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!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
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…
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…
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
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…
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…
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