Jan. 9, 10 Singapore

After taking a quick three hour flight from Hong Kong to Singapore, we boarded our tour bus and were immediately astounded by the beautiful scenery, weather and cleanliness of the city. In other words, we felt as if we were entering a tropical paradise. Before the tour started, we met up with a 2007 Elon graduate, Hillary Corna, who is an operations manager for Toyota. It was great to have her along because she gave some great insight into all the great stuff we could do while in the country. Our tour started by visiting a multicultural food court offering various elements of authentic cuisines. Then, we continued our journey on the exciting double-decker bus, which took us to a scenic tourist area called Clark Quay. This area displayed numerous high quality bars, hotels, and restaurants, as well as a view of a third grand hotel casino in the works. We unloaded the bus at Clark Quay and hopped aboard the Singapore river cruise night, which drifted smoothly thorough the waters of Clark Quay. There were many opportunities for great pictures of statues and immaculate architecture, which we saw to be present in most of the Singapore area.

Upon arrival in Singapore, we witnessed many unique artistic images such as this.

After the cruise, we capped off the tour with a visit to the Long Bar, which offered the famous "Singapore Sling" Claiming to be the venue where the beverage was originally invented. This night made for one of the greatest and most exciting times thus far on our journey Pacific Rim. The next day, however, would prove to offer even more excitement.

Taxi dropping us off for the full day at Sentosa

We woke up the next morning to very hot and sunny weather and decided to go to the beach. After asking our taxi driver for advice on the best beach to go to, he recommended that we venture to Sentosa Island. This place turned out to be an amusement park for fun. We started out on the calmer part of the island, where our taxi driver seemed to drop us off at jokingly. After scaling the beach for about an hour, we came upon a village that seemed to be held up by sticks in the ocean. Then we came upon multiple new wave pool areas, one of which offered simulated surfing (this was one of the coolest things we have ever seen). After enduring colder weather in the U.S. prior to the trip, the hot Singapore sun quickly drained us, and we returned back the hotel to call it a day. What an adventure!

-Written by Davis Miller and Andrew Thompson

Saturday, January 16, 2010

The Pacific Rim adventure continues on January 15^th from Singapore. It began at 9:00 AM when half of the group attempted to locate the Pimco office building.  An hour later, we finally found the building. There we met with the Director and Senior Vice President of Pimco Asia, Bransby Whitton; Account Analyst, Clement Tan; and Account Associate, Gerald Koh. Mr. Whitton and his associates gave a brief lecture on their roles within the company and the culture which exists in Asia; as well as the intricate relationship between United States and China. Mr. Whitton explained how he is responsible for operating the entire office, which offers financial account management for large institutions. Unlike most of the other meetings, the lecture was kept incredibly short and a Q&A quickly developed. During this less formal discussion much was learned. Mr. Whitton discussed the main reason the office in Singapore was primarily established to capture the business of the incredibly large investment fund of the Singapore government. This was the first Pimco office based overseas. As a result of this move, Pimco has developed a strong relationship with the Singaporean government and now has an advisor relationship with the government. This relationship is one of Pimco’s primary objectives for all of its customers.

 Following this information, Mr. Whitton began to tell us about the strict regulations the company must comply with, since they are based out of the United States and are regulated by the SEC. Unlike America, in Singapore and other Asian countries, businesses have less regulation and are based more on relationships and influence. Another major difference of business in this country is having to deal with mandatory military service all male Singaporeans. Mr. Tan and Mr. Koh, talked in great detail about how their mandatory service affected the decisions they made about education and careers. For example Mr. Koh decided to attend Purdue University immediately following high school, but was required to provide the government with a large bond to insure his return post completion of a college education. Mr. Tan on the other hand went directly into the two year, required, military service and obtained a college education following his service. Both men, along with all other Singaporean males are required to participate in the reserves unit, until age 35. This service entails two to four weeks of training each year, consequently removing men from the workforce during the training period. It seems as if the training schedules are dispersed, allowing some of the workforce to remain and cover their colleagues workload.

After our meeting with Mr. Whitton, the other half of the group came to the Pimco office and participated in the same meeting. We were forced to split up due to the small amount of space in the board room. The group gathered again around 1 PM to make our way to the airport. The trip to Vietnam was uneventful. Upon our arrival, the group was given free time to explore the wonderful city of Hanoi.  Upon landing in Hanoi, we all knew we were in for quite a culture shock. The city streets were filled with thousands of scooters weaving in and out of traffic. It seems as if lanes and direction of travel are merely a suggestion for the scooter drivers. We saw numerous drivers traveling in the opposite direction of oncoming traffic. Aside from the erratic driving patterns of the locals, the food was yet again a significant culture shock. The restaurants had options varying from abalone to shark fin. Our tour guide made sure to tell us about all of the exotic foods we will come across while in Vietnam. Some of those choices included king cobra snake, duck web, and even water buffalo. Looks like a lot of us are going to be kind of hungry this week, unless we can find a McDonalds or KFC. Now we are off to Halong Bay to spend the night on a Junk boat.

Our Meeting at Pimco

Traffic in Hanoi

Mingling with the locals

(Posted by Andy Matz and Alex Della-Penna)

Hi readers, the trip is going well and we have had no problems thus far. We have all been enjoying the company of our professors and peers. This blog pertains to the 14th. Late last night (on the 13th) at about 9pm we boarded a night train to head back to Singapore from Kuala Lumpur. We were on the train until about 8am this morning. Overall most people got some much needed sleep. Some stayed up for a bit to chat/play cards. Those who got some quality sleep were in much better shape for the day’s activities.

After a few quick showers and some reorganizing of rooms at the hotel we were off to an early morning start at SAP at about 10AM. There was not much to see at this stop nor was there too much to take pictures of but the presentation was top-notch! The Asia-Pacific CFO gave a great presentation about the market and overall business model of SAP. They create business solution through IT. For many companies using SAP software can be very beneficial in the long run but many times it can be monetarily costly and time costly. They hold much of the market share in many different industries and are looking forward to grow in the areas of banking and retail. These areas are weak according to the CFO because the time spent on developing this type software is not as vast as other products.

As the day moved on we took a quick lunch break and we soon found ourselves at 3M learning a great deal about a completely different industry. We went from software solutions to an innovation think-tank all within a few hour window. That is the beauty of this trip, everyone is able to experience such a great variety of companies in a completely different culture on the other side of the world. We learned that this company was first started as a adhesion products based company. They grow because of the people they hire. They continue to invent new products as well as continue to find new applications for old inventions. What was also interesting was the billions spent on R&D and the patents put in place to protect products now and ones they may create as products out in the future.

As we changed gears into the night it was fitting to visit Singapore’s very own night safari. We got to see many exotic animals from this part of the world including Africa. There was a tram and many paths to walk down to see the animals close up. One of the problems was that the lighting was so low because the animals are nocturnal (light damages their eyes) that the cameras didn’t pick up great pictures. Even though you might not be able to tell from some of the pictures it was an amazing time. John even held a huge boa on this back. What a day!! Make sure to keep checking in for our updates.

Safari Pics…

Ryan R. and John C.

Tuesday, January 12th and Wednesday, January 13th

The news behind the news: Kuala Lumpur…

As all our avid readers know, you are about to embark on an informative excerpt from the lavish lives of your sons and daughters. Despite recent news, I would first and foremost like to make everyone aware that our trip to the Danger Zone was both successful and safe. Before getting into too much detail, I would like to brief you all on the locations we have been during the last two days, January 12^th and 13^th. 

Our arrival on January 12^th was nearly immediately followed by a torrential downpour, so although we were only able to make it to the King’s Palace gate before taking shelter in the hotel, the 13^th was a very suitable make-up day. We did however manage to find quite the mall, equipped with even a small theme park...

Although we have been residing in the obvious, Malaysia, we have visited several different places that have been not only culturally enlightening, but also pleasantly different than the countries we have been to thus far… (China and Singapore for those who have not been concerned with their little ones whereabouts). In order to keep things simple, and to allow your children to describe these places to you in person better than we may be able to do from an overnight train to Singapore, I would like to list our recently visited locations and let pictures do some of the talking. So without further ado, here is a quick list of where we have been since the last entry:

1) The King of Malaysia’s Palace, outside the gate looking in.

2) The Batu Caves, a beautiful limestone formation coupled with religious statues and mischievous monkeys.

3) The Royal Selanger Pewter Factory, seemingly a tourist trap at first, but really an origin of many impressive and attractive products.

4) The Petronas Twin Towers, massively impressive “twin towers,” respectfully not rivaling those remembered in New York.

5) The Malaysian National Monument, which was although smaller than our own phallic monument in Washington, inspirational nonetheless.

6) The Lake Garden, along with a impressive Mosque, which consisted of a quicker tour due to the increasing and imposing heat.

7) The Independence Square, which was a tribute to the third major war Malaysia fought in their history, which was more specifically against what seemed to be Chinese “terrorists” interested in plundering their wealthy and independent (not communist controlled) country.

8) The cities Central Market, similar to a mall, which was thankfully air-conditioned and with an interesting multi-Asian flare that allowed for… frugal spending on cross-cultural trinkets.

9) And last but not least Chinatown, which allowed us to revisit everything we experienced in the small Chinese markets earlier in the trip, with only a little more price increase due to the shipping from a country we had been to probably more recently than the items themselves.

By the time you read this, your children will be safely back into Singapore, after a long 9-10 hour overnight train. Although it is hard to accurately depict the last few days without being redundant regarding the standard expectations of education, experience and excitement, know that this is exactly what these last two days have brought us. Although intimidating to initially visit, I believe we all as a group are extremely happy to have been blessed with the opportunity to visit such a unique place.  We have learned from the culturally rich people of this country what it is like to prosper in the face of annihilation (a aggressive communist China,) prosper in the realm of social diversity (or at least continue to try their best particularly in regards to religion,) and impress even the most difficult and skeptical of people (your children.)

Thank you again, and rest satisfied knowing we are safe, another country visited and conquered,

Pacific Rim Business Tour

P.S.

Here’s to you and here’s to me and here’s to love and laughter…

I’ll be true as long as you and not a moment after…

(A recently learned Irish Drinking Proverb by your hopefully entertaining and informative authors, Samuel Wightman Foster and Ted Conrad Wetterau III)

Hello to all our blog followers out there in internet land! Today proved to be very exciting and in our opinions the most informative day of business thus far. The morning started off with a grueling, yet fun walk in the 90+ degree heat to the Singapore office of Conoco Phillips. Here we were greeted by a current Elon student’s Dad, Glen Simpson president of the Asian Pacific market among other employees. We enjoyed this very interactive presentation because it was not only interesting but also brought our minds into play and taught us a lot. This energy company is the 3^rd largest in the U.S. with their headquarters in Texas. Their operations include the exploration, supply and refinement of the worlds fossil fuels. With 86 million barrels of oil being consumed a day the demand for this market is very high and thus there is ever expanding room for growth and development.

We walked the trading floor and met some of the crude traders such as Jeffrey (below).

The office was very organized and well maintained by its enthusiastic employees. Below is a picture of our entire group with Mr. Simpson in the main lobby of the office.

The morning activities had a lot to offer and were a fantastic experience however our day did not even end there! After some free time came our evening meeting with the Toyota Group (Motor Asia Pacific Market). The Singapore offices were recently added in 2001 and deal mainly with the Sales and Marketing efforts of the company. Currently the Singapore offices house 150 employees of various cultural backgrounds due to the global presence of the company. We had the honor of attending a presentation of the Toyota Asian market conveniently located in our hotel market by a former Elon graduate Hillary. In her 3 years with the company she has been able to make a generous impact in streamlining the dealership customer relationship management. She and her other two colleagues were also able to expand on the growing need for commercial and non-commercial vehicles in India and the Philippines. Overall it was a very insightful and educational day that could only be reached by this firsthand experience.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange and a trip to the Buddha

The skyline was still quite visible through the fog. It seemed the high rises were never ending. When we arrived at the Stock Exchange we watched a short film on the history of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

... on our way to becoming stockbrokers ...

Group shot at the stock exchange

We were debriefed on the interworkings of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In 1891 the Association of Stockbrokers in Hong Kong, the first formal stock exchange, was formed. In 1914 it was renamed the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The woman emphasized the importance of keeping a constant buzz on the floor, “We don’t want any downtime because people lose confidence and confidence is everything," which is an important thing for all of us to remember.

What an afternoon it was!! As we boarded the gondola up to the Buddha none of us had any idea what to expect. It was a three mile ride over mountainous terrain. When we reached the top we couldn't believe our eyes; the Buddha rose above the tree line and peered through the clouds.

View from the Gondola... on our way to the Buddha

The cloud cover was thick and the air was cold and damp; neither our dress shoes nor our lack of warm clothes stopped us from climbing up the hundreds of steps to the base of the Buddha. A large stone Buddha is an incredible sight in and of itself, but the rich history surrounding it makes it that more of an extraordinary sight. Staring up at its coiled hair, its long earlobes and its look of peace and serenity was mesmerizing. There were people all around us paying their respects to the great Buddha and their ancestors.

Buddha

The view, although mostly shielded by the cloud cover, hinted at the never ending mountainous islands of Hong Kong and the open ocean. Four members of our group decided to take the three mile hike over treacherous terrain back to the base. “We are not here every day,” they said, “Why not experience the outdoors and take in the beauty around us.”  All in all it was a great day, and despite the cold, we all had a blast!!!

(written by Sara Kwolyk and Lindsay Wagner)