Good Morning VIETNAM! (There and Days 1-2):

Well after a very exhausted week of work I was able to go on vacation again. And with this one I went to none other than Vietnam. Overall I really liked Vietnam, but some areas were much better than others. Perhaps those historian buffs out there might understand the undertone and why some areas of Vietnam were better than others, but anywho I delve in.

Well as all of my vacations begin I need to get to another city to even think about heading anywhere. For this trip we are flying from Shanghai to Ho Chi Minh City then finally leaving from Hanoi to Shanghai. These two flights, reservation for a hotel in Shanghai for the night, and two backpacker’s hostels reservations is all the planning we have made. The trip is Sean, Jake and I. Sean and I are coming from the South to Shanghai, Jake from the north. On the way in, partly in a daze from my recent schedule, I realize I have no idea what time we are leaving to HCMC. After Sean and I check we realize our flight out isn’t until 5pm on the following day, and realize that means we are going to hit up Shanghai hard, because well, we have to.

Jake has already been in town by the time we arrive, and since the reservation was under my name he couldn’t check in. We check-in and immediately head out. Since I’ve talked about Shanghai plenty of times I’ll keep this brief. We went and grabbed some awesome thin crust pizza in the French Concession, then headed to a micro-brewery for a few rounds. After this we got a hold of some of Sean’s friends, and headed to meet up with them in a new club near the edge of French Concession. Now I already have enough experiences with stairs and elevators but this trip will push it to the limits. The club is on the 4th floor so we decide to be lazy. Well we wanted to be lazy at least. The elevator shows up and basically is big enough for 1 Oscar. The sign says 4 people maximum, well let’s test this out. The three of us decide to get in; playing one of those stupid college games to see how many people can fit into a small space. Yeah the doors close and the buzzer comes on GET OUT FAT ASSES. Ok, we get out, Jake and I head up, Sean takes it up. We get there and hang out with the group for some time. I tried explaining to some Chinese where I live they don’t understand. Not because of language, they speak perfect English, no no, it’s just that I live in the middle of nowhere…after this we hit up a new place called I Love Shanghai. And I love I Love Shanghai. It’s like being back in a fraternity. You head to the top floor of this building, walk in and its pool table, beer pong, and bar. What else do you need?

Day 1:
Ok, so Vietnam. I’ll spare you the details of traveling there, just that Sean had a few hints on the flight over that he may be too big for Vietnam. We are there, at the airport and first things first, let’s get some money. The Vietnamese Dong….good god too many jokes were said like we were three middle schoolers laughing every time a dong joke came up. So now that we are well funded dong millionaires, hit up a taxi to get to the hostel. Now some of you may know, I didn’t, Vietnam in my eyes is the unofficial scooter capital of the world. There are more scooters than people…and since it’s a prime night (even though its raining slightly, well more like misting) everyone is on a date. Scooters are driven by the guys, girls arms barely wrapped and they have seemingly one destination. Any park in the HCMC area. Because date night in Vietnam, consists of going to a park, bench of you can find one available, scooter seat if you can’t and make out. But this isn’t just 1 couple or 2, there are hundreds of couples all around these parks, any open spot on bench or scooter slot is taken up by people PDAing the crap outta each other. It was so many locations, I’m pretty sure as a young guy in Vietnam, if you haven’t been able to scrounge up dough for a scooter, well, you are going to have some very lonely nights.

We checked into the hostel, which was nice, near good stuff, really cheap and the manager was extremely friendly. But then we continue down the theme that Sean is too big for Vietnam. We finally get our keys and the three of us start heading up. Room is on the 4th floor, call the elevator. Crap, it’s even smaller than the one we took in the Shanghai club. Ok we know how this one goes, rock paper scissors to who walks up, Sean loses. Jake and I make it to the 4th floor and just hear the complaints coming from Sean. Didn’t think it was a big deal, and then I realized, this stair case isn’t meant for big guys. I show you this picture, but understand, it also wasn’t much better for me…..



Well after we finally all make it to the room, it isn’t exactly as we were told. 1 queen bed and 1 twin bed. Well guess we are going to get cozy here….whatever we are here to see the country, not spend it in a hostel, besides this place is something like $10 a night each. So we head out, figure out with the manager the places to go both during the day and night, what tours to take and where to eat. On pace for tonight, head to a local place for some grub and drinks.

Check:


And Check:


I have always had a thing for Vietnamese food, but let me tell you its fantastic. The flavor combinations they do is awesome. It’s a really special blend of French Cuisine with Asian spices, that you just can’t understand until you dig in. They offer French baguettes with just about every meal, and these baguettes are so flaky soft and incredibly warm, they practically melt in your mouth. Not kidding.

After meals, we decide to go out walking in the neighborhood and find a bar to hit up. We have quite a few options so we just stop by one after the other. Almost all of them have the same things going on, if they are on the main streets they have tables outside, beers and mixed drinks are $1 (or 20,000 dong hehe) and street vendors trying to sell you everything under the sun. This part was pretty interesting because they all seemed to be of the same family. Not because they looked alike (even though they did) but because they would hang out with each other, talk all the time and the age range was pretty insane. The 6yr olds had the flowers (with a ‘Hot Bitch’ shirt and all), the teenager – 20 something’s walked around with the cigarettes, cigars, lighters, etc. and then the 40+ had the bike with food. Bike with food you might ask, oh yes, dried squid, dried river fish and dried stingray. We decided to try the dried squid (or was it stingray can’t remember now) with some hot sauce. Pretty good, obviously dry but had some pretty good flavor to it, and fortunately I haven’t died from it yet. I’m also pretty sure it doesn’t matter if it was squid or stingray, I’m sure it tastes the same slathered with hot sauce.

The rest of the evening was pretty relaxing, walked around some more went to some of the bars off the main intersection, which were about the same price wise, minus the street vendors harassing you and the large crowds of blatantly drunken Europeans. One place we went to we were the star attraction. The bartenders there, tiny little Vietnamese women, decided they had to take pictures and find out everything there is to know about us. I think 1 girl fell in love with Sean, he is 6’3” 325lbs or so, she 4’10” 60lbs, it was a match made in heaven. And the picturing taking was good and all, but remember this is Vietnam. I have been sweating now for a solid 6hrs, just get off me….

Day 2:
Second day we wake up somewhat early to try and get going for the day, so around 10ish we get outta bed and start getting ready. Today we decided we were going to walk around and see the sights on foot. We got a little map from the manager of the hostel with some key spots. But first lunch, and there is no better way to start a day then some simply amazing Vietnamese Pho. For those of you less fortunate that do not know pho, is a soup that has some thick rice noodles, with usually beef and then some basil, lime, bean sprouts and peppers. Well we sat down at the best place around and ordered up. I got a mix platter that had 3 different types of beef all fantastic. Not for the unadventurous though as some of the meat is purposely not fully cooked. It provides a more flavorful meal, and if you want to take a baby step towards it, try it at your local Vietnamese restaurant. It will be good, but mine was better…(neener neener).

So now we are off, walking around HCMC camera in tote with a few choice destinations. Places to go, the former Saigon Independence Palace (now known as Reunification Palace), the Post Office (still don’t know why we were told to go here), the market, and random other stops. As we are walking around, the first place we stumble across is the market, same basic idea that we are used to here in China, except this place the women are way more adamant about you buying stuff from their store. I was in front and they were forcefully pulling me around, it was getting pretty annoying. Keep walking around just making sure they don’t grab my arms and I’ve had enough. Time to go to the palace.

Well before we get to the palace, we find the post office. Ok, cool looking building, right be a nice big church, but besides the photos we ended up taking nothing more of significant note to me. I guess what was curious was how friendly the Vietnamese in HCMC were towards Americans. They saw us coming, and would start screaming America! (to which every once in a while we would scream out F&*K Yeah!, from a movie..). But this was pretty common all throughout the city.

Finally, we make it out to the palace. Huge place, but first time to walk around the lawn. We walked everywhere and saw one thing I wanted to see. The ‘tank that ended the war’. See back in 1973 the US ended heavy military operations in Vietnam with the signing of the Paris Peace Accord. The war was not over, the tank there is the tank that broke through the gates on April 30th 1975, officially ending the Vietnam War, North Vietnam the victor. Continuing around the grounds you can see some Soviet Tanks, Chinese Tanks, and some fighter jets. One of which will be discussed later.

Finally, walking up the palace, the place is pretty big but all wide open. The corridors are all open to the atmosphere and the rooms are roped off only available for pictures. Working our way through we walk through presidential office, various dining rooms and bedrooms, and eventually in the basement is a command bunker complete with radio rooms, map rooms, and staging rooms. Also we walked onto the roof of the palace where you can find a US UH1 Heli and a bomb crater. That fighter jet mentioned before dropped a bomb on the roof of the palace (couldn’t figure out what type of bomb). Small note, that rooftop helipad, is the location of the largest helicopter evacuation in history apparently. NOTE: History buffs can chime in if my facts are wrong, but whatever.

After the palace time was complete we decided to walk around a little more, grab some drinks and make our way back to the hostel. After some showers, and light grubbing, its time to go out. Sean had found an Australian bar on the other side of the city that sounded interesting. Cool, let’s head off. We get there and it’s what you would expect, pool table to one side, tables with people in the middle and darts to the other side. So we sit down and order some beers, I look over, and what do I spy with my little eyes, Guinness. It’s on like donkey kong.

So the next hour or two are spent drinking, BSing, darts/pool, and munching. Cool, Ryder’s cup was on also, so we are watching that. After a while, Sean notices a dude just sitting in the table next to us by himself. He says why don’t we ask him to sit down, sure why not. So he asks and he comes over. Dude is Australian and is in Vietnam for business, cool. What business you might ask, well he designs golf courses. He’s here with his small company just trying to sell a 54 whole course near HCMC. Now I’m not a golfer, Sean and Jake are, so they are asking him non-stop about what its like doing that and where he’s played before etc. During this time, I’m just sitting there drinking my Guinness’es (Guinni maybe?), whatever, while we take turns playing pool. Sean tells our new buddy that I can drink faster than anyone he has ever seen. Guy says prove it, ok, waitress brings us our round, I grab the Guinness, buh bye (for those of you who have seen this before, know what I am talking about). Waitress just looks at the empty glass I have handed her and has no idea what is going on, she is almost starting to look for where the spill was. Can’t find it. After a few minutes of puzzled waitress time, she just asks, another Guinness YUP. 

So the night went pretty awesomely, just like it started, and finally the new guy gets up and walks to go towards the bathroom. Waitress comes over and says hey your friend just paid the entire bill WHAT?!?!?! Yeah it was a few million dong (3-5M), we drank quite a bit, no way. He comes over, and we try and give him money say you didn’t need to do that. But said he was happy to, he was just about to go back to his hotel and sleep when we invited him over, and it well worth the awesome conversation. Plus he said he just landed the $25M account for designing those courses. Damn, awesome, you can spare some money then :P. Well now that your generosity is far exceeding ours, we should hit up another place to celebrate. We do, a night club. And frankly you couldn’t do anything. I mean its one thing to go out and dance, but the place was so effin packed, you couldn’t even walk onto the dance floor. Whatever, after a little we decide to leave but our new friend is nowhere to be found. Oh well, see being nice to strangers can do wonder for your finances, maybe not your liver though….

To wrap up the evening we headed back, and the three of us are hungry. Sean sees a little old lady making some sandwich on the street corner near our hostel and goes in for a closer look. Jake and I are taking a look also and here is how the conversation transpired:

Sean: Hey those look pretty good
Oscar: Dude, there are literally flies all over that food
Jake: I just saw a massive rat climb up under that stand
Sean: We’ll take four!
Jake and Oscar look puzzled.
Jake: Sean did you see the rat?
Sean: Oh yeah! I got four because I wanted two.

Ok, well I’m sure most of you would never have tried that food out, but I gotta say it was delicious. And considering I’m writing this quite a few months after I was there, somehow I am still alive also, I would say go for it. In fact, we loved it so much I went down and got seconds for everyone, OH YEAH!

Hong Kong/Macau

Ok, I know it has been a while. I apologize, things have taken a turn for the extremely busy. Yeah even though I have been traveling, when I’m not I’ve been pretty swamped. Regardless, I will be giving you the goodies you need to survive…

From September 21st – 24th I went to Hong Kong and Macau with Riccardo, one of the local Italians. But before I arrive I need to travel to Ningbo, China to catch my plane. We decide to get into Ningbo on the night of the 20th after work, start the vacation a little early and then we will be nice and ready for HK. Well first off I am sure NONE of you have ever heard of Ningbo, unless you’ve heard me talk about it or know someone who has been there before. Ningbo is a nice ‘little’ Chinese city. I say little because its still about 7 million people. Yeah, that’s what, 2-3x the size of Miami, and more than ½ the size of NYC? Yeah even most Chinese don’t know it, it’s a small rural town…good grief where am I.





Well stay at the Ningbo Marriott because we have a sweet deal, after checkin we go out and venture. Will as we are walking around the nice shopping area (Dolce & Gabana, Louis Vuitton, Rolex, Omega, and countless stores I don’t recognize but look expensive) we see in the middle of the plaza a bunch of tents, so we decide to check it out. Well the tents just had random food and beer vendors. Doesn’t the food look appetizing:







Now normally I’m not weak stomached and will try just about anything. But there is one reason to not bother with this…THE CHINESE WERE NOT TOUCHING THIS FOOD! Now that just puts things into perspective. I’ve eaten chicken stomachs, chicken livers, jellyfish, and random farm animal parts with the Chinese. If they do not eat this, I’m waiting to try it somewhere else. I’m sure that tarantula is awesome.

Now onto the point of this entry, HK was AWESOME! I say that but understand one thing, HK is not part of China. I am convinced of it. I know it is technically China, but it is so completely different, in my mind you have left China and gone to London. Oh and you need your passport to go from Ningbo to HK, complete with exit stamps and entrance stamps in HK. Yeah, not China. Either way, we arrive flag down a taxi with white glove service and head to the hotel. Now it’s time to explore. We walk around checking out all the random shops and try and get a feel for the city. The way we discovered the city is that Riccardo had a Lonely Planet Guide to China. Let me tell you, I hear a lot of people complain about these books, this was my first attempt at this book and it was pretty darn good. The book from 2-3 yrs ago told us where every restaurant was that was worthwhile, where the night life is, where internet café’s are, everything. Take it as a simple guide of what someone suggests and make your own adventures from there.

Anywho after we walked around a bit we decided to go check out South Kowloon area, specifically Tsim Sha Tsui. An area known as an Expats hangout. Pretty cool area. We sat down at a bar and ordered some rounds of cocktails: Mojito’s, Guinness, Cahpirinha, Guinness, Margaritas, Guinness….After chatting it up a bit with some locals we go to an Irish Pub to grab some grub, but end up calling it an early night to rest up for the next few days (got to the hotel at 2am…).

The next day we wake up and head out about 10am. I actually knew someone from High School that is in HK so I give her a call and see if she can show us around. We end up checking out a few areas, Mid Level (longest outdoor escalators in the world, over 800m long), Central, Soho and Lan Kwai Fong to eventually meet up with my HS friend. From there we begin the trek. Grab a few drinks somewhere, then head to another place. Well we then get the idea that we need to go up to Victoria’s Peak at night. This is basically a mountain in the middle of HK island and overlooks everything. Really spectacular views especially at night with everything lit up and the laser show. The two sides of the water have a dueling laser show, building on building. Really neat. After some grub we get back to Lan Kwai Fong to enjoy the evening festivities. Now you know how I mentioned that HK is not Chinese, well at the end of the night fights start breaking out between Chinese vs Foreigners, Foreigners vs Foreigners and Chinese vs Chinese. It’s a mess, right in the street too. After this goes on for a little, the police show up and break everything up. Only reason I call this out is because I have yet to see anything come even close to resembling a fight in Mainland China. That’s what happens when there are drunk westerners I guess…

The next day we wake up at a respectable 11am and decide to go hit up the racetrack. We had walked around it the day before and wanted to say a race. Let me tell you, this place is actually quite spectacular. This place is called Happy Valley and is a large horse track on a hill, in the middle of a bunch of skyscrapers. Pretty amazing view. After we lose some money on the horsies (Something Special was not so special….) we make a trek to take the ferry to Macau. For those of you that don’t know, HK was part of Great Britain for 100yrs then turned over to China. During this period also Macau was part of Portugal which was turned over to China at the same time. We venture to Macau which is about a 1hr Ferry ride (don’t forget your passports like we did) and another entity in of itself. Macau is known to be the Vegas of the East and with good reason. The Sands, Venetian, Wynn are just a few casinos there amongst the slew of them.

But the really cool part of Macau, besides the gambling, is the architecture. I went from Chinese modern architecture, to HK’s London-esque, and now Macau is basically Mediterranean (like Spanish/Italian Villas). We walk around, successfully get lost for about 2 hrs, while trying to find one road. This one road just happened to be the road where Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom opening car chase was filmed. I think the reason we were so lost was because the Italian refused to listen to me, ARE YOU SURE YOU ARE READING THE MAP?...it’s ok though. We sat down, had a beer and recuperated . The rest of the evening tended to fly. We sat down had an awesome Portuguese dinner then went out to the Venetian for some gambling.

Come 3am we began our trek. The following I got back to my place in China for work the next day. 3am taxi from the Venetian to the ferry, 4am ferry to HK, 5am taxi from ferry station to hotel, 530-645am sleep, shower, 715am taxi to the train station, bought train ticket to airport, breakfast, 8am train to airport, got tickets and bought some trinkets, 1115am flight from HK to Ningbo, arrive at 130pm at the airport to get a taxi to city center for some basic shopping, shop for a few hours and relax at Starbucks, 5pm taxi to train station, 615pm train that is never late ends up being about 30min late, 730pm taxi to site complete with two random Chinese jumping into the cab with us (at that point I didn’t care what the hell was happening), and arrive to my apt at 815pm. Eat then sleep. Too bad for the next 7 days after I have to work, no way to recover before my Vietnam trip.

You are probably asking two questions right now, why the hell is this so long and why aren’t there any pictures of HK. Well to answer the first is that I am verbose. I like to speak and tell my story :P. The second, well I have Riccardo to blame for that one. While in Ningbo he bought a camera for the trip. Got an awesome deal and it was really worthwhile. We hit up HK/Macau hard and took pictures of everything. Food, buildings, people, escalators, views from the peak, I mean everything. As we are on the ferry, Riccardo looks at me and says, do you have the camera? NO YOU HAD IT, YOU NEVER GAVE IT TO ME no no, didn’t you take a picture 8hrs ago YEAH BUT I GAVE IT BACK TO YOU (Italian curse word Italian curse word….). Yeah so no pictures except for the really stupid ones I took from my phone, but here they are:

Qindao International Beer Carnival

Yeah you read that correctly, I went to the Qingdao International Beer Carnival this past weekend. But before I get into that event, let me tell you about my trek there and the days leading to it. Yours truly and one of my friends left here at on Thursday afternoon to make it there. We left work at 3pm so we can make sure that our driver got back with enough time for the afternoon pickups. So 3pm we leave the office, pick up our bags/change, and then take the 30min drive to the train station. We get there about 3:45 for our 5:45 train, ok, time to kill. Finally about 5:52 get on the train headed to the nearby city with an airport. This time we are on the train for only about 40min, so we opt for the cheap seats (which equals crammed as sardines) no worries. Get through the train station grab some food (mmm Big Mac), then head to airport. Now we get through security way early for our flight, but since I live in the middle of nowhere China, I have to add many hours to each trip. So now it’s about 830 and our flight leaves at 10ish. Ok, time to relax and wait. Soon an announcement comes on, plane has been delayed 30min (45min actually), but then we finally board. As we are on the plane waiting to push back from the gate an announcement comes on in Chinese, all the Chinese begin to grumble pull out their trays and computers, guess I’m going to be here for a while. End up waiting for another 45min on the plane at the gate until we finally depart. Get in a taxi head to the hotel and finally check in, at almost 1am. 9hrs of travel just to take a 1hr flight…now that sucks.

So now I’m all checked into the hotel and head up to my room. Bellboy refuses to let me take my own bags since I might get lost going to my room, and although normally I would be facetious right there, this room is not normal. Hotel has 5 floors, or so I thought. I have a special loft room that is above the 5th floor through a separate hallway. I turn the corner and then I see this:



Yeah those are the stairs that I have to take to go to my room. If you can’t understand what this is, it’s because it is a split staircase. Easy now, but think about what I am here for this weekend…Some other room pics, the room is very nice.






The rest are posted on http://picasaweb.google.com/106627478281564188735.

After I’ve put everything down, we decide to head out and meet up some other guys. Get there to a Chinese club ready to party and its just odd. We get some bottles of Absolut since there are about 6 of us besides anyone else we meet, but as I’m looking around I see quite a few Chinese passed out. Normally in the US, if you are passed they kick you out of the club, here they just take your drink away, guess it’s cheaper than paying for a taxi? It ends up being a lot of fun. The next day we wake up and decide to meet up and grab some food, massage, then head out for the evening (yeah doesn’t seem like much but when your breakfast is at 330pm, that’s what you get). This night there were more of us and we went to an Expat area of Qingdao which was a lot of fun. Dinner was at a nice German restaurant, and then some light drinks at an Expat sports bar complete with a girl who decided to test out her stuff as a pole dancer (no nudity). We ended up going out to some neat clubs tonight as well, one with a Filipino Live Band which was awesome.

The next day we woke up, grabbed some grub then headed to the Tsing Tao Brewery. Did a brewery tour which was pretty cool (pictures available as well). It was interesting to see how proud the entire country is of the brewery with basically everyone of power in China having visited it. Towards the end of the tour they serve some unfiltered beer. Well I think the need to bottle it because it’s delicious. It’s basically a good Hefeweizen, but why they don’t bother with it I can’t understand. After a few drinks at a nearby restaurant to subside the rain, we decided to head over to the festival. It was a little bit of a cab ride, but once we got there, it’s not exactly what I pictured. It was a carnival with the beer parts on the outskirts. So what you have is the kids running around with their parents playing games and riding rides (mixed in with some drunken adults) and then the shit show on the exterior. First we went into the Paulaner tent then the Budweiser (these weren’t my choices). And basically these are setup as a big beer hall, with tables sprawled with drinks and food as far as the eye can see and a stage in the middle. The stage is basically a variety show like Sábado Gigante. You have musicians, clowns, bikini models, drunk Americans, gymnasts, talent show contestants, and auctions going on. Some pictures below:




During the night people wanted to go the carnival part and ride some rides, to which I provided a massive veto. And here is my reasoning:
a) It was raining
b) I’ve seen the Chinese building a nuclear power plant which has tons of oversight, you think I trust a random carnival?
c) Chinese decided they wanted to buy me beer.
d) If I didn’t I would never have been in this picture (when in China do as the Chinese do?):



Now the carnival was a lot of fun, except for one insanely gross part…the restrooms. If that’s even what you call it. Let me paint you a visual here. You have a building off to the side near the beer tents that has a women’s side and men’s side. Around 300yards away from this building is apparently open game to pee and puke everywhere. First time a walk in there is a foreigner peeing almost in the doorway (not a stall or anything just the floor), and then all you can do is smell pure ammonia. The bathroom is a gigantic trough and the floor is all tiles many of which are broken with puddles in them…Regardless I find a spot and as I am done I turn around and see the eastern toilets, no doors, no stalls, and then drunk Chinese hitting them up as if there were no tomorrow. Some people seem to think humans aren’t animals, yeah right…Needless to say I have thrown out those socks and washed the shoes thrice by now (and some people wore sandals).

The rest of the evening was a lot of fun. We went out to one of the clubs from before which was packed. The next day we started our trek back to site at 10am and ended up getting back about 730pm. Kinda rough when you have to deal with 1.5-2hrs of plane delay, and end up missing any potential buses back to site then convince some Chinese man to drive the 4 of us back, yeah that happened…

Will post some more stuff hopefully early next week mostly on work life. Other than that I booked a trip to Vietnam for our October holiday. We are heading to Ho Chi Minh City on October 1st, trekking through the country, and eventually headed back on October 6th from Hanoi. Should be an awesome time with some friends. If you have input let me know, we don’t have definitive plans yet.

Seoul Pictures

I've been meaning to post up some pictures for some time now. Here are some from the Seoul Trip that I took on my phone. Still waiting on more from my friend's camera.

City Pictures:

South Korea Has Seoul

Before I get into the recent travel let me first talk about a few recent experiences. The site facilities have been good for the most part with a few exceptions. The latest being my lock. In my area of China we have close to 100F heat and 95% relative humidity almost daily. Also I have been directed (like I needed an excuse) to keep my apartment cool and dry to avoid any mold outbreak. Well this yields a big temperature difference between the indoor and the outdoor and the victim is my door lock. For a few days it was getting stuck as I tried to enter my place, but I would get in after 2-3 tries. Then my lock seized. It would start taking me about 20-30min just to get into my house. So I called the maintenance people. She told me place was too cold and that I should turn off the AC, open the windows during the day…and obviously let in all the mold. So I said fine, let me see if I can figure anything out. I went around to different stores but couldn’t find anything WD40-esque, got back and now it was about 45min to get in. Enough is enough, called her again and told them they had to go and fix it. She reluctantly agreed, and the maintenance man came, and practically had to take the entire door apart to fix it. He lubed every moving piece in the whole contraption. And now, finally works like a charm…let’s see for how long.

Well as most of you know I went this past weekend to Seoul, and let me tell you the entire trip was awesome. It started off by taking the high speed train into Shanghai. This is somewhat of a misnomer since it’s high speed from my current location to Ningbo at around 250 kph (~155mph) and then the rest of the trip it goes between 40-100 kph. Our admin bought me the ticket and got me a first class ticket ($20 or so) which has a nice big seat and an electrical outlet for the computer. Once I got in I moved around the subway system, got to my hotel, changed shirts then met up with two friends for dinner and some minor TV.

The next day I checked out, got to the subway station and figured out what lines I needed to get take to get to the airport (one transfer or so I thought). I’m on the train making my way over, it’s very easy since everything is in Mandarin and English, then I get to a stop and everyone sprints off the train. I look up, 6 more stops to go, hmmm ok. Doors close it goes one stop further and there is a mad rush of people getting on the train fighting for any available seats. Kinda strange. Then the doors close and the train starts going backwards….what WTF? I’m looking at the line information with the flashing lights which now decided to stop being updated. I quickly realize that it is taking me now in the opposite direction and I need to transfer to a different subway line (both the same line, but don’t ask me). Finally I get back on my way to the airport, international flight showing up 1hr ish early…oh well. Got on the plane ready to go and after about 10min of the pilot talking he announces that the flight deck is making us wait (the announcements are in Korean, Mandarin, then English). Mind you the entire time I am here waiting I am sweating profusely, something I’ve become accustomed to now in China. But the main reason is that I had to sprint through the airport, then I get on the plane and there is no direct air for the seats. Chinese are accustomed to some weird things, but during the announcement the one thing I heard them say was that they couldn’t go even though the plane was hot enough. No we aren’t talking about the engines either, we are talking about the interior. Here I am sweating, and a guy next to me is asking for a blanket. ITS ALSO 93 DEGREES OUTSIDE!

Oh well, I get into S. Korea and find the bus (its own little ordeal) and head to Seoul from Incheon Airport. This city is insanely Western. The Koreans walk around listening and watching TV on their cell phones, many have antennas they add on just to get better reception. The people are driving around in some amazing looking Hyundai’s and Daewoo’s (seriously they look like BMWs) and just give off an incredibly cosmopolitan feel to themselves. The weekend was busy with a mixture of touristy, foodie, and some minor partying.

Touristy wise, we went to Gyeongbok Palace which was the royal palace for many centuries, a street called Insa Dong which is where a lot of the tourist shops are, the riverside park, and a foreigners central area called Itaewon. The palace was enormous almost seemingly never ending. The buildings almost immediately start to blend in because they all look just about the same. Gardens consisted of large ponds with temples and such. And their use of color was focused around green, maroon, white, gold, and light blue. Still very cool though. The other area of real note is Itaewon. This area is full of fake items street vendors and is where you can find the majority of foreigners. Walking around you mostly here English and think you are in some sort of other universe. I swear I was only on that subway for 5min, what the heck….

Food and partying is also something worthwhile doing in Seoul. Food wise, I had two main Korean dishes. The first was Bulgogi which reminds me of a pepper steak type dish with many assorted smaller dishes. Quite good, but nothing compared to the Korean BBQ. Man that was awesome. You sit down at a table and they bring out a charcoal pit where you are to grill your food on. My buddy and I ordered a beef dish meant for two which brings along garlic, seaweed salad (at least similar), pickled radish, kimchi, cabbage slaw, red bean paste, lettuce leaves, and an onion liquid broth. Basically you cut the meat, grill it and once its ready you can either eat it as is, or make a little lettuce sandwich. Funny thing is, as I said before the meat was meant for 2, guess they didn’t realize they were dealing with two hungry men, so we had her come back and bring us a pork dish after. Both definitely great, but the beef was better.

Past this we walked around went to a bar and a night club had some drinks and relaxed. Met some crazy people (Nigerian and British) and had a blast. Unfortunately when you are still out at 130-2am and you need to wake up at 630 to make your flight, it makes the next day rough. But it was well worth it, plenty of time to sleep once you’re dead :P. I recommend S. Korea for anyone that is interested as it was an awesome time. I would love to go back at some point again and really hit up the sites hard. Only time will tell though. Also it is a very easy city to cope with as the water is all purified, the beef is all amazing (usually Australian) and the populace is just used to Western ways.

Sorry for the long post, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Next weekend I am off to the Qingdao Beer Festival, so hopefully you shall see an update on that afterward. I am hoping to post up some pictures soon of the hotels I’ve stayed at and walking around Seoul. Need to get the latter from my friend though. Take it easy!

1st Real Shanghai Weekend

Aighty, so on the weekend of August 7th I took an awesome little trip to Shanghai. Finally I got out of my small town and into a bigger city. And let me tell you, SHANGHAI IS AWESOME! It is a bigger version of NYC and definitely way cheaper. Going out there for me is like being an Investment Banker in NYC pre 2007. The city never sleeps, and there are things going on all over. We started off by getting in around 730ish (about a 4 – 4.5hr trip for me) and checked into the hotel. The hotel is awesome looking! It has what appears to be a gold pagoda on the rooftop that was all lit up and the room albeit small, was beautiful, immaculate with a very nice bathroom as well. Pictures included.

After I set up shop, showered up, had room service, it was time to hit up the town. We started by going to an underground pub (literally subterranean, it seems to be my Shanghai modus operandi…) for some pool, darts, foosball, and some stout beers, mmmmmm. 7 of us spent about 2-3hrs there shooting the breeze, playing games and enjoying ourselves. After this we needed to grab some food for the one guy who hadn’t eaten. Well luckily right next to the pub were two street vendors selling food. Now although this isn’t for the faint of stomach, let me tell you it was awesome. The first guy had a charcoal grill attached to his bicycle which is an awesome idea. In front of this he had a portable rack system and table. On the racks were different veggies in skewers. On the table was different meat/poultry/fish/etc. on a skewer. Basically it was kind of a-la-carte, and you would just grab whatever skewers you wanted, no labels obviously, and would bring it to him. He would then grill the items for ya. Seasoning an all, it tasted awesome, just need to have an idea of what they are cooking for ya. The other spot behind him was a girl with a wok on a propane burner. And no lie made one mean chow mien. Go figure the best chow mien I have ever had, might have actually come from a street vendor in China…

Well after we were all full, we flagged a taxi and took it to an area known as the French Concession. This was the first really happening area that I have seen. The area is full of bars, clubs, restaurants, and even a bowling alley. We end up going into one club/bar called Zapatas. It was pretty cool. You walk in and there is a huge patio area with a bar, chairs, and people relaxing everywhere. Inside there are two floors, floor one has a dance floor and bar (where the sorority girls decide they need to dance on the bar) and the 2nd floor is some tables, another bar, and a smaller dance floor. Place overall was pretty good. It was mostly ExPats here (American and European) and a few random incredibly hammered Chinese. Also the other thing you can find in these ExPat clubs is what is politely referred to as ‘Temporary Employees’ (think about it and you can probably figure it out). After this we took our beers, walked over to a small pub (no Open Container Laws in China btw) and grabbed a few good American beers at another pub then called it a night.

Next morning we woke up early, had breakfast, and then met up with an HR lady from Shanghai to take us around ‘Metro City’. Now this area is a technology market from all sorts of ranges, from complete knockoff items of computers, parts, eReaders, iPods, to Alienware, Macbook Pros, and even the iPhone 4. Obviously some of this is not supposed to be in China, but still cool to see it all, and its all for the haggling. This isn’t the same as the completely fake ‘Pearl Market’ but you can still get a bargain. We walked around saw different things, one guy made some purchases, and then went back to relax. Later I met up with some local friends, had some pizza, drank some beers, then hit up an underground hipster bar for some live music. Music was kinda weird to say the least. They used a Nintendo DS and a Wii Remote as instruments, but it was cool nonetheless. After this we rolled from club to club making our way through the city. Most places were pretty interesting with the exception of the music. They love their techno music here, and I frankly, do not. Oh well, when in Rome right? End of the night was at a place called Shelter (go figure to end the night at a subterranean techno club). Fun weekend but getting back to the hotel around 530am kinda takes it out of ya.

The next day was some more wrapping up of things, I ended up going back to the Metro City and selling my soul, I mean, buying a 32GB iPhone 3GS. Reason I did this, is because with it I can get my personal and work email with me at all times. Unfortunately my blackberry was working for the shear purpose of receiving/making calls and texts. But I needed more. So I succumbed. All in all the phone is awesome for gaming, ok for calling/texting, and crappy for business since on this version you can’t multitask. As per the deal, it cost me around $500 which is a respectable price for a phone that I knew worked, and could visibly see was defect free. It was interesting to haggle the price down, they put a calculator and write what they are willing to pay, you can laugh off the original price, then put your own. If you don’t think its going anywhere, just walk to the next booth literally 5ft away since they have the same exact merchandise. In the end I think we both got what we wanted. I got a respectable price for the phone, and he got to sell one.

I’m gonna cap it here, hopefully another post later this week as I talk about the other stuff going on, and my upcoming trip to Seoul…

1st Month Down

First let me apologize for not posting weekly, sorry Eduardo. I have been feeling a little under the weather in the last few weeks, more details if you really want to know, but I think most will understand…Lower GI. Anywho, on we go.

Admittedly I am a weird guy. I feel that most engineers have to be (especially since they are naturally nerdy) in order to be even capable at their jobs. But I don’t think that holds a candle against some of the differences I have seen between the Chinese and most Western cultures. I understand the different cultures, but just not used to it:

- Armpit hair, way more than I will ever have…
- Squatting instead of sitting always, bus stop SQUATING, talking to each other SQUATING, playing cards SQUATING.
- Eating a lunch in less than 5min. I mean they fly through their food. They are in such a rush they don’t speak to each other, they don’t drink while they eat lunch, all they are focused on is finishing the meal as soon as possible so they can have almost the full hour and a half that they take for sleep. Right at the desk, or wherever they find 12-1330 you will see them sleeping.
- Washing their hands after the restroom is a big if, especially since the soap dispenser rarely has soap.

Now those were a few of the bad things, but at the same time they have some really neat things that I feel we can learn from, such as:

- Watermelon/fruit after any meal. Their watermelons are much much smaller then those in the US, but they are pure deliciousness. They are incredibly naturally sweet. Simply awesome.
- Drink water all the time. I mean all of the time. I drink a lot, but even compared to them, I’m parched. In combo with this, they have a sign in the bathroom that has urine colors on it. It is to show you if you are dehydrated based off the color (which I knew already). Just interesting to see. Mind you in English, the three levels say, “Not Dehydrated – Keep Drinking Water, Dehydrated – Drinking Water, Extremely Dehydrated – Drink Water Immediately”. (the grammatical mistake is on purpose)
- Fewer confrontations if someone is upset. What I mean by this, is that if someone is truly upset and yelling at another, the other simply sits there (or stand or most likely squat) and just take it. Let the person yell or whatever, then they both walk away.

In other news, I have finally received my residence and work permit for China. That process was an awesome bureaucratic experience that was interesting to see. The things I needed to accomplish, 8 passport pictures, handwritten note to the police station (seriously, can’t be typed with a signature) that must be written a certain way, presence required at a different police station, additional photos taken because the ones taken 2 weeks prior don’t show what I truly look like, and removal of my passport for 1.5 weeks total. But now that I have the permits, I get to travel again! So here is the current schedule:

- August 6th-8th – Shanghai
- August 20th-22nd – Seoul, South Korea to see one of my friends
- August 27th-29th – Qingdao, China for the Tsing Tao Beer Festival
- October 1-7th – Either Singapore or Vietnam (good options for both sides)

I think this will quench my thirst for travel for the short foreseeable future. Also my plan is when I get back stateside for the holidays, that I will be able to buy some scuba gear, and start going on excursions nearby.

Well I’m out for now, I will let everyone know how my 2nd weekend in Shanghai goes…