Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.

I was going to write a review of this Alain de Botton book whose theme is why and when work is meaningful (answer: when it creates delight or reduces suffering in others), but obviously somebody else had made a better job of it.

Somehow I found this ode to how important and significant jobs which we wouldn’t otherwise notice such as power transmission engineering or fishing and food logistics strangely uplifting for a simple reason: I can fully identify with the drive to create delight in others through the results of my efforts.

We end up coming back to the same thing: maybe empathy is what makes us human?

It was surprising for everybody here in Finland to experience last summer.  Winter was very cold and snowy for Finnish standards and summer came in strong and lasted the mandatory 3 months.  We reached temperatures of 35°C in parts of the country and even in Helsinki it was above 30°C for most of July.  Now the rains have started and the summer seems but a memory, so this post is a homage to the warmest, most tropical season in recorded Finnish history.

Michelada de Pacífico

Originally uploaded by Chiva Congelado

A Michelada is a Mexican beer cocktail that is very popular during the summer months. The recipe is quite simple, and my favourite is below:

• 1 Mexican pale lager (Corona, Sol, Pacífico or Montejo recommended)
• 2.5 limes
• Salt
• Maggi seasoning
• Worcestershire sauce
• Valentina sauce (optional)
• Habanero or Tabasco Habanero sauce (optional)

Get a proper beer mug and fill the rim with salt. Squeeze the juice out of the lemons, add a couple of drops of the sauces in the list and finally the beer.

Enjoy!

I’ve never been a big fan of Leonardo Di Caprio’s work, but this movie is basically Matrix for the 2010′s.  Christopher Nolan (the man behind the last two Batman movies) shows again why he’s regarded as one of the best directors in the business for his mastery of both action sequences and the mental processes that take characters there.

Continues from part I.

The middle of the 3 Gorges of the Yangtze River, Qutang Gorge.

Shennong Stream off Yangtze River. Before the construction of the 3 Gorges Dam, the river was so difficult to sail that to go upstream you needed to be pulled along by trackers. Clothing optional.

Behold the 3 Gorges Dam.

Another view of the 3 Gorges Dam

The hotel in Yichang was nice. The city itself was not that interesting. They seemed to have ads for a local corn-based liquor everywhere.

Pudong panorama from the Bund.

Pudong at dusk.

Skyscrapers in the Shanghainese night

Trying to get out of the vantage point of the previous picture at the Oriental Pearl TV tower. This is why we were surprised by the lack of courteousness in Chinese crowds: people would run, push and shove as much as possible in a situation that was potentially very dangerous.

Tea House at the Yuyuan gardens. The bridge is built in zigzag as bad spirits can't turn corners.

The area around the Yuyuan gardens is full of shops and built in traditional Chinese style.

Chinese painting at Shanghai museum. Probably the best museum in China, the ceramic, jade, copper and painting collections are worth the visit.

Mexican pavillion at the World Expo: Replica of the Bell of Independence from the church of Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato.

The Mexican pavillion had an introduction to Mexican art & history, but my favourites where these masks where you could see different parts of Mexico through the eyes of someone living there.

The Finnish pavillion had an overview of Finnish design, and while there was not a lot of food on offer there was a big space for Nokia

The Belgian pavillion focused more than anything on science and technology (and beer and chocolate, sure). They had a video that Frank de Winne, Belgian ESA astronaut, recorded from space for the Expo.

Many pavillions remained unseen, even if we spent there the whole day.

The former French concession at Xintiandi was a nice stop. After two weeks, we were starting to miss certain European comforts like street cafés, sandwiches or good beer.

Even during the night it was very hot, up to 30°C.

Ready to fly back from Beijing. One of the decisive factors that convinced us to go to China was that it is only a 8 hour direct flight with Finnair.

We spent 2 weeks in July in China.  Our route took us to Beijing where we stayed a few days, then we took an overnight train to Chongqing from where we boarded a ferry through the Yangtze River and the 3 Gorges to Yichang.  After sleeping there the night we took another train to Shanghai, where we stayed 4 days before returning back to Finland via Beijing.  It was quite a route as you can appreciate in the map below (we spent 60 hours in trains).

View Larger Map

It was very interesting as an experience, the sights are amazing, generally very safe, the people are usually kind and I thoroughly enjoyed the food.  However, we were more than once assaulted by culture shock.  China is not renowned for being one of the cleanest places on earth and the crowds, while expected, are not nearly as polite as in Japan or even Mexico.  However, as usual, the story is better told in pictures and videos (the rest are found in my Flickr stream as before).

Tiananmen square in the rain

Who comes up with these names?

Temple of Heaven

This little Emperor was ready to take off his picture-perfect disguise.

Inside the Forbidden City

It was extremely foggy when we visited the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu. Somehow doesn't surprise me as I had the same luck at the Cristo de Corcovado.

Another view of the foggy Great Wall of China

Imagine my surprise when we went to a restaurant specialising in Peking duck and found out it's eaten almost like a taco.

In East Asia their maps are different. Deal with it

The standard "soft sleeper" cabins in Chinese trains are quite good. Pity the toilets are an absolute disaster, even in the newest trains. In fact, not only in trains, but pretty much everywhere. Maybe the government should start a nationwide "Be dignified, learn to use a loo" campaign?

Chongqing panorama at night

The Lord of Hell in Fengdu, the ghost city.

Continues in part II

The last month has seen a dearth of posts in this blog for two very simple reasons: work has been absolutely hectic and the World Cup has overtaken the little available spare time I have.

The Mexican team was eliminated in the second round of the World Cup, but I wanted to recap on its campaign in the tournament (for the full tactical analysis go here).  Its preparations were the best in recent memory, doing not only the usual tour of the US against mid- to low-tier teams but also a tour of Europe, where the team lost against England and the Netherlands but beat Gambia and Italy.

As the Tricolor played the opening match against South Africa expectations were very high, but the team looked imprecise (if you could blame the ball the time was now) and lacking killer instinct in the last third of the pitch.  South Africa scored a beautiful goal on the counter and Mexico had to search further, with captain Márquez saving our blushes (and our chances to qualify for the next round).

The second game, against France, was the one everybody expected the team to lose.  The French team, however, hadn’t read the script and arrived tired, divided and overconfident.  Mexico, having performed some changes in defense compared to the first game, looked the better team throughout, but it was the introduction of  youngsters “Chicharito” Hernández and Pablo “Dinamita” Barrera that really made a difference.  The first open the scoreboard and the second provoked a penalty that sealed the game as 2-0 in our favour.  The victory was celebrated by the 110 million Mexicans in Mexico and the 30 million abroad, it was the main news item in domestic media and life was good.

The third game of the group stage was weird: Mexico and Uruguay could go through to the next stage with a draw, while a victory by either team would mean trouble.  Both came out swinging anyway but it was Uruguay who scored the only game in the match.  Mexico would meet Argentina in the second round… just like in 2006.

Expectations being enormous, it was the Mexicans who played the better football in the first 30 minutes, until a blatant offside goal gave Argentina the lead and totally crushed Tri concentration.  That was obvious with the second albiceleste goal, rising from a childish error in defense.  The 3rd goal for the South Americans, however, was a thing of beauty and there’s nothing the opposing fan can say about it.  Mexico picked up the pieces and it was again “Chicharito”, coming as a sub, who led the Mexican charge and scored what in Spanish is called the “honourable” goal, but that was it.

Aguirre, the coach who saved the Mexican qualification campaign, will not continue at the helm of the national team, but many of the men he picked are called to become the backbone of the group that will seek to play in the next World Cup in Brazil: Ochoa, Moreno, Aguilar, Guardado, Dos Santos, Vela, Hernández, Barrera are all under 24 years old, and many are either playing in Europe or have the possibility to move here within the next 4 years.  Other players who figured in the team but didn’t make the trip to South Africa are also young, so right now would be the time to find a good coach, create a proper plan and stick with it.

Regardless of what happens, this is the moment I’ll cherish until I see the guys in green, white and red sing the anthem at the World Cup again:

Spent some time in Turkey for work. It was quite a quick visit, but was still able to see more than just Istanbul this time. The rest of the pictures are here.

Turkish flag in Taksim square, Istanbul.

Monument to the war dead in Taksim square, Istanbul.

Visited Ankara for the first time. While I couldn't see much of the city, the approach from the airport really showed the rolling plains of Anatolia.

Mosque at dusk in Istanbul.

Night at the Golden Horn.

A very readable, if slightly biased, book on the origins and philosophy behind Facebook.  If you want to know more about how startups grow and how Facebook works (or says it works), read this book.

More info: Facebook Effect fan page, Techcrunch

Televisa (the largest media company in the Spanish-speaking world) is not a company I have traditionally liked very much due to its very strong ties to the PRI, the party that dominated Mexican politics for 71 years.  Their operations have been usually extremely conservative with a tint of monopoly.   The company, however, holds  the rights for broadcasting the matches of the Mexican national football team together with its main rival, TV Azteca.

My surprise has been that in the year or two they have completely changed their attitude towards the internet, offering some of their TV content for free over the web, broadcasting live some matches of the national team (not the WC), and pushing Facebook and Twitter heavily in their mainstream media.

While I do not have enough information to know whether they have reacted this favourably because they have a solid online strategy or just through fear, it’s nice to watch Mexican news for a change even if the news items themselves are not that nice.