Yantain Container Terminal Visit

Last Thursday all 11 Category Leads took a trip into China to visit one of the worlds largest international container terminals which is located in Yantian, China. It is just 35 minutes from the HK/China border.

Here is a map. Remember that I live on HK Island which is circled in red at the bottom of the image. Yantian is to the east of Shenzhen and the red arrow is pointing towards the port. It is a naturally deep water port which makes it ideal for large container ships.

We got to visit the consolidating warehouse too which gets all product from different China vendors and sorts and consolidates into containers for each retail order. 

Toys, toys, toys! It's kind of like the North Pole here!

They have a Transformers train car that they brought out so we could see and take pictures with. Little did they know this high energy group would climb all over it. 

Just another hard day at work! 

Seoul, Korea

Monday was a public holiday here (Buddha's birthday); same day as US Memorial Day. So last minute Annette, Kalpana and I ventured to Seoul, South Korea for the long weekend.

We started our journey with a very fun taxi driver who played K-pop music on our drive to downtown Seoul. And yes, he played us the infamous Gangnam Style. 

We stayed in Myeong-dong area of Seoul at Loisir Hotel which was a great central location right on the train line and close to bus routes. 

To get around we took the subway and also used the city tour bus which you can hop on and off at the different tourist locations. Communication was a bit challenging. Not many people spoke English so we did a lot of charades and pointing at pictures on the menu.

From our room we could see Seoul Tower. There is a cable car up there but the queue was way too long for us to wait. Here is Seoul Tower during the day and lit up at night. 

The architecture in Seoul was very cool. 

This is Seoul City Hall. They actually built this building around the old City Hall. 

See old City Hall is on left and new building is literally curved around it. I could have stared at this building for hours it was so cool.

We visited many palaces. Changdeokgung, Changgyeoggung, and Gyeongbokgung palaces. We also visited Jongmyo Shrine (totally by accident). 

The colors painted on the palaces were so vibrant.

The carvings were not as aggressive as other countries that I've seen but rather sweet figurines.

Annette and me.

And we went to the Fork (I mean Folk museum). Well we stood outside of it.

Here we are waiting for the changing of the guard ceremony at Gyeongbokgung Palace. 

The actual ceremony. 

 

 

There were very many cool things around the city to see. 

We went to a Korean show as well at the Korea House. The dinner was sold out but the show is the main attraction. It was an amazing show with music and dancing. The costumes were vibrant and the dancing lively.

These guys had like ribbons attached to the tops of their hats and they spun and twirled around as they were playing their drums.

The food was spectacular. We at much traditional food. Bimbap. KimChiIeon (like an egg pancake). Pajeon (egg pancake with prawns and peppers).

We visited Namsangil Hanok Village which was a cool view of the way traditional villages look. First we needed to "dress" up in traditional costumes.

Our last night we found a cool rooftop bar near our hotel with a view of Seoul Tower. We met Heather who works for Hasbro leading HR for Korea and Japan. You can see Seoul Tower in the background. 

Lovely city. We didn't get to see all we wanted so would definitely revisit to see the temples, cathedrals and of course Gangnam area.