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 by Joel Chu
From 7 to 9
I got up at around 5:30 in the morning. Beautiful day out there. It's gonna be a good day.The inner city public transportation in Birmingham are by bus. It's really simple network. And the bus drivers are much better than London. Last night when we were on our way home, the road was clear. But the driver didn't attempt to break the speed limit (perhaps running slower than the minimum speed :) which is totally unheard of in London.
It's such a coincident I found that big poster of Starwars III. It fit perfectly with the morning mode. "Raise Lord Vader" sounds like talking to me :)The journey only take 10 minutes to get back. There were a couple of kids (16+?) sitting behind us. Speaking proper Birmingham ascent. They were talking about some gangland shoting involved two girls. Mean city everywhere.
We get off at the New Street Train station. To our delight, the lower floor door of Bullring is already open. So we hop in and see if we have any luck. There was nobody there except two Bullring security standing outside the store. And we see they already have things set up for the opening day. We did push our luck further (that was already 7:15a in the morning). We went out to have breakfast (I need 10 coffees to wake myself up daily). When we get back--Hey, still nobody around. We are the first one to jump in the queue.The Store manager arived at around 8 a.m. They chat to us brieftly and took a picture of us. So our face will be all over the Apple website then :)
I was showing them my website and ask them about whether we can do any filming inside the store. No problem! We finally get the permission to film inside the Bullring Mall from the management. Thank you guys! So all set. Then the second party join the queue. He is local. But he left as soon as he saw the board in the store, because he thought it opened at 9 a.m. Then moment later, Stefan arrived. He just got off the train from Oxford and is an American from Califonia. Seems like we broke the record, because our lovely presenter Cathy Yan will be the first one to walk in the store. Hopefully we got good shot for this moment because we are going send the footage to Beijing Mac user group. They will be really proud (Cathy is coming from Beijing).
29 April 2005 - 8:15a
- Outside the queue
Ha ha, maybe you guys are not going to believe it. I am the first one in the queue. Last night we didn't need to camp out side at all.
Lots of people don't actually know the store is not yet open. Because it looks so ready and all. And we gambled on this one. We won :)
Stayed at our presenter's house. Lovely place, really. But I have been to too many English towns. You really cannot distinguish one to the other. I took a couple of pictures. For the UK audience, you will know what I am talking about.
The store manager came in around 7:45 a.m., and we spoke briefly. Didn't get their name. But we got the permission to film inside. Still waiting for the Bullring manager come back (around 9 AM) for the permission to film inside Bullring. Keep your fingers crossed.
28 April 2005 - 2:20p
- At the Coffee Republic opposite Birmingham City Council House
Hi everybody, I have finally arrived in Birmingham on time. Although some minor glitch (my camera with all the equipment was late and he never made it on the same train! It's always better to carry the equipment yourself. Well he is fired already.)
For lots of you who have never been to Birmingham before, just a little bit of intro here to get you familiar with this city.
Birmingham is the second largest city in Great Britain. The last census showed it has the largest African origin and Chinese origin (Manchester used to be the largest Chinese origin city in GB).
The city went from completely bankrupted to now a day an international hub for business; as well as the centre of retail shopping space. All this depend on one project happened back in the 90's. This regenerate project cost the UK government billions of pounds. It worked. Bullring is the crown jewel of all this.
To get to Birmingham is very simple. I came from London, just jumped on one of those Virgin Train from Euston train station (I was on one of the new train. They now have power supply on the tabled seat. It's great--you can charge your laptop battery while you try to get some eyes shut :) I heard that they have iPod control in one of the first class trains, as well high speed Internet access. I will investigate about this on my way back.)
The even better way to get here is by plane. You can land on the Birmingham International Airport, then jump on any train toward Birmingham City which is 5 minutes away. This is the largest conference space (NEC - National Exhibition Centre) in this country. They basically built a town and call it a exhibition centre; I guess you can imagine how big it is.
This is the second time I've come to Birmingham this year. The last time I was here was doing the EFCO conference coverage. Oh, by the way, check out the interview I have done with the Lord Mayor of Birmingham.
When you arrive at New Street Station, you can just walk up to the elevator and through the over pass you are already inside the Bullring. That over pass is operated by the Mall, a mall management company in UK. And as you can see in the photo gallery that Birmingham City center is pretty much one giant shopping Mall.
Once you walk past the New street, you will see the council house, and the landmark POOL. There is a very interesting poetry [T.S. Eliot]written alone the edge of the pool. And here it is:
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight and the lotos rose,
quietly, quietly, the surface glittered out of heart of light,
and they were behind us
Reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
That's it for now, because I have to check out the location and the Internet access point.
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