee movie or something shown by Steve Irwin.  I was wrong though!  Parts of it were very lush and overall it was very pretty!

We started up in Cairns, which is home to one of the main places tourists go to see the Great Barrier Reef.  Unfortunately I didn't get to see it, but hopefully one day I will!  From there we stayed nights in Townsville, McKay and Yeppoon.  Little did I know, but Australia grows a TON of sugar cane!  That and coal are two of their main exports.

We saw a lot of sugar mills and sugar warehouses, coal loading terminals and ports, power plants, aluminum smelters and other various industrial places.  It was a very educational trip from a work perspective - it was great to see things in person and to realize that a lot of hurricanes go through this area of Australia.  I wasn't too aware of that, but they've had some big ones in the past few decades.  Not too many people live in these areas which is good, however a lot of Queensland industrial sites are located here so there is a fair amount of damage that can be done. 

Port Douglas

Sugar Warehouse - this was about two football fields long and during the harvest season is filled to the peak of the roof with raw sugar

How they load sugar on to a cargo ship

This jetty is coming from another sugar warehouse to take sugar out to load onto cargo ships.  The jetty though is about 3 miles long as The Great Barrier Reef is along here and they didn't want the ships getting too close to it.  This jetty was severely damaged by a hurricane in 2011 but it is now working again.

The largest sugar mill in Australia

The Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal - this is one of the largest coal terminals in the world.  This place was massive!

This machine puts the coal in to piles in to piles in the yard, before it gets on the ship.  The piles are based on size and grade.  So if China calls and says we want 50 tons of 'XYZ' grade to be put on the ships, they know where to find it to put it on the conveyor belts to send out to the ships.  The jetty which takes the coal out to the ships is maybe 1.5 miles long.

Cargo ship getting loaded with coal.  This machine dispenses the coal into the various holds on the ship.

Another view of the ship.  Each of these holds on the ship were filled with coal - can hold something like 100,000 tons of coal I think? 

My trip to Australia

Hi Everyone - I feel like every time I start out a blog post, it's with an apology for not writing for a while!  This time I have a decent excuse though; I was in Australia for a week and then back home for a week and a half...pretty good reasons, eh?

I'm going to break my Australia post up into two parts as some of it was for fun and some was for work.  I had to go down there for work and decided to go a few days early to check out Sydney before flying up to Cairns to meet my coworkers.  I then spent an extra night in Brisbane on my way back.  I have to say, I'm now a huge fan of Australia - maybe because it was the closest thing to the 'Western World' that I'd been to since I came over in January?  Regardless, I'll be back!

Sydney

Really reminded me of San Francisco and it was such a beautiful city!  It's winter there now but wasn't that cold; however it was nice to finally be able to naturally cold (not air conditioned cold) and wear a scarf and a jacket!  I walked around a lot and saw the Opera House, Bridge, etc. on the first day.  On the second day, I went out to Bondi to meet up with a coworker from the Sydney branch and some clients for lunch.  I then did the Bondi to Coogee cliff walk around the ocean.  Bondi Beach wasn't too crowded since it was winter (there were still surfers though) but I'd love to see the madness during the summer!  

Here are some pictures from Sydney:

Sydney Harbor Bridge

Darling Harbor - sort of Sydney's version of San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf

Sydney Opera House by day....

And by night...

Bondi Beach

What you can't see in these pictures are the guys wearing Speedos or 'Budgy Smugglers' as the Aussie's call them.  They seem to be the swimsuit of choice for the guys that shouldn't be caught dead in anything that tiny!  

Bondi to Coogee Cliff Walk

Brisbane

I was only in Brisbane for one night so didn't have a chance to see a whole lot but I think I got a fair amount accomplished.  A river cuts through the city and most people seem to commute by the river taxi.  I thought it might be a good way to see the city but it got dark while I was on the boat, so that didn't work out too well!  I did see some pretty nice houses overlooking the river...and their nice boats docked up to their yards!  The second day I walked through the Botanical Gardens in the morning before having breakfast and catching my flight back to Singapore.

Brisbane from the river

Brisbane's Story Bridge

Botanical Gardens

A Singaporean 4th of July

I hope everyone had a nice 4th of July back home!  From everyone's pictures, the weather looked fantastic this year!  I tried to celebrate America's birthday the best that I could in Asia.  I had heard of an American BBQ place so I decided to go and get take out from there and then come back and eat dinner on the roof.  My 'fireworks' turned out to be the Marina Bay Sands light show that they do every night and while it was at least something, it didn't compare to the real deal back home.

Surprisingly the BBQ was really good (decided on ribs) and next to the restaurant the owner has a liquor store stocked with American beers.  While they didn't have any Coors Light, they did have Bud Light which was the first I've found here! Of course I had to stock up.  They also had Gordon Biersch, Lagunitas, Sam Adams, etc.  I'll definitely be back again!

Happy Singaporean 4th of July!

Decorations courtesy of Kari:

My 4th of July view

The 'fireworks' show:

Singapore Haze

Hi Everyone - sorry for the lack of recent blog posts.  Not too much new and exciting has been going on I guess! I had back to back work trips to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur a few weeks ago so I did get out of Singapore for a few days.  I've been hanging around here ever since.

I'm not too sure how much the news covered this in the States, but a few weeks ago we had to deal with the 'Singapore Haze'.  I guess it happens every summer, but a few weeks ago the haze in Singapore was the worst it's ever been!  The previous record was 226 PSI (Pollutants Standard Index) back in 1997.  This time it hit 401 PSI (see pictures below).  

I guess the farmers in Indonesia burn their fields every summer in order to fertilize the land.  They'd rather do that than paying for fertilizer apparently.  It honestly reminded me of home a bit when they burn the rice fields in the valley...but x1000.  So they all started burning the fields at the same time and the wind pattern blew all of the smoke directly to Singapore.  For the first few days, it wasn't that bad but it then got worse.  People started wearing masks outside, some said that the air quality was too bad to come to work (ha!) and it stayed pretty awful for about a week.  I had planned a work happy hour on an outdoor roof top right during the worst of the haze and we definitely had to move it inside!

The haze is just about gone now (the winds shifted north so the smoke went to Malaysia) but we've still got the 'Haze Watch' going on in the media...

Hope it doesn't come back...it was nasty!!!!

Here are some pictures:

What the view from my apartment looks like on a normal day:

What it looked like during the haze:

What should have been Marina Bay Sands...you can kind of make the towers out...:

Even the haze couldn't stop us from sitting outside for drinks!  And no, we didn't wear the masks - they were just for pictures!

Hanoi

We spent two nights in Hanoi on this trip.  The first night we got in to the city rather late and met up with some friends from Singapore that were up there for the weekend too.  We went to a big group dinner but didn't have much time to see any of Hanoi.  We knew we had Saturday night and most of Sunday before our flight back to Sing to explore.

Hanoi Sky Line

We had heard about going to see a Water Puppet Show and we went Saturday afternoon.  They were basically just wooden puppets on long sticks dancing in water.  It was interesting but a little long.  Don't know if I'll be rushing back to go see it...

Sorry for the bad picture, but you get the gist

There is a lake in the middle of Hanoi - Hoan Kiem Lake - with a temple in the middle. The Temple of the Jade Mountain, is on a little island that you could walk over on a bridge to.  It was built around 1865 or so but has been renovated since.  It was the standard temple with a few large offering altars. They were offering anything from flowers and money, to cookies and beer!

One of the few pictures without a massive tourist group posing for pictures on the bridge

We then just walked around Hanoi for a bit to see what we could find:

Hanoi Opera House

Turtle Tower in Hoan Kiem Lake - yes there are turtles in the lake

I'd also been on the search for a Banh Mi or Vietnamese sandwich.  I asked a few locals and they had no idea what I was talking about.  Did the Vietnamese not eat Banh Mi's, I wondered?!?  Finally a guy at the hotel recommended this small shop for a sandwich and I was so excited to try and authentic Banh Mi.  Well I must admit, it was pretty disappointing....it's sad to say that there are better Banh Mi's in San Francisco!

All in all I enjoyed Hanoi and Vietnam.  It was a bit manic with all of the mopeds and people, and I could definitely not live there, but the Vietnamese are such nice people and so welcoming.  There are many more interesting places in the country to explore - Ho Chi Minh, Nha Trang, there are a ton of places to go!

Vietnam, I'll be back!

Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay has been one of the places that's been on my Asia Bucket List to visit since I've been here.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that sits off the east coast of Vietnam.  It features thousands of limestone pillars and islands coming out of the sea which is what I wanted to see!

Thanks Instagram for making my picture look even better!

The trip from Hanoi was a 3 hour long ride in a van (with no shocks) over incredibly bumpy roads.  If you ever go, pay the extra money and take a private car out there, not the van that the boat provides!  Once we got there, we boarded our Junk Boat and took off for a night.  There are hundreds of junk boats (some better than others) and I think we got a pretty good one!

Picture of our boat

We motored around Ha Long Bay to an island which we climbed to the top of and had an amazing view of Ha Long Bay.

From there we went to a fishing village and had a local lady row us around in a boat.  It was amazing to see how these people lived.  They definitely used all of the resources they had available and lived off of the ocean.  It was interesting but also a bit sad knowing that this was all that they had.  It made me very grateful!

Floating houses

The village and our row boats

The local school

The next morning the boat took us to 'Surprise Cave' which was in one of the limestone pillars.  It was a huge cave with three chambers and the last one looked like we were on the moon or something.  The cave was discovered in the early 1900s by the local people.  The Vietnamese then used the cave to store ammunition in the cave during the war because they didn't think that it would be found!  

A few more pictures:

Sunset

Vietnam - Random Pictures

Hi Everyone,

Sorry again that I've been so horrible about keeping this updated!  I've been travelling a good amount lately (mostly for work) but I seem to be in Singapore for the next few weeks until heading to Australia at the end of July and then after that it's my vacation home!!!

But on my travels, I went up to Vietnam for a long weekend (thanks Singapore for having a public holiday on a Friday).  My friend and I flew in to Hanoi and stayed there for a night before travelling 3 hours out to Ha Long Bay for a 2 day/1 night Junk Boat cruise and then back to Hanoi for the last night.  I'll break out the blog posts based on city, but here are a few random pictures that I thought were great...especially the first few.

Mopeds are EVERYWHERE in Vietnam and there are absolutely zero traffic laws either.  I tried to find an intersection to video but the blog isn't letting me upload it.  Therefore a picture will have to do.   I don't know how there aren't a bazillion accidents a day with the Vietnamese driving like this, but I guess they've got the system worked out and they know what to do!  Trying to cross the street amongst this was interesting - basically you step off the curb, walk in a straight line at a constant pace (don't slow down or stop) and the mopeds can judge where you'll be so they can go around you.  It's pretty crazy, but I made it back alive!

On our ride out to Ha Long Bay, we came across this moped.  * This could also be the best picture of my trip - sorry I can't rotate it the right way up *

We thought to ourselves...what the heck is that??? Turns out its a man, his wife and their dinner - of a water buffalo - all on a moped going home.  Only in Asia...

Here are a few others from the 'markets' in Hanoi.  Many of the Vietnamese ladies will sell goods off of their bicycles.  They usually only have one or two things to offer at a time - herbs, mangosteens, flowers, etc.

Here are some of the sidewalk markets:

Some sort of pork maybe?

In Ha Long Bay, they have floating markets selling anything from rice, to bananas to Oreos =)

Fresh catch of the day in the little baskets behind the boat