Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Monday, July 26, 2010
Priceless...
Before you can enter into the subway turnstiles you must first pass through a security checkpoint. The checkpoint has an x-ray machine and a number of "security" personnel. The security personnel don't look like they could deal with a lot in the way of a real emergency but they certainly let you know they are in charge. As we were walking past one of the checkpoints on our way out of the subway we stumbled on this scene: Imagine a women in her mid to late 40's, slightly overweight wearing a security uniform and holding a small black megaphone very near her mouth and clearly appearing to be having a bad day. Next imagine a slightly confused and perhaps somewhat helpless gentlemen approximately the same age standing directly in front of the security women looking right at her asking her a question. I'm not making this up when I say she actually responded to his question over the megaphone. She could have leaned forward a couple of inches and touched him with the megaphone that was how close they were to each other. Julie and I lost it.
Megaphone - $25
Security Uniform - $40
Reasserting your position of authority and dominance over the little people... Priceless. Some things money can’t buy…
Megaphone - $25
Security Uniform - $40
Reasserting your position of authority and dominance over the little people... Priceless. Some things money can’t buy…
Matchmaker, Matchmaker find me a match...
The other day we were in People's Square walking around in the quiet and peaceful park which was filled with about a million people and I noticed an unusually large group of elderly people standing around talking. There really aren't that many old people in Shanghai to begin with and to see hundreds of them together I figured something was up. So we investigated.
All along the paths of the park were these shopping bags with papers with Chinese writing attached to them. All the papers appeared to be following some sort of known format. In many of the cases there was also an elderly person standing next to one of the bags/papers. The number of bags and papers and the number of old people steadly increased as we got deeper into the park. Then Julie figured out what it was - she had seen it on the news. The papers were effectively advertisments for their adult children. They were personal ads. People were there trying to find husbands and wives for their kids. Near the entrance of the park they had setup some tents with wire strung underneath so people code post the ads. Here is a picture of one of two tents. Note this is only a small percentage of all the people we saw that day.
Most of the people in park were just standing around. But in a few places there were some serious discussions going on. You could tell who the "hot" commodity was by the number of people standing around them asking them questions. There was one young man there probably in his mid-twenties who had about 15 old women standing around him asking questions. He looked a little uncomfortable and I think he was planning his escape when we saw him.
Here is another shot of the crowd from the gate. Immediately left and right of this photo are the two tents I mentioned above.
All along the paths of the park were these shopping bags with papers with Chinese writing attached to them. All the papers appeared to be following some sort of known format. In many of the cases there was also an elderly person standing next to one of the bags/papers. The number of bags and papers and the number of old people steadly increased as we got deeper into the park. Then Julie figured out what it was - she had seen it on the news. The papers were effectively advertisments for their adult children. They were personal ads. People were there trying to find husbands and wives for their kids. Near the entrance of the park they had setup some tents with wire strung underneath so people code post the ads. Here is a picture of one of two tents. Note this is only a small percentage of all the people we saw that day.
Most of the people in park were just standing around. But in a few places there were some serious discussions going on. You could tell who the "hot" commodity was by the number of people standing around them asking them questions. There was one young man there probably in his mid-twenties who had about 15 old women standing around him asking questions. He looked a little uncomfortable and I think he was planning his escape when we saw him.
Here is another shot of the crowd from the gate. Immediately left and right of this photo are the two tents I mentioned above.
Friday, July 23, 2010
July 16 – How to look stupid in a foreign country.
Lesson 1. When you come up to a door be sure to read the little sign that says “Push” or “Pull”. I was trying to get into the MS building right in front of main reception and ended up pushing the door into the carpet that they had laid down for the rain a few times before realizing I should be pulling on the handle. The security guard was probably wondering how I got hired to work at MS in the first place let alone be sent to Shanghai as an “ambassador” of the American people. Go Stupid!!
Lesson 2. The subways in Shanghai announce the current and upcoming stops in both Chinese and English. They also tell you which side of the train you will depart from. While traveling back from KTV I was on a train line I had never been on before. My stop was coming up and the recording said get ready to exit from the “left side”. Left and right is always relative to the direction the train is going in so I stood up, got in front of the door and waited for the train to stop. Well in this particular case this was an older train station and the exit side was actually on the right. By the time I realized what I had done wrong the train had come almost to a complete stop and when I turned around a number of passengers were staring at me. Good thing I blend in or I might have felt really dumb.
One day on the train Adam and I were talking about if they ever had problems with the recordings getting out of synch with the stops. The answer is – yes. One night a few weeks back Julie and I were on the train and it was wrong which caused a little confusion for some of the passengers. A small group of girls weren’t quite sure if they were at the right place or not and almost got off a stop early. Hey look - I'm not the only one that looks stupid on the subway. Just the tallest, most obvious one. :-)
My watch band broke the other day when I was putting on my backpack. Paperclip to the rescue! I figured that was easier than trying to find a new one which would ultimately involve a lot of pointing and gesturing and eventually lead to someone trying to sell me skin cream or something completely unrelated to a watch. Yes - that is how it goes here.
Lesson 2. The subways in Shanghai announce the current and upcoming stops in both Chinese and English. They also tell you which side of the train you will depart from. While traveling back from KTV I was on a train line I had never been on before. My stop was coming up and the recording said get ready to exit from the “left side”. Left and right is always relative to the direction the train is going in so I stood up, got in front of the door and waited for the train to stop. Well in this particular case this was an older train station and the exit side was actually on the right. By the time I realized what I had done wrong the train had come almost to a complete stop and when I turned around a number of passengers were staring at me. Good thing I blend in or I might have felt really dumb.
One day on the train Adam and I were talking about if they ever had problems with the recordings getting out of synch with the stops. The answer is – yes. One night a few weeks back Julie and I were on the train and it was wrong which caused a little confusion for some of the passengers. A small group of girls weren’t quite sure if they were at the right place or not and almost got off a stop early. Hey look - I'm not the only one that looks stupid on the subway. Just the tallest, most obvious one. :-)
My watch band broke the other day when I was putting on my backpack. Paperclip to the rescue! I figured that was easier than trying to find a new one which would ultimately involve a lot of pointing and gesturing and eventually lead to someone trying to sell me skin cream or something completely unrelated to a watch. Yes - that is how it goes here.
Friday, July 16, 2010
July 16 – comfortable, overcast and poured rain almost the entire day
Breakfast and lunch at the cafeteria – nothing special.
I gave a presentation to the Blend team about the automation stack. I was able to get a few questions and some interaction out of them but for the most part they just listened. When they had walked over it was not raining but by the time we were done it was pouring. Ephraim and I hung out with them in the lobby of the MS building while we waited for David to bring all the umbrellas over from the BeyondSoft building.
Julie stayed at the apartment today because I was supposed to attend a dinner with the .Net team and with possibility of KTV (Karaoke) after with the Blend team – which she is not fond of. Well the dinner was cancelled because Matt was not feeling well so that meant it was gonna be KTV night! I love Karaoke. We ended up having a big crowd for KTV – Lingling, Melody, Melody’s sister (can’t remember her name), David (Blend team), David (Design team), Aaron, Steve, Harrison, Shane and another person from the design team whose name I can’t remember at the moment. I probably forgot someone also. We all made our way over to KTV Freeport and grabbed a bite to eat at the KFC. On the way from where we were dropped off by the illegal cab to the KFC we got stuck in the middle of the cross walk and a very big bus honked its horn at us to make sure we got out of the way. I pointed out that I really did not want to die in China! Melody and Lingling had gotten a number of discount coupons so everyone went through them try to figure out what they wanted. Steve does not like KFC – it’s not healthy. I agree but it does taste good. Melody was very helpful in making sure I got the right meal ordered. I had a chicken sandwich with a lemonade which tasted as I would have expected in the US – it was very good actually. We headed over to the KTV through an alley that smelled – well not so good. KTV Freeport is a very big place and we got our room and settled in for a night of fun. A short while after we arrived David and Aaron showed up carrying a ton of snacks. At one point one of the KTV people stopped by with some dice, I asked what they were for and Melody explained it was for playing games. After a short description I realized she was talking about liars dice. Which we played and I beat Melody.
No one on the team is shy about singing – which makes Karaoke a lot of fun. We weren’t even drinking either. They actually had a pretty descent selection of western songs and I ended up singing ‘Blvd of Broken Dreams’ from Green Day and ‘What you won’t do for love’ from Go West. Melody’s sister was there and the two of them sang a few songs together – they are very good together. There were a couple of Chinese songs I really like one was called “Killers” and the other was “Changyue” which Melody explained was from a Chinese t.v. series . Shane is a very good singer and he and I sang “Yesterday” from the Beatles. Lingling is also very good. Steve really enjoys singing and he was picking songs from his favorite artist which he claims he knows all of his songs. I ended up taking off at 9pm much to the disappointment to the team but I explained I was missing Julie and needed to get back. That made it ok. Another illegal cab ride to the subway where the train conductor was very proud to tell me in English which train to get on and to make sure that I was taken care of. It was nice. 45mins later I was at home with my baby. I had a great time with the team. They are a lot of fun and the energy they have is infectious.
Breakfast and lunch at the cafeteria – nothing special.
I gave a presentation to the Blend team about the automation stack. I was able to get a few questions and some interaction out of them but for the most part they just listened. When they had walked over it was not raining but by the time we were done it was pouring. Ephraim and I hung out with them in the lobby of the MS building while we waited for David to bring all the umbrellas over from the BeyondSoft building.
Julie stayed at the apartment today because I was supposed to attend a dinner with the .Net team and with possibility of KTV (Karaoke) after with the Blend team – which she is not fond of. Well the dinner was cancelled because Matt was not feeling well so that meant it was gonna be KTV night! I love Karaoke. We ended up having a big crowd for KTV – Lingling, Melody, Melody’s sister (can’t remember her name), David (Blend team), David (Design team), Aaron, Steve, Harrison, Shane and another person from the design team whose name I can’t remember at the moment. I probably forgot someone also. We all made our way over to KTV Freeport and grabbed a bite to eat at the KFC. On the way from where we were dropped off by the illegal cab to the KFC we got stuck in the middle of the cross walk and a very big bus honked its horn at us to make sure we got out of the way. I pointed out that I really did not want to die in China! Melody and Lingling had gotten a number of discount coupons so everyone went through them try to figure out what they wanted. Steve does not like KFC – it’s not healthy. I agree but it does taste good. Melody was very helpful in making sure I got the right meal ordered. I had a chicken sandwich with a lemonade which tasted as I would have expected in the US – it was very good actually. We headed over to the KTV through an alley that smelled – well not so good. KTV Freeport is a very big place and we got our room and settled in for a night of fun. A short while after we arrived David and Aaron showed up carrying a ton of snacks. At one point one of the KTV people stopped by with some dice, I asked what they were for and Melody explained it was for playing games. After a short description I realized she was talking about liars dice. Which we played and I beat Melody.
No one on the team is shy about singing – which makes Karaoke a lot of fun. We weren’t even drinking either. They actually had a pretty descent selection of western songs and I ended up singing ‘Blvd of Broken Dreams’ from Green Day and ‘What you won’t do for love’ from Go West. Melody’s sister was there and the two of them sang a few songs together – they are very good together. There were a couple of Chinese songs I really like one was called “Killers” and the other was “Changyue” which Melody explained was from a Chinese t.v. series . Shane is a very good singer and he and I sang “Yesterday” from the Beatles. Lingling is also very good. Steve really enjoys singing and he was picking songs from his favorite artist which he claims he knows all of his songs. I ended up taking off at 9pm much to the disappointment to the team but I explained I was missing Julie and needed to get back. That made it ok. Another illegal cab ride to the subway where the train conductor was very proud to tell me in English which train to get on and to make sure that I was taken care of. It was nice. 45mins later I was at home with my baby. I had a great time with the team. They are a lot of fun and the energy they have is infectious.
July 15 – overcast – rainy but comfortable
Breakfast in the café – couple of eggs and bacon, rice porridge, bao.
Lunch in the cafeteria – ala carte. Tried to watch the BeyondSoft team play basketball but a miscommunication about when and where we were meeting up left me wandering around BeyondSoft and finally heading back over to the Microsoft campus a little more sweaty than I started out.
For dinner we decided to do the tourist thing. We headed over to Pudong and ate at Din Tai Feng. Basically this is a chain of restaurants along the Pacific Rim that specializes in the Xiao Long Bao (a type of juicy dumpling) and noodle soup. The food was good but overpriced. We had 10 pork dumplings, braised tofu with fungus, beef noodle soup and a pork and shrimp wonton soup all for about $30 USD. We can get equal quality and quantity in LA for probably $20 or less. I would say it was some of the best food we have had so far but they certainly take advantage of their reputation.
The restaurant is located in a mall called “Super Brand Mall”. This is your typical western style indoor mall. Very big, lots of shops and restaurants and some really nice views of the Huangpu river and the Bund.
Next we walked around in Pudong near the Pearl Tower and riverline and took some photos of the Bund side of the Huangpu river which is very pretty at night.
We had heard about the sightseeing tunnel so we decided to check it out. After a bit of wandering and asking of directions we found the entrance. Let me say this - sightseeing tunnel = rip off. This is the quintessential tourist attraction if I ever saw one. The price of the tunnel trip comes in a variety of flavors. You can get your basic one way and round trip tickets and then you can add on ala carte items such as an aquarium visit, some bronze exhibition and a few other things. The whole place has a very gaudy, carnival feel to it and I was able to glimpse a little of the aquarium exhibit and I was not impressed. We decided our money was best spent somewhere else. From there we walked over to the very crowded sub-way. BTW – did I mention how crowded it was the entire night. It was crazy. There were so many people – everywhere you went. The subway was not any different and we headed back home. I was drenched by the time we got back to the apartment I think the humidity level had increased significantly in anticipation of the next days rain.
Breakfast in the café – couple of eggs and bacon, rice porridge, bao.
Lunch in the cafeteria – ala carte. Tried to watch the BeyondSoft team play basketball but a miscommunication about when and where we were meeting up left me wandering around BeyondSoft and finally heading back over to the Microsoft campus a little more sweaty than I started out.
For dinner we decided to do the tourist thing. We headed over to Pudong and ate at Din Tai Feng. Basically this is a chain of restaurants along the Pacific Rim that specializes in the Xiao Long Bao (a type of juicy dumpling) and noodle soup. The food was good but overpriced. We had 10 pork dumplings, braised tofu with fungus, beef noodle soup and a pork and shrimp wonton soup all for about $30 USD. We can get equal quality and quantity in LA for probably $20 or less. I would say it was some of the best food we have had so far but they certainly take advantage of their reputation.
The restaurant is located in a mall called “Super Brand Mall”. This is your typical western style indoor mall. Very big, lots of shops and restaurants and some really nice views of the Huangpu river and the Bund.
Next we walked around in Pudong near the Pearl Tower and riverline and took some photos of the Bund side of the Huangpu river which is very pretty at night.
We had heard about the sightseeing tunnel so we decided to check it out. After a bit of wandering and asking of directions we found the entrance. Let me say this - sightseeing tunnel = rip off. This is the quintessential tourist attraction if I ever saw one. The price of the tunnel trip comes in a variety of flavors. You can get your basic one way and round trip tickets and then you can add on ala carte items such as an aquarium visit, some bronze exhibition and a few other things. The whole place has a very gaudy, carnival feel to it and I was able to glimpse a little of the aquarium exhibit and I was not impressed. We decided our money was best spent somewhere else. From there we walked over to the very crowded sub-way. BTW – did I mention how crowded it was the entire night. It was crazy. There were so many people – everywhere you went. The subway was not any different and we headed back home. I was drenched by the time we got back to the apartment I think the humidity level had increased significantly in anticipation of the next days rain.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
July 14 – overcast, comfortable.
Breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria. During lunch Julie started choking on a fish bone. I ran and grabbed a trash can because I thought she was going to throw up and it turned out that the trash can smelled so bad Julie gagged and was able to get the fish bone out. Jerry to the rescue! :-)After that we took a walk down the street a little ways just to get some air – all the dragon flies buzzing around were getting to Julie and it was starting to get a little warm so we didn’t go too far.
We went over to the French Concession and had dinner at Simply Thai. We had beef massaman curry and phad thai. Both were good although they messed up the order and we had to ask them for the phad thai which they forgot to give us (the down side of not delivering everything at once). The service was pretty good otherwise. We had mango and sticky rice for dessert. Good but the mango was a little stringy. Walked around the French Concession and Xintiandi a little – it was pretty busy. Movies are really expensive here between $12 and $16 USD. It started feeling more humid as we made our way back to the apartment and called it a night.
Had a little communication trouble with the front desk at the apartment. I am expecting a package and I asked them if they had it and they said “yes”. Then after a couple more minutes, some searching and checking of the computer we finally determined that they did not have the package and that they would send it to the apartment when they got it.
Breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria. During lunch Julie started choking on a fish bone. I ran and grabbed a trash can because I thought she was going to throw up and it turned out that the trash can smelled so bad Julie gagged and was able to get the fish bone out. Jerry to the rescue! :-)After that we took a walk down the street a little ways just to get some air – all the dragon flies buzzing around were getting to Julie and it was starting to get a little warm so we didn’t go too far.
We went over to the French Concession and had dinner at Simply Thai. We had beef massaman curry and phad thai. Both were good although they messed up the order and we had to ask them for the phad thai which they forgot to give us (the down side of not delivering everything at once). The service was pretty good otherwise. We had mango and sticky rice for dessert. Good but the mango was a little stringy. Walked around the French Concession and Xintiandi a little – it was pretty busy. Movies are really expensive here between $12 and $16 USD. It started feeling more humid as we made our way back to the apartment and called it a night.
Had a little communication trouble with the front desk at the apartment. I am expecting a package and I asked them if they had it and they said “yes”. Then after a couple more minutes, some searching and checking of the computer we finally determined that they did not have the package and that they would send it to the apartment when they got it.
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