2007年12月20日星期四

Adventure: Snowman vs Camel

Mall of the Emirates where Ski Dubai is Located

Alex's Office in the Middle of a Desert, Dubai


Ir Alex Leung in the Desert, Dubai

Meeting the Ancient Korean Soldiers in Seoul

Outdoor Inspection for a Metro Project in Seoul

Inspection inside a Building in Seoul

It is my pleasure in contributing to the first article for the HKIE MMNC Division blog as the Division Chairman. I am Alex Leung and a member of an international engineering consultancy firm. Due to the business nature, I need to travel to different parts of the world on projects. May be I could share with you my recent experience on business trips to two different parts of the world with completely different environment, one place has snow on the ground while the other place is in a desert. Can you guess where they are?

By the end of November 2007, I traveled to Seoul of South Korea to perform professional service on due diligence. At that time the temperature was around –3 degree C to 0 degree C in Seoul. During my trip, I have had intensive meetings with the client, concessionaire and contractors, as well as site inspections to verify the process, progress and quality of a metro project. I am proud to say that the international experience and technical expertise that Hong Kong professional engineers possess allows us to contribute to the infrastructural development of other countries and areas. In performing my duty on technical issues, I had to face the natural environment of working in an outdoor condition at around –3 degree C with snow on the ground (actually with melting snow mixed with mud at site). It is always good to have a hot pot of chicken soup after a hard and cold day’s work to inspire oneself spiritually and most importantly to keep the body warm. Another observation is nowadays more and more Korean are learning Chinese characters and Putonghua. In one occasion a young Korean lady has kindly offered her assistance to us in the ordering of food in a native Korean restaurant (with neither English menu nor English-speaking waiters). She used her fluent Putonghua to communicate with us! It is no doubt that various countries are interested to enhance communication and strengthen business link with China, and it is very likely that Chinese will become one of the major international languages very soon.

The other business trip happened in early December 2007 and the destination was a desert – Dubai in the Middle East. Dubai is a fascinating city with a lot of construction works going on. The number of cars running in Dubai far exceeds the number of camels there. It is worthwhile to note that the temperature of Dubai in summer could reach a value close to 50 degree C. Luckily December is a month in the “winter” and the current temperature is around 25 degree C. In this assignment, I have to perform design as well as design management duties on a metro project. The Government of Dubai is investing heavily on its infrastructural development, and the property market is also booming. The development of “Palm Island” in Dubai is one of the famous development projects in the world. The Arabian Tower is a landmark of Dubai which is famous for its prestige status and also extraordinary high expenditure. Another simulating observation is that you could enjoy ice-skiing in the desert at Ski Dubai. It is an artificial indoor ice-skiing field located inside a huge luxury shopping mall. In Ski Dubai, one has to take the cable car to travel to the top of the “mountain” in order to ski down the slope. Golfing is another favourite sport in Dubai where it has nice golf course in the city. In Dubai, you can find people coming from different parts of the world working there in a harmonious environment.

I hope that you would enjoy reading our blog. Your feedback, suggestions and constructive comments would be most welcomed. I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Ir Alex Leung
Chairman, HKIE MMNC Division 07/08

4 則留言:

HKIE.MMNC 說...

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匿名 說...

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匿名 說...

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Looking forward to more information about engineering!

匿名 說...

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