Sunday walk in Sydney

There, now in the right way. In my previous post I did not get it quite right with this photo. Today Hilary and I - she with her 14 hours of time difference jet lag and me simply because of age & travel overnight - woke up early on the Sunday morning and started what turned out to be a 12 km walk.

First stop after the initial 3-4 km a coffee + treat near the famous Sydney Opera House. This is right across from the old Sydney Harbor Bridge which we walked up afterwards.

The Opera House from the bridge. With in front of that landmark a few of the many ferries which serve the communities in and around Sydney. We walked over the bridge to North Sydney to see if we could find the apartment building I lived in during my few months here in 1983.

At the other side of the bridge we found an arts market where I lost Hilary for a while. In the meantime I had another good coffee and concluded that Sydney also has become a very global village with people and food from around the world....

We did not find back my little street of so many years ago but that was fine. We did find a lovely little park where we spent some time and started the walk back past a few of the nice small bay areas of this beautiful city. Very nice to be back. Sore legs and muscles though trying to keep pace with our 25 year old daughter.....

From Suzhou to Sydney

The presentation on Wednesday about the impact of artificial intelligence on the future of work (and the role to possibly play for educators and trainers) went well. Managers from local companies were in attendance and we hope that some of them will follow up with our local partner organization with who we then hope to develop tailored training programs.

And yes, I bring my suit again also for this audience (as I recently did in India). Impressed?

After the presentation on Wednesday I went for a beautiful long walk along the lake next to my hotel. The photo above is from the gardens of my hotel which are right on the lake. The setting for the lake invites for wedding photos and there were many making use of a beautiful sunny day to do so.

 Our colleague Wilson took me on Thursday after our meetings to one of the famous gardens in the old city of Suzhou. These were stunning private properties hundreds of years ago.

First we visited a small museum on the history and the architecture of the gardens. Afterwards we took a walk in part of the garden and listen to Suzhou opera singing in one of the tea-houses.

Friday I went back to the Shanghai airport for a flight of 10 hours to Sydney, Australia, to meet up with our daughter Hilary who lives and works here for a year.

So cool to be back in this city where I worked and lived a few months in 1983, 34 years ago, especially together with Hilary.

Artificial intelligence and the future of work

This is the topic I will be presenting on tomorrow here in Suzhou. The material has been prepared by an expert on this topic, but I will do the "song & dance" here in China on behalf of Team Seneca.

Preparing myself with a couple of "latte coffees", a drink becoming more popular in China which is still mostly a "tea-drinking" culture. I met with a few of the colleagues of SIPIVT, our local partner institution, in the hotel which has a very nice lounge area + beautiful gardens.

Work in Suzhou, China

On Saturday evening I left my home in Niagara to travel via Vancouver and Manila (Philippines) to Shanghai in China. Long route which I took because I was originally going to attend an event in Manila (before coming to China) which I had to cancel because of the funeral of my mother-in-law. Last Friday we had a wonderful celebration of life for her after her 86 years in the world. I kept the original route to keep the change fees for the flights to a minimum. The flights were excellent but long (5 hours + 13 hours) and then we had a three hour delay for the flight to Shanghai. But eventually that flight was good as well, a pre-booked driver brought me after these 34 hours of flights and airport waits to the nearby city of Suzhou with a smooth two hour drive. I visited this city in 1997 when it has 6 million people and again two years ago when it had grown to 16 million people. Back this week to work on a promising partnership with a local institution.

My office for the coming three days. And while working away I am listening at the TV to wonderful Chinese modern music. The photo below I took from a recorded concert which could have been any western musician like Bruce Springsteen, but of course the songs are all in Chinese (Mandarin).

This is the view from my hotel room window. Lots of green and one of the many lakes in this region (also sometimes called the Venice of China) but in the background you can see some of the tall buildings of this large city. In my hotel they host this week an international conference on neuro-science. China is becoming a world leader in so many ways....

A day in Fonthill

Mark is back from a nice week in Mexico after finishing his exams. He will start his new job at LaFarge in two weeks time. He just found an apartment in Etobicoke a short ride from the office in Mississauga where he will be based. Hilary is also home a few weeks from her year in Australia and we are happy that she was able to see her grandmother before she passed away earlier this week.

 Hilary above was taking a photo of her Mom who was doing a little beauty sleep.....

Annual conference CICan

The past few days at the annual conference of CICan (Colleges & Institutes Canada) catching up with lots of colleagues from around the country. Of course one of my favorite colleagues will always be Sean with whom I started working at Niagara College in 1995. The conference covers many aspects of the operations of the 120 CICan member colleges from governance to teaching & learning and applied research. One of the streams of the presentations and workshops is international. We also get together about a variety of international projects some of our institutions are involved in.

Sunday evening we had an opening event in the wonderful "Museum of History" in Ottawa. Tonight (Tuesday) we already have the closing dinner again. And on we go...