We finally posted some pictures from last weekend at the water village described in the last post.
Super Old Smoking Woman in Xitang: http://www.liebat.com/gallery2/v/Karl/People/
Xitang, the water village: http://www.liebat.com/gallery2/v/Karl/China/Xitang/
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Boats, Planes, Really Old Villages and $10 Ice Cream
KARL: Last weekend, I joined 200 people for an open sailing day on Lake Dianshan. The majority were first timers dressed in their Sunday best – suits and dress shoes. Showing up in my shorts and life jacket, I was immediately accepted as the expert of the crowd. Unfortunately only 5 boats were volunteered for sailing, which meant most of the day was spent queued up (did I just really say “queued up”?! What's happening to my English?). I decided to join the Yacht Club which includes ~250 sailors from around the globe. With the multi-national membership, I was told I have to learn “blue/red/yellow line” and a dozen other words in 10 different languages to be effective sailing in Shanghai. I’m still trying to learn Chinese! After 5 lessons, I can finally pronounce all the Chinese sounds, 5tones (4 + non-tone), and can remember a dozen words! Only 100 more lessons to go before I can communicate at a taxi driver level.
I also had my first solo adventure in intra-China travel between Shanghai and Beijing. The two-hour flights are like mega-buses, departing every ½ hour on 747s/777s that are at 95% full with 300+ passengers. Travel proved to be interesting because the government has my passport to process the work visa. I traveled with a single sheet of paper full of Chinese and my grinning passport-sized photo. Fortunately, my passport and new Chinese ID returned just a few days later.
LILA: While Karl was enjoying Chinese transportation, I should have been excited about going to Italy and Portugal. However, I spent 14 hours flying from Shanghai to Frankfurt in the middle seat next to the bathrooms, then connected to Rome and visited Portugal before finally returning home. The 5-day Europe trip was quite short when you consider 2 days were spent on yucky flights. By the end, I wish I’d invested in a few rolls of that $2 Charmin to cushion the ride. The good news? I have now visited 68 countries in my life -- Italy was #67 and Portugal#68. I’m wondering what took me so long to get to both countries. However, after spending days inside the gold-wall, blue-carpeted Marriott conference rooms, I definitely earned a vacation trip back!
TOGETHER: Intel expat buddies came to the rescue the past week – helping us adjust and answering our 3 pages of questions. Jay arranged a special tour including 7 stops at home stores, sporting goods, and book stores. We were thrilled to find our way around. A week later, Kapil and his wife had us over for a home-cooked (!!!) meal, complemented with Wii advice from his son.
After developing a Chinese flesh-eating skin rash (clearly self-diagnosed), we got Karl to the doctor. Fortunately the expat-friendly WorldLink medical clinic proved that the US healthcare system really does have a ton of room for improvement! Within 2 hours of a phone call, Karl had an after-hours appointment with a dermatologist – no waiting beforehand & he even walked out with medication in hand.
Karl arranged for our first suburb exploration into Xitang, about 1.5 hours from Shanghai. The town is pending UNESCO World Heritage status, and is composed of traditional houses from ~1000 years ago along a canal. It’s more famous, however, for the cameo in Mission Impossible III. We had so much fun exploring the town. Of course, we stopped by the DVD store on the way back to pick up the movie. Pictures to follow soon – beautiful and very picturesque.
We still have fun exploring the city, wandering around. We’ve discovered our ayi (helper) cooks. She’s now preparing dinner for us 3x/week. That’s very helpful with Lila’s 2 hour/day commute and Karl’s late office hours. We also finally gave into our ice cream craving, walked down the street, and actually paid $10 for a pint of ice-cream. Yes, it was worth it.
I also had my first solo adventure in intra-China travel between Shanghai and Beijing. The two-hour flights are like mega-buses, departing every ½ hour on 747s/777s that are at 95% full with 300+ passengers. Travel proved to be interesting because the government has my passport to process the work visa. I traveled with a single sheet of paper full of Chinese and my grinning passport-sized photo. Fortunately, my passport and new Chinese ID returned just a few days later.
LILA: While Karl was enjoying Chinese transportation, I should have been excited about going to Italy and Portugal. However, I spent 14 hours flying from Shanghai to Frankfurt in the middle seat next to the bathrooms, then connected to Rome and visited Portugal before finally returning home. The 5-day Europe trip was quite short when you consider 2 days were spent on yucky flights. By the end, I wish I’d invested in a few rolls of that $2 Charmin to cushion the ride. The good news? I have now visited 68 countries in my life -- Italy was #67 and Portugal#68. I’m wondering what took me so long to get to both countries. However, after spending days inside the gold-wall, blue-carpeted Marriott conference rooms, I definitely earned a vacation trip back!
TOGETHER: Intel expat buddies came to the rescue the past week – helping us adjust and answering our 3 pages of questions. Jay arranged a special tour including 7 stops at home stores, sporting goods, and book stores. We were thrilled to find our way around. A week later, Kapil and his wife had us over for a home-cooked (!!!) meal, complemented with Wii advice from his son.
After developing a Chinese flesh-eating skin rash (clearly self-diagnosed), we got Karl to the doctor. Fortunately the expat-friendly WorldLink medical clinic proved that the US healthcare system really does have a ton of room for improvement! Within 2 hours of a phone call, Karl had an after-hours appointment with a dermatologist – no waiting beforehand & he even walked out with medication in hand.
Karl arranged for our first suburb exploration into Xitang, about 1.5 hours from Shanghai. The town is pending UNESCO World Heritage status, and is composed of traditional houses from ~1000 years ago along a canal. It’s more famous, however, for the cameo in Mission Impossible III. We had so much fun exploring the town. Of course, we stopped by the DVD store on the way back to pick up the movie. Pictures to follow soon – beautiful and very picturesque.
We still have fun exploring the city, wandering around. We’ve discovered our ayi (helper) cooks. She’s now preparing dinner for us 3x/week. That’s very helpful with Lila’s 2 hour/day commute and Karl’s late office hours. We also finally gave into our ice cream craving, walked down the street, and actually paid $10 for a pint of ice-cream. Yes, it was worth it.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
My Mouth Muscles Hurt!
That line comes from Karl who spent about 9 hours studying Chinese this week. As he said, "I didn’t know sounds like this could come out of my mouth!"
Karl: While Lila was in the US on business, I ventured out to explore the city. The highlights include the art district (30+ galleries featuring a range of modern art), the antique market (where I purchased two "500+ year old vases"), fake market (where I’m sure I didn’t bargain hard enough), and the gym. Spent most of my work week trying to learn the background on the account. Weather wise it has been nice - mostly in the mid 60s with all the trees/flowers just starting to bloom. However one day it poured and my 15minute commute took 1.5 hours due to traffic (this city hasn’t figured how to drive in the rain, kind of like LA). I’m worried because the typhoon season is supposed to start in ~3 weeks and last 4-5 weeks (everyday heavy rain).
Lila: Spent 5 days of meetings in Vegas, starting as soon as I landed– including the channel Board of Advisors meeting, customer meetings, my boss’ staff, and the Solutions Summit. Whew. I didn’t even make it out of the Venetian to see daylight for those 5 days, except for a 1 hour scavenger hunt. Being stuck inside for so long gave me a new appreciation of Shanghai’s air quality. The flight from the Shanghai to SFO was FULL of Intel folks returning from IDF. It made it hard to sleep, lest you want photos on our intranet site with your mouth wide open.
The personal highlight of the week was meeting up with family: Paul, Karl’s bro, was an attendee in Vegas – and I spent < 12 hours (incl sleep) in the Bay Area with Nabeel (bro) & Asha (his wife). The major lowlight was traveling back to Shanghai with 6 suitcases totaling ~300 lbs. I picked up the stuff we’d left at Nabeel’s, got it to SFO and thought "OH NO!" Somehow I managed to transport it from the car rental return to check-in with only 1 cart crash & 1 emotional near-breakdown. It was worth the pain for now being stocked with medicines, food, and spices (can’t ship per company policy).
Together: The weekend was great fun. Our helper made us delicious dumplings Friday night after an evening adventure to the art district. All but 3 galleries were closed – but that was ok! We met 2 owners and 1 artist. All were extremely chatty and made for an unexpected and pleasant date night adventure. On Saturday we spent most of the day with Jay, another Intel employee. He took us on a tour to the fabric market, 3 home stores, the sporting goods store, English bookstore, and a flower market. He answered tons of questions we had as we adjust to our new life. We will definitely pay it forward for the next employee who moves here. Saturday night we tried a great Thai restaurant nestled in an old estate. We even made it to the gym 2x this weekend – must start working off some of this China-chubbiness gained by too much good food.
Next week: Karl goes sailing, then off to Beijing. Lila goes to Europe for 5 days.
Karl: While Lila was in the US on business, I ventured out to explore the city. The highlights include the art district (30+ galleries featuring a range of modern art), the antique market (where I purchased two "500+ year old vases"), fake market (where I’m sure I didn’t bargain hard enough), and the gym. Spent most of my work week trying to learn the background on the account. Weather wise it has been nice - mostly in the mid 60s with all the trees/flowers just starting to bloom. However one day it poured and my 15minute commute took 1.5 hours due to traffic (this city hasn’t figured how to drive in the rain, kind of like LA). I’m worried because the typhoon season is supposed to start in ~3 weeks and last 4-5 weeks (everyday heavy rain).
Lila: Spent 5 days of meetings in Vegas, starting as soon as I landed– including the channel Board of Advisors meeting, customer meetings, my boss’ staff, and the Solutions Summit. Whew. I didn’t even make it out of the Venetian to see daylight for those 5 days, except for a 1 hour scavenger hunt. Being stuck inside for so long gave me a new appreciation of Shanghai’s air quality. The flight from the Shanghai to SFO was FULL of Intel folks returning from IDF. It made it hard to sleep, lest you want photos on our intranet site with your mouth wide open.
The personal highlight of the week was meeting up with family: Paul, Karl’s bro, was an attendee in Vegas – and I spent < 12 hours (incl sleep) in the Bay Area with Nabeel (bro) & Asha (his wife). The major lowlight was traveling back to Shanghai with 6 suitcases totaling ~300 lbs. I picked up the stuff we’d left at Nabeel’s, got it to SFO and thought "OH NO!" Somehow I managed to transport it from the car rental return to check-in with only 1 cart crash & 1 emotional near-breakdown. It was worth the pain for now being stocked with medicines, food, and spices (can’t ship per company policy).
Together: The weekend was great fun. Our helper made us delicious dumplings Friday night after an evening adventure to the art district. All but 3 galleries were closed – but that was ok! We met 2 owners and 1 artist. All were extremely chatty and made for an unexpected and pleasant date night adventure. On Saturday we spent most of the day with Jay, another Intel employee. He took us on a tour to the fabric market, 3 home stores, the sporting goods store, English bookstore, and a flower market. He answered tons of questions we had as we adjust to our new life. We will definitely pay it forward for the next employee who moves here. Saturday night we tried a great Thai restaurant nestled in an old estate. We even made it to the gym 2x this weekend – must start working off some of this China-chubbiness gained by too much good food.
Next week: Karl goes sailing, then off to Beijing. Lila goes to Europe for 5 days.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Intel invades Shanghai; Multi-hour Nail Polish Search
IDF – Our first working week in China happened to coincide with the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Shanghai. This event is how we do our technology transfer from Intel’s R&D to the industry. (sidenote: Lila was responsible for the expansion of IDF internationally – including China – waybackwhen.) The Intel invasion made our transition week much better!
At IDF, we unveiled the 2nd generation classmate PC – designed by Lila’s team. It was very exciting with lots of positive press worldwide and several of our key S/W and OEM partners in attendance.
Karl also his first round of meetings with his team and with Dell. Having worked with Dell about 10 years ago, he was happy to discover their style of business is the same across the globe. In fact, he knew several of the Dell guys who are on assignment from Austin. Small world!
TRANSPORTATION: We are learning to communicate with the drivers – who are great. Car time has been useful for naps & work, especially given that everything is at least 30 minutes away. We were told by multiple people that the metro is more predictable – once you actually get on board. You may have to wait 3 or 4 trains during commute hours before the “people shovers” can squeeze you in. No wonder there’s so much construction on building subway lines across the city!
SURPRISE DETOUR: We made a left turn out of our building for the first time. Imagine our surprise to find a small neighborhood of lane houses with paths small enough only for bikes and people. Once you make it thru the buildings, there’s a small street with fresh vegetable stalls, a butcher, a store with tubs of fresh fish swimming around, a side-walk soup restaurant, and a mini grocery store. What a wonderful find!
RANDOM ENCOUNTERS: Walking home from one of our dinner adventures, we were stopped by a father and son tourists. They asked us for directions to one of the bars. Since we were such experts on the area, Karl took the effort to direct them down the street, along our path home. It turns out we pointed them to the wrong place, but they wanted to thank us for trying – so they offered to buy us a drink. We had a great two hour discussion over drinks on jobs, work ethics, and what to study (for the college aged son). We exchanged contacts and hope to find more random encounters like this going forward.
And finally… the infamous nail polish search
Everything in China takes more effort and more time. It’s compounded by the inability communicate. For example, Lila’s manicure was wearing off. She found a towelette that had made it in her suitcase. Despite all efforts, it only removed the red from 1 hand. At 7am, she walked to the grocery store. Closed. Walked to convenience store – didn’t have it. Mr Shen (driver) picked her up. They made 1 stop at the foreigner’s grocery store: no luck. With limited Chinese, held up her right hand “don’t want.” And color free hand “want.” She made swiping signs on her fingers. Driver Shen said, in limited english, “I help. 10:30. here.” Lila makes it thru a customer meeting with trashy finger nails, then meets him at 10:30. LOW AND BEHOLD! He has brought the same exact dark red color of nail polish. She paints her nails and is done with it. In the meantime, he went to another store and got nail polish remover – delivered when he picked Lila up at 5pm.
At IDF, we unveiled the 2nd generation classmate PC – designed by Lila’s team. It was very exciting with lots of positive press worldwide and several of our key S/W and OEM partners in attendance.
Karl also his first round of meetings with his team and with Dell. Having worked with Dell about 10 years ago, he was happy to discover their style of business is the same across the globe. In fact, he knew several of the Dell guys who are on assignment from Austin. Small world!
TRANSPORTATION: We are learning to communicate with the drivers – who are great. Car time has been useful for naps & work, especially given that everything is at least 30 minutes away. We were told by multiple people that the metro is more predictable – once you actually get on board. You may have to wait 3 or 4 trains during commute hours before the “people shovers” can squeeze you in. No wonder there’s so much construction on building subway lines across the city!
SURPRISE DETOUR: We made a left turn out of our building for the first time. Imagine our surprise to find a small neighborhood of lane houses with paths small enough only for bikes and people. Once you make it thru the buildings, there’s a small street with fresh vegetable stalls, a butcher, a store with tubs of fresh fish swimming around, a side-walk soup restaurant, and a mini grocery store. What a wonderful find!
RANDOM ENCOUNTERS: Walking home from one of our dinner adventures, we were stopped by a father and son tourists. They asked us for directions to one of the bars. Since we were such experts on the area, Karl took the effort to direct them down the street, along our path home. It turns out we pointed them to the wrong place, but they wanted to thank us for trying – so they offered to buy us a drink. We had a great two hour discussion over drinks on jobs, work ethics, and what to study (for the college aged son). We exchanged contacts and hope to find more random encounters like this going forward.
And finally… the infamous nail polish search
Everything in China takes more effort and more time. It’s compounded by the inability communicate. For example, Lila’s manicure was wearing off. She found a towelette that had made it in her suitcase. Despite all efforts, it only removed the red from 1 hand. At 7am, she walked to the grocery store. Closed. Walked to convenience store – didn’t have it. Mr Shen (driver) picked her up. They made 1 stop at the foreigner’s grocery store: no luck. With limited Chinese, held up her right hand “don’t want.” And color free hand “want.” She made swiping signs on her fingers. Driver Shen said, in limited english, “I help. 10:30. here.” Lila makes it thru a customer meeting with trashy finger nails, then meets him at 10:30. LOW AND BEHOLD! He has brought the same exact dark red color of nail polish. She paints her nails and is done with it. In the meantime, he went to another store and got nail polish remover – delivered when he picked Lila up at 5pm.
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