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…

2nd Week

Hey another week gone by and other crazy things happening. Let’s start off with the random touching. Due to the mold issue in my place, they moved me into a local hotel at the construction site. Not bad, nice digs. Anywho, I get into the elevator and behind me are three Chinese men. They start staring at my left arm, but I kind of shrug it away. As I’m waiting for the doors to close, the one guy just grabs my bicep and tries to see how strong I am. Guess they have never seen biceps like mine. He starts ranting something in Chinese, which I assume is “Oh my god, those are the biggest biceps I have ever seen. He must be a god or something”. Definitely something along those lines. So as I am leaving, I feel generous, and flex my right arm for them, and they start laughing and grinning. I’m glad they enjoyed.

Well as most of you know, I am in China doing structural engineering. I know I will be very busy because of work, but didn’t know how soon it was going to start. This weekend I didn’t plan on going anywhere because I knew I was going to be moving out of the hotel at some point. Wake up on Saturday at about 830am, look at my phone (force of habit), and I have a text from one of my co-workers, “Call me when you wake up, we gotta go to work today….”. CRAP. Ok, I call him we have to finish something today that construction needs for the weekend. We go in and sit down and hammer through some stuff. The other dude prepares the work, I evaluate all of the information and act as an independent verifier. 4hrs goes by and we are finally done. I have a feeling this will be my life for the next few years, but I wonder what would happen if I am out of town and can’t physically sign the document…

Well I finally got moved after work on Saturday to my new place. After work I biked back to the hotel. Grabbed my stuff, checked out, went to my new place. They were going to come with some assistants to move my stuff. I told her I needed to look at the new place to make sure it was mold free first. I went over, looked it through and nothing! Thank Jeebus. I also really like living in this new place. Since it is not on the first floor I gain about 50 sq ft extra indoors and another 20 sq ft on an 2nd balcony off the master. Nice place. Even though they claim it will only be for about 2 months, I think I am going to dig in and try and convince them to let me stay there. There is nothing wrong with the location, just a little farther from the others, but by farther I mean an extra 40 yards….

Another case of inappropriate touching happened the other day as well. I was sitting in my new apt and I see this weird looking bug crawling around the floor. It looks like a spider with the back two legs of a grasshopper. Thing is freaky looking, and I don’t want it here anymore. So I go grab a tissue to get kill it and throw it out, I get next to it, aim, and woosh I swipe at it. Look down at the piece of tissue and its not there, that’s strange, I always get my victim. Then I look at my arm and there it is staring at me. So I rapidly move my arm to get it away from me, it lands on the floor and must of thought ‘Hey I want some of that spicy latin blood’, because the damn thing starts jumping at my legs. I keep moving out of the way of this thing and decide enough is enough, I grab my shoes by the door, go back and end its poor life. This thing was insane looking, and worst of all it completely is not scared of me. Crap….don’t think this is exactly it but this is kinda what it looked like. Half spiderish, half grasshopperish, 100% out for me. Thing was probably somewhere between 1.5” – 2”. Anyone know what it is?

First Week

Well the first week has been pretty interesting to say the least. I got into my room on Sunday night (the 4th) and got settled in. Started looking around and noticed we have some mold growing on the walls. Crap. This has been an ongoing issue. I cranked my AC down like I like it and set up shop. I have two bedrooms for those that don’t know. I decided the first night to sleep in the master. Bigger bed, but hard as a rock. I couldn’t sleep a damn in it. It felt like I was sleeping on a box spring. I woke up probably every 20min throughout the night. Goto take a shower in the morning and I have a lot of hot water, but the shower head is not flush to the wall. I hear from a lot of the expats debate about whether the Chinese rushed this construction or if they cut corners, I can tell you they did. Not huge stuff, but if there were two screws that should go in, they put one. Doesn’t seem big, but when you tug on something a little, one screw doesn’t hold as good as two.

Work wise, things have been really good. The people are very nice, very friendly, and willing to help me out with whatever. I’ve met a lot of people and am still having trouble remembering everyone’s names. We have 4 Italians, 1 South African, 1 Filipino, 6 or so Americans and many more Chinese in my group. It’s like UN when you think about it. My desk however is a bit of a mess. I came to a desk that someone had been using. So I had all of their crap everywhere. I was told that the problem is in that we are gonna be rearranging everyone’s desk when the manager gets back from his home leave, next week. So for now I have just had to deal. I can deal with that, I can’t deal with the crappy chair. It’s a mesh chair which provides no support for my back whatsoever. When he gets back I’m gonna work on getting myself a new chair.

On Wednesday this week I finally got an opportunity to go out into the construction site. I got to walk around and see some engineering marvels at work. In all fazes of construction you can see some massive equipment, massive amounts of dirt, and tons of laborers trying to get these plants built. It’s wicked impressive. Spent about 2hrs roundtrip sight seeing which was awesome, sweaty, but awesome. Again, the Chinese stare, but I’m getting used to that. But it is obvious I am not built like a China man. The reflective vest (same thing the street constructors wear) that they got me is a 4XL. I mean, I might be fat, but I wear XL clothing, sometimes even L, never that big. It’s a little big on me, but I guess the 3XL is way smaller, guess I will have to deal and/or lose weight.

The only other things going on are that I will be moving out of my current apartment and into the on-site hotel for about a week, so they can come clean my place and hopefully get rid of the entire mold issue. Let’s see how it goes. The one thing we were told by the Owner via our HR Director in China was that they said the mold problem only happens in the rainy season which supposedly ended yesterday (yeah right), that the Chinese deal with it (so what), and that if we had more people in 3 bedroom apts that it wouldn’t have occurred (what?!?!?). Guess with more people the more spores they breathe in, and that would prevent the mold from growing on the walls? Whatever. When I do move back in I am also calling to get the extra channels. Watching BBC and CNN in English is nice, but when those are the only two English speaking channels, you get kinda bored. So they have 4 channels to add, woo woo!

One funny thing that happened recently was that I had to go into town to get some passport photos (need 8 for my work visa…) and to hit up the grocery store. As I am walking around, my rockstar status is obvious, even so that an old man came up to me laughing and started to rub my belly. He was so happy he got to do that, I think it might have added 10 years to the end of his life. I’m glad I could be of service! Supermarket was another experience. They have a lot of flashy packaging with bright and pretty colors, but almost none of it shows what is actually inside of the box and the pictures never show any food, unless inside of the box actually contains a big smiling China man’s head…. The smells in certain sections were also impressive. One area in particular had a collection of dried seafood with mosquitoes and all (minnows, bigger fish, sting rays, etc.).

I leave you with this last nugget. I am at the grocery store, looking for cleaning supplies. While being followed through the store by a 20 something year old guy smiling, laughing, and just staring at me. He walks near me still staring and farts really loudly. I look at him, and without blinking an eye, I fart right back. He starts dying of laughter and runs away (I assume to tell all of his friends, or to avoid my stench). Either way, we had a bond there for a second.

El Cubanito, bridging gaps with other cultures through bodily noises, since 1983…

Trip & Arrival

Been a while, but I finally figured out how to get onto the blog. Not as easy as one might think in China….

First the flight over. The flight over was awesome. Sitting in Business Elite is definitely the way to go! Let’s start off with dinner:

- Artichoke Hearts and Salmon Carpaccio
- Thai Chicken & Coconut Soup
- Walnut and Goat Cheese Salad
- 2 Crab Cakes, Lemon Grass Noodle thing, & seemingly grilled vegetables
- Vanilla Ice Cream with nuts and chocolate syrup with 2 strawberries

YUM! After that they make sure to keep everyone fed so they have a snack a few hours later that included fruit, vegetables, cheese, and salmon carpaccio. Then about 2 hours before we land they have another dinner. For that I had beef tenderloin with mushrooms, rice, bread, vegetables, and chocolate cheesecake. During the flight I spent the time watching movies, tv shows, and playing on my computer. Since each of the seats has an electrical outlet as well. When it came time to it I reclined my seat, which probably goes down to about 170 degrees so nearly flat and I got some shut eye. All in all it was a good flight but I’m sure it gets tedious after a while.

When I arrived in Shanghai I went to immigration, they looked at my papers looked at me, I smile, stamp and I’m on my way. I exchange some green backs to some funny looking money, then I get my bags and walk over towards customs. There are 5 Chinese customs officials sitting down, and none of them are stopping anyone so I just keep walking past. Walk through to see a sea of people waiting for their friends/colleagues/relatives and I don’t see a sign for me crap. So I signed phone to a Chinese cop and he directs me to someone who sells prepaid phone cards. Buy one, get it working, call the guy, and found him. I’m on my way now.

Driving in a vehicle with a locale in Shanghai isn’t for the faint of heart. I had no problems, I can appreciate driving like an ass hat, but its an experience. Signals don’t really mean a damn, turning lanes aren’t only the ones closest to that side, driving into oncoming traffic, NO PROBLEM! They also happen to use their horn as a conversation tool. I think BEEP = hello, BEEP BEEP = move to the side I’m coming through, BEEP ^ 5 means I have 5 passengers or perhaps I really like this horn. And forget red lights. They are just for show.

Past that, Shanghai was a lot of fun. I got in and out of cabs that spoke 0 English, not even Engrish. I spent some more monopoly money, got caught up on sleep, went to good restaurants, and met some cool other local expats. The drive to site was long, 4 hrs or so, but it wasn’t bad. It was nice to get away from some of the pollution that is present in Shanghai. When I got to the city you notice you aren’t in a city any more. The people are walking around without shirts and without shoes, children are running around everywhere, nothing has been cleaned in probably 2yrs, but all of the people are pretty nice. They seem to be curious how I can get so big (vertical and horizontal) and seem to want to know what I am doing at all times. Everyone laughs and then when I nod, or smile or wave, they get ecstatic and run away like a thrilled little school girl. Oh well, guess I will be a celebrity for the next few years here.

That is all for now. This is a long post, I’m gonna try and post some up later in the weekend to say what the first week was like and what the digs are like. Hope everyone is well, miss ya/luv ya, I’m out!

Wrapping Things Up

Going through all of my stuff, trying to get ready for the trip, I think to myself, how the eff did I get this much stuff? I have bags full of stuff to take to Goodwill and still probably more stuff to get rid of. The good thing behind this is it's forcing me to get rid of a bunch of crap I probably don't need. Out with the old in with the new right?

This weekend also had a bunch of shenanigans. At around 7pm I was just sitting at home trying to figure out what to do for dinner with my roommate. Well that was going to stay that way of course. Met up with two friends, grabbed dinner, then went to the Jam-on-Walnut for a hot minute, came back to my place to do some boozing. Then the phone calls happen, 'Hey mind if I come over' SURE! 'Hey mind if I bring 20 people over to your house?' NO PROBLEM, BUT BRING BEER. Hahahah, I love my life....definitely what I needed on my final weekend :-D

Getting Started

All right kiddies, just getting ready for the big move. Leaving here on July 1st for the new adventure. Hopefully I have all of my paperwork in line, guess there will be only one way to find out for sure....

As far as everything else, just trying to finish selling off my junk, anyone want a bed and dining room table?