The Application Web

It was good to run into a lot of old friends in Orlando this week at the IBM Impact 2007 technology conference. I would have to say that it was a defining event. With 4,200 customers, IBM business partners, and IBMers attending there was obviously something really big happening. The Marriott Orlando World Center was buzzing with activity in every hall, ballroom, salon, patio, and restaurant.

The main subject of the conference was SOA. Only the most brilliant technical people could come up with SOA as a name for something. Let’s see, is it safe operating area,
School of the Americas,
Skies of Arcadia (a Nintendo game), Society of Actuaries, state of the art, or the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act? Nope. Maybe it is about an architectural firm that has great customer service the architecture of a building that has a good service entrance? Neither. The SOA that brought thousands of people together in Orlando stands for "service oriented architecture". It is really important.

The wikipedia has a comprehensive definition of SOA but basically it is about a new way to get things done with software. Actually it is isn’t new — the idea has been around for decades — but now it is really happening. It is so much a part of the vernacular at IBM that they just matter of factly call it “so a”. After an IBM briefing about "virtualization" a year ago, I tried to explain the word in simple terms (see Virtually Real or Really Virtual). I’ll try that approach here with SOA.

In a nutshell, SOA will allow web sites to do much more than “click here to buy”. In fact web sites built with SOA will result in us standing in fewer lines in the physical world and have to endure fewer telephone call centers that want to control us. Fulfillment models at our favorite retailer’s web site will result in the staple goods we need just showing up outside the garage door when we need them. If businesses have the right attitude, SOA will enable them to get closer to the ultimate Internet — to build a people-oriented and user-friendly integrated experience for all parties involved – employees on the intranet, suppliers, customers, partners, analysts and prospective constituents. There is more to this story.

Over the last fifty years there has been an explosion of computer applications, but many of them were built in silos and were highly inflexible. In some cases companies thought decentralization was the answer so they allowed divisions and departments to do their own thing. The result was that many have a hodgepodge of incompatible systems that nobody is happy with. The web took things a big leap forward. At last there was a common way (the browser) for accessing and displaying information, even though the applications that run on the server — that do the pricing, inventory lookups, shipping estimates, invoicing, etc. — are still proprietary and usually tied to one particular IT vendor or system. The applications have also been very monolithic; i.e. in order to fulfill the expectations of customers on the web the application has to do the whole job. Soup to nuts; present the right price, confirm if the item is in stock, calculate shipping, and confirm the status of the order. Increasingly, customers want to get access directly into the supply chain and see exactly where their order stands. In short, applications have gotten larger and more complicated — harder, not easier.

SOA — arguably the biggest change in information technology in decades — is poised to change the way applications are created and how they interoperate. Instead of building a monolithic application that takes a customer order, does credit checks, checks inventory, looks through the supply chain, arranges for payment, charges the customer, clears credit card transactions, etc., with SOA these various functions are built as separate "pieces". Think Legos. The individual programs are called "services" and they are called upon as needed. A sales tax calculation "service", for example, could be used by many different divisions of a company thereby eliminating redundancy. IBM has been practicing what it preaches in this regard. It has reduced the number of programs it uses to run the company from 16,000 to a mere 4,000.

The SOA services do not all have to be developed or acquired internally. Thanks to the Internet, services can be "rented" from others. For example, suppose that a company called American Specialties Inc. (ASI) specializes in selling American goods for delivery mostly outside of America. They want to create an application to sell their products on the web. The trickiest part of the application is determining the best way to ship the product to ensure it gets there when the customer wants it and at the lowest cost. ASI doesn’t’t have the skills to write this particular part of the application and they haven’t bee able to find a vendor with a software package that can do it and which is compatible with the rest of ASI’s software.

It turns out that there is another company called Rates and Costs Inc. (RCI), which specializes in the calculation of optimum routes and the associated costs for shipment to places anywhere in the world. RCI offers the calculation as a service on the web and it is the exact function ASI needs to incorporate into their web application. Since RCI follows the SOA standards, ASI is able to see the specifications for RCI’s service – what inputs are required and what output does it produce. RCI could have created their calculation service using any IT platform they choose — the standards assure that things can work together.

The programmer at ASI likes RCI’s program because it performs exactly the right function that ASI needs and the software has already been written and tested! ASI follows the SOA standards to incorporate RCI’s service into their web application. Whenever a user goes to ASI’s web page and needs shipment route and cost information, a link is made behind the scenes to RCI’s web server to get the information. ASI’s customers don’t know, nor will they care, that part of the job is being done by RCI’s server; not ASI’s server. ASI makes an arrangement to pay RCI each time one of ASI’s customers uses the RCI web service.

Creating programs by linking to other programs without regard to what programming language was used to create the others’ programs represents a whole new paradigm. It is one of the information technology industry’s holy grails. Standards organizations, such as Oasis, have been attempting for years to create a “neutral” programming environment. The UNIX vendors – HP, DEC, Sun, IBM, Data General, and others – formed various organizations, councils and consortia over the years attempting to bring things together. Progress was made but none of these initiatives achieved real openness and true compatibility across the information technology industry — until SOA. It is not really new but it is time. Open Internet standards and SOA tools are making it happen.

SOA will make it possible for the web to evolve from a web of content to a web of content and applications. SOA will enable server-to-server interaction in addition to browser to server interactions. Servers will negotiate with other servers and even complete transactions by themselves with no direct human intervention. These interactions will replace the paper forms and faxes that flow back and forth from company to company today.

E-business evolved to on demand. At this stage many enterprises have bought in to the concept but are struggling with how to get there. This is why many web sites don’t fully meet our needs — they are dependent on many independent applications that the enterprise has had for decades and so far have been unable to integrate them. SOA is the new model — it offers the first comprehensive, standards based way to get the job done. Adoption of SOA will enable the interoperability within the many functions and departments of enterprises and between enterprises that has been a decades long dream. History has shown that adoption of standards leads to an explosion of usage and that will surely be the case with SOA. The SOA standards will enable entire industries to be brought together. Virtual corporations comprised of a federation of smaller ones will enable “hyper competition” on a global scale.

How does "Web 2.0" fit into all this? Like a ball and glove. Quite the hot topic in tech circles and among venture capitalists, Web 2.0 is basically a style, a model, an approach, and a philosophy wrapped together. It includes a "lightweight" programming model that is more like webpage development than traditional programming. A key element of 2.0 is the blog feed — a way to allow people to look at a web page but also subscribe to it. Another element is AJAX, a technique built on a collection of Internet standards that produces a rich user experience — kayak.com is a good example — with pages that don’t "reload", they just change while you are looking at them. Another characteristic of Web 2.0 is that it is a perpetual beta — users treated as co-developers. The philosophy is "release early and release often". One final element that I consider part of 2.0 is the PHP scripting language. Some professionals have considered it "rinky-dink" but IBM is taking it quite seriously. Jerry Cuomo, IBM Fellow and CTO for IBM WebSphere, said PHP has widespread skills, an active community, viral marketing, and growing deployments.

All things considered, IBM really has it’s act together with regard to SOA. Every software and services executive is well versed on it and has it baked into their business and development plans. The promise is great and with tens of thousands of software engineers and management support I think it is fair to expect IBM to deliver. They have already made dozens of acquisitions to fill in the white spaces in their vision. Major customers are signing up and getting results. Much more at ibm.com, including tips and techniques, customer testimonials, and business partners.

Other patrickWeb stories about Internet technology

IBM Happenings: April 2007

The month of April at IBM was filled with a slew of announcements in hardware, software, services, acquisitions, and strategic alliances. Many of the announcements are occurring in the healthcare area. I was particularly impressed hearing that the Mayo Clinic and IBM are advancing real-time medical imaging.
Collaborators from Mayo Clinic and IBM have exploited parallel computer architecture
and memory bandwidth to dramatically speed up the processing of 3-D medical images. Here are all the announcements made by the company during the month. The complete index of prior IBM Happenings is here.

China 2007 – Epilogue

Visiting China is an eye opener culturally and economically. It is a rapidly developing country and it appears that special interest groups do not get in the way of progress. Perhaps it was the same way when America was building the Hoover Dam or the Interstate Highway system. I was quite impressed with aviation in China. We took five flights within the country. Not sure how many airlines they have in total — the Air Travel Guide for China lists seven. The ones we used all had new aircraft, they took off and landed on time, and the flight attendants were young, friendly and efficient. You had the feeling they really cared about your comfort. While U.S. airlines have eliminated pillows and blankets in economy seating, the Chinese airlines seemed to have an unlimited supply. Every flight, even if 45 minutes, had food. Check-in and security lines moved efficiently even though the airports and the number of people in them were huge. There are various claims made about airports but I don’t think there is any debate that Beijing will soon be the largest — and take just three years to complete.

In the U.S., we are very fortunate to have a transportation system that is highly reliable and gets us to where we want to go in an amazingly short time. The travel industry is a complex one and there is a huge legacy of process, management systems, and technology that makes it difficult to be as flexible and nimble as we all would like. The Chinese do not have all the legacy baggage — no pun intended. Having offered that perspective, it is still at times incredible what we put up with.

The return flight from Beijing actually pulled away from the gate twenty minutes early, took off right on time, and landed at Newark Liberty International Airport exactly on schedule. After the plane sat on the tarmac for a few minutes, the captain announced that there would be a hold while they “waited for a gate assignment”. The few minutes turned out to be ninety minutes. Someone knew for at least twelve hours when the flight would land yet there was no assigned place for it to go after landing. Apparently there was a mechanical problem with one of the planes that was occupying the space assigned to our plane. Since it was an international flight the plane needed to go to a certain terminal. Could we have been placed on a bus and be taken to that terminal? Newark is a very large airport and you would think there would be some way to park the plane and get the passengers to immigration. Could the problem have been an information problem? Could it be that that the flight arrival system and the gate scheduling system do not communicate?

Being a pilot myself, I feel confident in the men and women in the cockpit of an airline aircraft. Knowing a bit about the FAA regulations, I feel confident in the procedures for flying and safety inspections. When it comes to information oriented aspects of the airline industry I am much less confident. The lack of systems and applications integration becomes so painfully obvious. At times a plane gets to the gate on time but there is no one there to open the door. Another information breakdown? Perhaps the person was overworked and busy managing another flight but you certainly get the feeling that better information flow could make the airplane and people “flows” work better.

Japan Airlines
has been using message queuing technology for more than ten years to enable their flight arrival system and their gate scheduling system to communicate. Message queuing technology can enable two (or more) incompatible systems to exchange messages so that things can be coordinated. Today’s Service Oriented Architecture makes it much easier than ten years ago and it is very hard to justify having systems that don’t communicate with each other (or a solid plan to get there).

I am sure many people could top the tarmac story from Newark but I doubt if anyone could top the Fire Truck incident though!

Epilogue to the epilogue: If you are interested in tracking flights, airplanes, or activities at airports, take a look at http://flightaware.com/

China 2007 – The Wall

Thanks to Theron Rogers in Georgia for pointing out a "minor* error in my last posting. The Great Wall is 3,720 *miles* long, not 3,720 feet. Actually, nobody is sure exactly how long the remaining part of the wall is. As far as you can see from Balaling for sure. While some portions north of Beijing and near tourist centers have been preserved and even reconstructed, other parts have been destroyed or are in extremely remote areas of the country. Parts of the wall will probably continue to be discovered for many years.

China 2007 – Part 6

Our final flight inside China was from Xian to Beijing, a city of 14 million, the third largest in the country. The bus trip from Beijing to Badaling is a link to China’s past and , of course, no trip to China would be complete without a visit to The Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City. Like so many things in China, you have to see it to believe it. The main purpose of the wall was military — to protect the kingdom. The 3,720 mile wall was built over a period of hundreds of years and involved many thousands of people. Many died from the project and were buried in the wall. Walking to the high point of the wall near Badaling is strenuous but you can only imagine how hard it was to build the wall with no machinery. The wall is wide enough for four horsemen to ride side by side. It is also hard to imagine that the wall extends a greater distance than America is wide. Some say it is the only man-made object that can be seen from outer space with the naked eye, others say that there are many man-made structures visible from space, and still others say Earth looks like a blue marble and there are no structures visible.

Most everything in China is on a massive scale and that is certainly true of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tiananmen, perhaps best known for the protests in 1989, is the world’s largest public square and was initially the "front door" of the Forbidden City. Completed in 1420, the Forbidden City is the world’s largest palace complex and home to 9,999 buildings. You could spend all day there and only see a fraction of it. The Forbidden City was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing Dynasties where outside visitors were forbidden for five centuries. Every aspect of the Forbidden City is impressive but in particular to me was the Large Stone Carving that was
50 feet long and 10 feet wide, 5 feet thick, and weighing more than 200 tons. The designs and carvings were amazing including waves, nine dragons playing in the clouds and interlocking lotus flowers. It is hard to imagine how it was moved from the quarry west of Beijing.

The final night included Beijing Opera and Peking Duck. Beijing opera includes elaborate and colorful costumes. The performers have painted faces and their beauty dominates the stage. The plot is not easy on the mind and the sounds are not easy on the ears. Unfortunately, I would have to describe it as screeching. Fortunately, it was an abbreviated performance. Peking Duck, on the other hand, was excellent. I had last enjoyed this preparation in Singapore ten years ago. The dish is distinguished by the thin, crispy skin. The skin is rolled up with a touch of sweet noodle sauce and scallions in a lotus leaf pancake and eaten. The duck itself is used for other dishes. There is a lot to know about this dish, which goes back to the 13th century.

Index for the trip to China (May 2007)

China 2007 – Part 5

The next flight in China took us to Xian, at the very center of the country and the oldest city in China — and with 3,100 years of history. A small city — 8 million people — with the most amazing statistic that the city is adding 9,000 new automobiles per month. The traffic is already bad and it is hard to imagine what it will be like a few years from now.

The Tang Dynasty Theatre Restaurant was home for an evening of great Chinese food and entertainment. They claim to be China’s premier cultural entertainment theater restaurant. The food was excellent (the wine not great, as in all of China) and the performance resembled an opera and included beautiful costumes and authentic Chinese instruments. The musicians, sngers and performers were superb.

Day two in Xian started with a bus ride to see the Terracotta Warriors. This is one of many things in China in the category of "you have to see it to believe it". It is often said that ‘you can’ take it with you’ but when a Chinese emperor died they took a lot of things to the grave with them to be part of their after life. The first emperor of the Qin Dynasty 2,000 years ago went out big time. He had 8,000 soldiers and horses constructed from terra cotta. The life-sized figures were cured in a kiln and each one weighs 600 pounds and was complete with razor-sharp bronze weapons. The weapons were coated with chrome — thought to be invented a couple of thoursand years later — and showedg no sign of rust. The army consisted of archers, war chariots, cavalrymen, and infantrymen. The chariots were made from 4,000 separately casted parts. The pits where these amazing warriors were found were underground and discovered by a farmer looking for water iin 1974. You have to see it to believe it!

Index for the trip to China (May 2007)

China 2007 – Part 4

The Viking River Cruise began in Maoping and proceeded for
612 km (380 miles) along the Yangtze River. The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world after the Nile in Africa and the Amazon in South America.Some of the cities — there are 185 located throughout the Yangtze River area — visited along the way included
Badong,
Wushan,
Fengdu, Wanxian,
Shibaozhai,
Fengjie,
Fuling, and
Chongqing (the largest city in the world) where the cruise ended. The scenery along the way was mostly beautiful and included massive construction projects at nearly every bend. New roads, new bridges, and new skyscrapers interspersed with ancient pagodas, vegetable crops, and coal storage bins. If there is one thing noticeable around China it is coal. In the early morning before the crew gets to wipe them off you can brush your hand across the ships railings and you will find them covered in black dust.

The next to the last day of the Yangtze River cruise started out with a tour of Fengdu. The original Fengdu was built over 1800 years ago but now it has become an island as a result of the Three Gorges Dam project. I would call our visit a cultural tour. A Chinese city of a million people is considered to be a small city — Fengdu county was "just" 780,000 people and the city a mere 90,000 (four times bigger than where I live). The reason for the stop in Fengdu is that it is a model of the relocation of people whose homes and farms were lost to the rising Yangtze. The city is just six years old and it is very nice.

We started out at Fengdu Zhaohua Gongyuan (Fengdu Cultural Garden) where we were entertained by a group of retirees who played music, sang and danced. They all had constant smiles on their faces were very friendly. Some of the tourists joined in the singing and dancing (see photo gallery). We then visited a center city area where there were shops of all kinds including many mobile telephone shops. The last stop of the morning tour was at a farmer’s market. There were many things there that I have not seen before let alone consider eating. The tour guide said that the Chinese eat anything with wings except airplanes and anything with four legs except chairs. The local people were all very friendly and enjoyed having their picture taken. The children liked to say "hello" and wave to tourists. I had a very good feeling about the people of China. Unfortunately there were a number of beggars also — with indescribable physical disfigurement. The tour guide said that needy people are provided for by the government but that they beg to seek "extra" income. The government forbids begging but apparently there is no enforcement. On a more positive note, the retirees receive $200 per month and seemed quite content with their lives.

Note: Mobile is quite plentiful and inexpensive in China. I bought a SIM card for the Palm Treo for $23 that included 200 minutes and worked everywhere in Hong Kong. The Chinese have adopted GSM mobile technology like almost the whole world (except for Verizon). SIM cards were available at tourist sites and virtually everywhere in China. They are sold mostly for local use even though they are technically able to be used globally. I went into a China Mobile store in Fengdu to buy a SIM card that would support data services but there was no English spoken and I could not communicate what I wanted. The signal strength on the Palm Treo was solid throughout the entire trip, and far better than what I have at home. The appearance of cell phone towers throughout the country is not an issue like it is in the U.S. where nobody wants one within site of where they live.

China Mobile, which as the world’s largest wireless company claims that it has a mind-boggling 480 million customers and says that it expects to continue adding four million to five million new subscribers every month. Their revenueper user will decline as they attract more subscribers from rural areas. Competition from Internet-based phone service is also forcing them to reduce rates. Nice when you can make things up on volume. China Mobile’s market capitalization is about $185 billion, bigger than any other wireless company, and second only to AT&T in the broader telecommunications business. It may be a communist government but free enterprise is thriving.

Index for the trip to China (May 2007)

China 2007 – Part 3

The flight to Yichang brought us to within two hours of the Three Gorges Dam. After a drive by the dam we reached Maoping where we boarded the ship that would be our home for the next four nights. On the first morning we toured the dam and then started the cruise in the afternoon through the longest of the Three Gorges, Xiling, which was lined with sheer cliffs and many smaller gorges and caves.

The Three Gorges Dam is truly an engineering marvel. It is the largest project in the world and has been in planning for decades. The main goal is flood control. Floods have killed large numbers of people in China over the years and the area has so much rain and so many rivers that it has always been vulnerable. By damming the "big river" it is possible to control the flow and divert excess water. In addition to flood control, the $30 billion Three Gorges Project provides power generation and improved navigation. Each of the parts — dam, bridge, dike, locks, ship lift, scenery, tourist facilities, museum, working models, etc. — are quite impressive to say the least.

The 84.7 billion kilowatt hours produced by the turbine generators is ten times bigger than a nuclear power plant and currently is producing 5% of the electrical needs of China. In spite of the enormity of the project, the growth of the Chinese economy will also demand constructions of forty nuclear plants. Hopefully, these will reduce the dependency on the coal-fired electrical production which now accounts for 70% of the country’s electrical needs but brings a lot of pollution along with it.

The dam itself is not the tallest in the world (the Hoover Dam is) but it is the widest by a long shot — 1.4 miles. Standing at more than 500 feet tall, 80 feet wide at the top and 320 feet at the bottom, the dam will ultimately (by 2009) cause the river to permanently rise by 370 feet and create a lake of nearly forty billion cubic meters of water. The amount of concrete used to build the dam is amazing but even more amazing is that while it was being poured the concrete had to be mixed with ice in order to overcome the 120 degree temperature and allow the concrete to cure.

Five locks allow ships up to nearly 1,000 feet in length to traverse the river in about four hours. For ships that may need to make it in a half-hour the Chinese are building a ship "lift". It is not completed yet but it will literally work like an elevator in which a ship will be lifted along with the water it is floating in. It is similar to a giant bath tub with a ship in it and then the bath tub being lifted to the higher elevation.

The most complicated aspect of the Three Gorges Project is the relocation of more than a million people. Various incentives were provided to encourage people to leave their homes and farms and move to a new location. In some cases cities were rebuilt nearby but in other cases people had to relocate a considerable distance. The younger people liked the deal. One young tour guide told us that for him the relocation meant going from living with three generations of family in less than 400 square feet to getting a 1,200 square foot apartment with just his wife and child. Instead of waiting in a long line for a public bathroom he would have a bathroom of his own. Walking up to the ninth floor to get to his new apartment did not phase him. In some cities elevators are provided if there are more than seven floors. Overall, it appears the Chinese government has done a masterful job of planning and implementing incredible changes to continue to fuel their economy which is the fastest growing in the world. At the current rate China will overcome the U.S. as the most powerful country economically in ten years or so. Time to move on to the cruise on the Yangtze.

Index for the trip to China (May 2007)

China 2007 – Part 2

The flight northwest from Hong Kong to Guilin, in the northeastern part of the Guangxi province, took about an hour. Like all of the five flights we took in China, the plane took off and landed on schedule and the flight attendants were pleasant and gave you the feeling they sincerely wanted to be of maximum service to the passengers. I never for an instant saw any signs of grumpiness in any Chinese employee.

Guilin, by the banks of the Li River, is considered to be one of the most beautiful tourist cities in China. With more than 2,000 years of cultural history, Guilin has gained a reputation for its unique scenery: green hills, rocky cliffs, clear water, numerous caves, stones of various shapes. After breakfast we began a day cruise and saw the dramatic limestone peaks. I have never seen anything like this anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, it was a cloudy day and the pictures are not great. After a short tour of Yang Shuo village and what would be a string of traditional Chinese dinners, we headed to the airport again, this time to fly to Shanghai.

The flight from Guilin to Shanghai was nearly two hours. Shanghai — second largest city with a popluation of 17 million people — is on the coast of East China Sea about equidistant between Hong Kong and Beijing. It is truly a great city offering tremendous contrast between the "old" Shanghai and the "new". Driving and walking along The Bund showed us part of the city’s elegant riverside promenade. The gardens in the old section were stunning. Equally impressive was the Maglev train which runs from downtown to the new Shanghai Pudong Airport — in 7 1/2 minutes at 268 mph. It is the fastest train in the world. The maglev train floats about 3/8 of an inch above the guidway on a magnetic field. The magnetic field of the guidway changes direction continuously and "pulls" the train forward — there is no onboard engine. The ride was smooth as could be and the acceleration and speed were dramatic. We got off the train, crossed to the other side and rode the Maglev back to the city and then took a cab back to our hotel. The Shanghai Museum contained jade, bronze, caligraphy, porcelain, and a history of the development of Chinese culture. Hundreds of school children in their uniforms paraded through the museum. Many of them enjoyed saying "hello" and then giggled when we said ni hao. We also learned to say boo yao xie xie.

The 90+-story sky scrapers all over the city were full of people. All seventeen million people were busy at something — the Shanghai Stock Exchange continues to set new records. The Chinese acrobat show was something you would have to see to believe (a few pictures will be in photo gallery later). Next was a flight to Yichang.

Index for the trip to China (May 2007)

China 2007 – Part 1

This week was the beginning of my fourth trip to China (see Asia travel section of photo gallery for pictures from the prior trips). The first three were alone and 90+% business. Eventually the day would come when I would be lucky enough to go back with friends and family and not do any business activity. The prior trips were to just a few of the big cities but this time it was many cities and villages — there was an incredible amount to see and learn.

We were fortunate to be able to get a non-stop flight with Continental from Newark to Hong Kong where we spent the first two and a half days of the trip. The twin-engine Boeing 777 was able to make the journey in roughly fifteen hours. The GPS indicated that our hotel was 8,900 miles from home. There is much to be said about Hong Kong but the most memorable parts were Victoria Peak and the Buddha.

Hong Kong is 425 square miles in size and is located on the southeastern coast of China.
The main areas are Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories. Hong Kong Island lies just south of Kowloon and the two are separated by Victoria Harbor. The New Territories lie north of Kowloon and include more than 260 outlying islands.

To get to the peak we walked along the waterfront to the ferry boat which took us to downtown near the convention center (where I had given a speech ten years earlier). We then walked through the city part way up the hill to the tram. The ride up the side of the mountain to Victoria Peak was very steep and the view from the top was spectacular. After a nice lunch we walked the 3,000 meter trail along the edge of the peak and could look down at Victoria Harbor and the beautiful skyscrapers below.

During the trip in 1999 it was a great pleasure to meet Karen and Alfonso. Karen worked for IBM at the time (she is now with HSBC). They were kind enough to take me on a day trip to see the largest Buddha in the world, located at Ngong Ping on Lantau Island. We got there by subway and then a boat. Eight years later we met up with Karen and Alfonso to see the Buddha once again but this time it was by subway and gondola. The area has been developed into quite a tourist attraction, complete with many shops and restaurants. We enjoyed a traditional Chinese lunch before heading to the airport to fly to Guilin.

Index for the trip to China (May 2007)