Karl and Lila Liebat

Karl's Sabbatical Summary

2011-09-19T15:14:00.001-07:00

SUMMARY

- 10 weeks, 6 countries,4 US States, 3 continents, ~30 flights, 1 awesome sabbatical!

HIGHLIGHTS

- Croatia: 10 sailing days - island hopping in the Dalmatian Coast

- Pacific CoastChampionship: placing in the top ½ of the505 sailing regatta (Santa Cruz)

- Ecuador: roaming the Galapagos Islands amongst all sorts ofwildlife I’ve never seen before, running into the “House Hunters International”couple that inspired our trip to Salinas (followed by them taking us househunting for 2 days)

- Peru: hiking around Machu Picchu at sunrise, going off thebeaten track in the Sacred Valley, and exploring the wild Amazon Rainforest

- Argentina: wine tasting Malbecs in Mendoza, sunrise with the Toucansin Iguazu Falls, and the diverse neighborhoods of Buenos Aires (and the daytrip to Uruguay for country #58 wasn’t bad either)

- Aspen: kicking back with the rich & famous during kayakingworkshop, hikes, and dinners

- Minnesota: week photo workshop with my brother and around 80 wildbears

- Boston: Yankees beat the RedSox, exploring America’s history onfoot

- Family &Friends: twins now speaking (“dada,”“agua,” “outside,” and others), Silver Oak ’97-’06 wine tasting with friends, etc.

Karl’s SABbatiCalAlphabet

In the spirit of fatherhood, I’dlike to present my Sabbatical Alphabet. If you really want to know how mysabbatical was, just drop a word (or setup a coffee 1:1). Bonus points if youcan work some of this vocabulary into meetings my first week back!

- A: Amazon, Albatross,Airplanes, Aspen, Argentina , Andes, Aussies

- B: Boats, Blue-footedboobies, Birds, Boston, Bears, Beef (argentinian), Boston’s baked goods (glutenfree!), Baseball

- C: Croatia, Cusco,Continents x3, Countries x6, Ceviche, Caiprinhas, Caimans, Crown Fellows

- D: Dalmatian coast

- E: Ecuador, Equator,Eucalyptus trees

- F: Food, Frigatebirds, Freedom trail

- G: Galapagos, Guides,Grandma (who cared for kids)

- H: Hemispheres, Hiking

- I: Iguazu, Incas,Iguanas

- J: Jealous (what youall should be ;) )

- K: Kayaking

- L: Lila the mileagemomma who sponsored my 1^st class travel, Lourie (family)

- M: Machu picchu,Mendoza, Minnesota, Malbecs, Massages

- N: Neighborhoods,Night tours (through the jungles)

- O: Otavalos

- P: PCCs, Peru,Photography, People, Potatoes, Pisco sours, Parrots, Playgrounds

- Q: Quito

- R: Rainforests, Rain,Recoleta, Rivers

- S: Split, Snorkeling,Sailing, Salinas, Steak, Sacred valley, Sunscreen, Sea lions, Silver Oak

- T: Tortoises, Time,Toucans, Transfers (too many), Twins (family time!)

- U: Uruguay

- V: Vinos, Vultures

- W: Wildlife, Wines,Waterfalls, World heritage sites, Weather (windy & wet), Work outs, Walleye

- X: Xrays (~30airports)

- Y: Yummy food, Youngwines, Yankees

- Z: Zoom lens(200-400mm)

Karl's Pictures: Sabbatical Highlights

2011-09-18T13:01:00.000-07:00

Karl had several goals during sabbatical - and one was to get back into photography. See 80 or so of the photos he took, capturing the memories and scenery, at the Liebat website.

ARGENTINA (8/11-8/12/11): Iguazu Falls

2011-09-10T23:47:00.001-07:00

Thursday, August 11: Mendoza -> Iguazu Falls(Argentina)

When we first booked our trip, several travel agents told uswe should really focus our time on 1 or 2 countries – not hop around so much.We’re happy we stuck to our guns – finding a travel agent and itinerary thatmet our needs. Our 24 hour journey to Iguazu falls gave us a glimpse of whypeople were concerned. For example, the flights around South America are reallynot convenient. We left Mendoza around 6:30 am (we’ve rarely slept in!), had tofly through Buenos Aires with a 2 hour layover, then continue another 1.5 hrsto Iguazu Falls. The entire morning was in airports and planes – just to getacross the country. The good news is that we still had a solid day to explore.

Iguazu Falls National Park contains 14 miles of waterfallsthat plummet up to 229 feet. We’re told that Iguazu is about 6x the size ofNiagra. Karl said he feels Niagra is taller, but Iguazu is wider. The falls arein a rainforest, but more mountainous than the flat Amazon we’d seen the weekbefore. Due to limited time, we didn’t have a chance to explore the jungleoutside of the Falls area or participate in any of the adventure activities inthe area (zip lining, jet boat under the falls, etc) – but there was plenty tosee for the next 5 hours.

The Falls are called one of seven “natural wonders of theworld.” We hiked the 3 main paths– to devil’s throat (see Lila’s facebookpictures & videos – that was the first one), the upper circuit (which windsalong the top of the canyon), and the lower circuit (which was very splashy!)near the bottom of the falls. All the trails were wheelchair accessible. Infact, they’ve done an amazing job of building metal paths above the ground toreally protect the wildlife and fauna. We saw feisty raccoons, beautiful blueand yellow jays, tons of butterflies, and even chased down a toucan hiding in atree (we heard it about 5 minutes before we could find him). The fauna was veryinteresting, too. For example, there was cacti growing in the middle of therainforest and grasses that survived with 1000s of gallons of water hittingthem all day long! It had rained days before in Brazil, so the water waspounding (6-8x more volume than normal). It was truly an incredible sight. Lilahad never seen anything like this before….waterfalls everywhere, water rushingso much so fast, and rainbows radiating from the falls.

After 5 hours of hiking around, we settled into theSheraton, the only hotel located right in the national park. As we watched thesunset with Devil’s Throat in the distance, we saw many toucans flying by andjays and swallows trying to peck away at food on the balcony (I think one ofthe blue jays gave Lila a 10 minute stare down over a packet of sugar). Acrossthe way, we could see Brazil. From there, you’re supposed to have a wonderfulpanoramic view of the Argentinean falls. But that required a visa which wenever had time to get. It was such a wonderful way to pass the last evening. Infact, we couldn’t have picked a better way to end our Argentina adventure.We’ve loved the nature and hiking aspects of our trip. After the cold, citylife of Buenos Aires and sitting around in Mendoza wine/food tasting, it wasgreat to be outdoors in a tropical setting.

Friday, August 12: Iguazu Falls -> Buenos Aires -> Back to the US

At 8 am exactly, when the Park opened, we were first inthrough the Sheraton’s backyard! We hiked the upper circuit again. For an hour,we didn’t see anyone. It was great to have the jungle and falls to ourselves.At this point of the trip, we’ve been accustomed to listening for – andspotting – animals. It’s not the magical way the Amazonians guides do it, butKarl’s learned to be quite the “native.” One of the highlights of the morningwas Karl spotting 2 parrots perched above a tree. It was very cool just towatch them hang out. After the upper circuit, we had time to hike the lowercircuit. There’s a lookout pier on the lower trail that is just feet away fromthe bottom of the falls. Yesterday, only a few people dared to get close, andnot us – too cold, too wet. But this morning, it seemed like a shame to comethis distance and not feel the water. So we decided to go to the end. Just afew seconds and we were DRENCHED (imaging standing next to a fire hydrant wideopen and you might being to get the same sensation). We made it back to thehotel in time to shower, before our 10:45 am hotel departure.

Then came the dreaded phone call from the travel agent…

Our flight to Buenos Aires was cancelled. It’s worth notingthat up until now, we’ve had no issues with the previous 14 flights of ourtrip. The travel agent said they tried to rebook us, but were told we need tocall the airline directly. We’ll skip the long details. In the end, we wereable to get onto the next flight, scheduled to leave 2 hours later. In themeantime, we hung out at the Sheraton enjoying the views.

Fast forward to the airport. Our flight departure wasdelayed another 1 hour. This killed our afternoon plans in BA. We wereoriginally supposed to land in BA, hang out in the city for 3 hours, then headto the international airport (1 hr away from the in-city domestic airport). Quick math and you’ll note that these delays ate away at our “hanging outin Buenos Aires” time. Fortunately, when you’ve have guides and travel agentstaking care of you, they include buffer time. Good thing, because luggage tookan hour to come off the conveyor belt at the small domestic airport.Unbelievable! At this point, we’re stressed because Friday evening traffic(6pm) is unpredictable here, and we needed to get across town to theinternational airport.

Fortunately, traffic gods were on our side today. We made itto the airport a little less than 2 hours before our departure, only todiscover we were upgraded to first class on the return (big smiles). Of course,the drama still wasn’t over. We’ve never seen an airport in the Americas asinefficient as Buenos Aires. The lines were massive, and stopped frequently tolet the next phase clear out. For example, they stopped security scanningbecause immigration (the next phase) was moving too slow. We ended up waitingin these lines for almost 1.5 hours. Needless to say, all passengers were superanxious – people starting to fret over making their flights. In the end, it allworked out. Flights were slightly delayed to accommodate the madness, and eventhe pilot made jokes about the mess. But all of these delays killed ourshopping time at the airport, which was supposed to replace our shopping timein Buenos Aires. We settled into our first class seats (enjoyed the welcomeaboard drink) and finally took off around 9:30pm to Miami. Three weeks, 4countries, and amazing memories!

ARGENTINA & URUGUAY (8/6-8/10) : Buenos Aires, Colonia, Mendoza

2011-09-10T23:46:00.000-07:00

It’s amazing that 2 weeks havepassed so quickly, yet that we have experienced so much in Ecuador andPeru. We’ve been looking forward to ending our 3 week adventure in Argentinagiven all the hype we hear from friends that Buenos Aires is their favorite LatinAmerican city. And so the final phase began…

Saturday, August 6: Lima(Peru) ->Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Our international flight fromLima departed at 8:45, arriving in Buenos Aires at 3:15pm. The highlight of thejourney was the LAN flight with movies on the back of each seat. It’s been awhile since we just watched TV, so the short flight was a treat! During theflight, Karl pulled out his little travel emergency bag to show off how he’sbuilt an amazing collection of travel gear over the past year. Of course, heproceeded to leave it on the plane as we rushed off to experience BA.Fortunately we were able to have someone retrieve it once we were on the theother side of immigration.

By the time we got to our verycool boutique hotel (PuroBaires) it was around 5pm. The hotel managed to find awash & fold laundry place for us. It’s uncommon for people to havewashers/dryers, and instead they depend on a service. We walked about 15minutesto drop our things off, then proceeded with a 2 hour walk until everything wasready. It gave us a chance to explore the hip Palermo SOHO neighborhood we werestaying in. There was a wonderful square with artisans displaying their goodswhile people strolled by. We noticed how European and young everyone lookedrelative to the last 2 countries. At 5:30pm, the city was full ofactivity. Everyone was in cafes with drinks and sweets. By 7pm, they alldisappeared and BA felt like a ghost town. However by 10pm, the restaurantswere full again with people having dinner before their night on the town.

We couldn’t manage waiting until10pm for dinner, so we had the hotel book us a “super early” dinner slot at8:30. The restaurant, Lo de Jesus, is one of many restaurants known for theirbeef. As you may know, Argentina is famous for grilled steaks and Malbec redwine. The meat was unbelievably tender and delicious (and when you say mediumrare, the steak was still moo’ing with just a sear on the outside).. As we leftdinner at 10pm, the restaurant had just gotten full. We still can’t understandhow Argentines eat so late!

One other note – we are SOthankful we bought sweaters in Cusco! It’s in the 50s here, and while we packed1 sweater, it’s not been enough.

Sunday, August 7: BuenosAires

We got a great overview ofBuenos Aires on Sunday. The city of 4M (which swells to 10M if you includesuburbs) starts a little late since it ends so late. We began around 10am. Insummary, we finished the day surprised by eclectic architecture and cultures ofeach neighborhoods.

We began in the Main Square,Plaza de Mayo. There’s a neo-classical Cathedral, the colonial Cabildo, the oldtown hall and the pink colored Presidential Palace (think “Evita” where shesung from the balcony). From there we went to San Telmo neighborhood. It’s the oldestpart of the city, bohemian atmosphere, narrow sidewalks, cobbled-stone streets,flat roof colonial houses and windows with iron railings. On Sundays, there’s aflea market and an artist’s market. It was great to browse the streets andsquare. We continued to La Boca quarter, where Italian immigrants settled inthe 20^th century. We saw the famed Boca Juniors soccer stadium,multi-colored tin houses, and the very cool (but touristy) Caminito Street.There, artists exhibit their work outdoors, tango dancers dance in the cafes –all set against brightly, multi-colored buildings. Apparently it was the wayimmigrants inexpensively dressed up the area. We also learned about the historyof tango, which originated in Argentina by the immigrants – all a mix of variouscultures. It was interesting to go from the poorer neighborhood of Bocato the beautiful wide streets of Peurto Madero and the marina. The surroundingsinclude tall glass buildings, a stylish bridge, and renovated old brickwarehouses that now house restaurants/shops. All around the city – there wereso many plazas. We ended the tour in Riccoleta, an expensive neighborhood thathouses one of the weirdest sites we’ve ever seen: a cemetery. This cemeteryincludes monuments that were designed by architects. It’s really incredible –think of a little city of mausoleums. Creepy, yet beautiful.

We returned to our hotel for ashort break before walking around Palermo more. We walked to the leatheroutlets, but decided that the selection in China is much better. Nothing likehaving things custom made! We also walked to another square. During weekdays,this square is surrounded by bars and discos. On Sundays, it turns into anotherartists fair. Inside the discos, small boutiques and sellers set up shop. It’sodd to walk into a disco during the day and see clothes for sale and the barscovered up.

For dinner, again at 8:30pm, wegot into a hot restaurant – La Cabrera. The atmosphere was wonderful. Thequality of steak was good. Best, it was just a few blocks from our hotel.During our dinner we came up with the following list….

- Most surprisingabout BA (good): 1. such distinct differences between the neighborhoodsand 2. the grave site.

- Most disappointing(bad): 1. poop on the ground (tons of dogs being walked, all which seem to poopfreely!) and 2. all the graffiti (which seems to a common part of the politicalexpression).

- Our favorite spot:San Telmo.

Monday, August 8: Day trip toColonia (Uruguay)

Across the river from BuenosAires is the city of Colonia, in the country of Uruguay. Lila had been toUruguay years ago, but only to the capital city of Montevideo. We weredeliberate in adding Uruguay to our agenda so Karl could get 1 country countcloser to Lila. J We took the ferry at 8:45am, returning around 6pm. It’saround an hour journey across the Rio de la Plata river. The river looks morelike a sea from the coast, and ends up at the Atlantic Ocean.

Colonia dates back to the 17thcentury. Its small, Old City is a World Heritage site. We were pleasantlysurprised to have a tour guide for a few hours, then roamed around on our own.It was wonderful because we really felt that we learned a lot about Uruguay –the history, culture, and lifestyle. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable. Weopted to start at the not-officially-opened Visitors Center – a great stop toget an overview via a short video of Uruguayan images (which our guideexplained) and a historical timeline. We did a quick tour around town, learningabout the river, and seeing an old resort the Spanish opened, including a Bullring and sports center. Once bull killing was deemed inappropriate, the ringclosed as did the rest of the old resort (only two years after it wasopened). The old city was quite charming. There were 2 highlights. The firstwas the architecture. The Portuguese (who ruled Brazil) built in Colonia as away to spy on the Spanish in Argentina. The Spanish didn’t like that. In fact,during just 100 years, Colonia passed between the Spanish and Portuguese 10times! Right next to a short, Portuguese house with roof tiles, you’d seethe flat roof Spanish home. One cobble stoned street would peak in the middleand slope on the sides - the way Spanish architected drainage. The next cobblestone street would be dipped in the middle with the sides higher to create awater drainage in the middle (Portuguese design). It was very fascinating! Theother highlight was this old Portuguese house we found refuge from the coldwind off the river. Inside the stone building with low roof, it felt likewe had stepped back in time. We enjoyed an assortment of cheese and meats,including the famed Colonia cheese with a bottle of Tannat (the country’ssignature red wine).

We returned to Buenos Aires viaferry, which even had a duty free shop inside! It was an interesting day, gotKarl to 58 countries, and put a few more stamps in both of our passports. Thatevening, we relaxed at the hotel, still full from our Uruguayan lunch and thenthe cheese/wine snack. We organized our luggage and prepped for the 5amdeparture on Tuesday to Mendoza.

Tuesday, August 9: BuenosAires -> Mendoza (Argentina)

We arrived in Mendoza, a 2hrflight from Buenos Aires (440miles NW), around 9:30am. Our itinerary in Mendozagot a bit screwed up, but we did some last minute coordination with the tourguide and arranged for a city tour in the morning. We really enjoy learning thehistory, and getting an orientation of a city when we arrive. Especially with anew city every couple of days, it’s really helped us piece together the historyand culture of the continent. The city is dotted with huge central plazas. Wesaw at least 5 – not bad for a city of 130k citizens. Most of the history ofthe city was wiped out in an earthquake in the mid 1800s. One of the mostamazing sites was the city park – Parque General San Martin – with 11 miles ofpaths, 300 species of imported fauna, an amazing rowing club, and beautifulstatues. It was very grand – especially for a smaller town. We also drove intothe mountains to see a beautiful monument to San Martin, one of the leadgenerals who fought the Spanish for independence of Argentina, Peru, &Bolivia. Apparently when San Martin returned from Spain, he chose to be basedin Mendoza to plot out the revolution against the Spanish. We also stopped atthe central market, where we got some delicious dried fruit (Lila thinks thepeaches were the best, but in fact Karl’s dried, white figs ruled!).

We started our visit to thewineries in Lujan de Cuyo, or the first zone. It’s home of the Malbecs and themain area of Argentina’s wine industry. The first stop was for lunch - at Closde Chacras winery. It was an outstanding gourmet pairing of many food and winecourses. One thing about Mendoza – they like their wine with good food!Afterwards, we visited Alta Vista - a well known winery known for the mix ofold and new, Malbecs and Torrentes. From there we stopped by Carmello Patti, awinemaker who produces wine under his own label. It was a very small operationand fun to hang out with the charming older man. Afterwards, we walked aroundthe small town of Chacras, where our hotel was based. We’ve decided that welike the charm of small hotels, but like to be based in a larger city/townwhere we can walk around. In Chacras, you can walk the entire downtown in 15minutes. The hotel, Lourdes de Chacras, was a charming boutique hotel made ofold stones.

That evening we had dinner atNadia OF. The chef, Nadia, is married to a winemaker O. Fournier. She startedthe restaurant to do wine pairings with his wine. Again, thefood/pairings were wonderful.

Wednesday, August 10: Mendoza(Argentina)

Today’s wine visit was in theUco Valley, a high-altitude wine region pushing against the Andes. It was about1 hr from the town of Chacras, about 90min from downtown Mendoza. It’sconsidered the new frontier in Argentine wine. Our first stop was Salentein. Nowords can describe the amazing architecture and structure of the winery, setagainst the beautiful backdrop of the snow capped Andes. As you approach thewinery, it really doesn’t look like anything special. But inside andunderground is amazing. Frommers described it as “temple like cave” – andthat’s what it felt like! Maybe because it’s winter, or because it’s Mendoza,but we were surprised how quiet the winery was. In the US, such a beautifulwinery would be over packed with visitors. Afterwards, we visited Azul, an uberboutique winery that produces only 40,000 bottles each year. We got to somewine from the 2011 March harvest straight from the tank. We also tried theirpremium wine straight from the barrel. The winemaker was very cool to talk to.The morning’s visits were really excellent and enjoyable visits!

For lunch, we ate at the Altuswinery, a small very rural winery that hosts the top quality restaurant BistroLa Tupina in a converted vineyard workers’ cottage. The pairing was againamazing – and never ending! At least 3 times we thought we were done. We hadsmall courses of appetizers (chorizo, chardonnay cheese, blood sausage(disgusting thought, but good in the belly), an amazing egg dish (presented inan egg shell)). Then we were given delicious sheppards pie, empanadas, alentil/meat stew, and finally the most tender short ribs. They also preparedwheat-free versions for Karl.

We napped on the hour car rideback to the hotel, arriving around 5pm. Clearly we were too stuffed for dinnerthat evening so we opted for a game of pool with a cheese snack plate at thehotel. We’ve now had more meat and cheese since landing in Argentina than we’vehad the entire year!

A few things we’ve taken awayfrom Mendoza. Its common to drink young wines, meaning inexpensive (e.g.US$5-$10) that are not aged in oak to show off the flavors of the grapes. Theyaren’t fans of barrel aged – we had many wines including a cab that spent notime in a barrel – only a concrete or stainless steel tank. As a result, manyof the wines don’t have a long finishes. There’s a big shift from producingquantity (150 years of producing the 4^th largest volume of wine) toquality (less than 10 years of experience). Most of the wines are not “drinkalone” wines, but rather should be paired with food. The specialization isMalbec, but they are experimenting with a variety of whites and reds. Themigrant workers are predominantly from Bolivia, who earn ~ $15/day. There’s arecent effort to improve the working conditions. Water is highly regulated bythe Dept of Irrigation. Overall, we learned a ton about the differenceswith California’s wine region and preferences. It was very fascinating andenjoyable!

PERU (8/3-8/5/11) : The Amazon

2011-09-10T23:45:00.000-07:00

8/3, Wednesday: Cusco ->Puerto Maldanado -> The Amazon

We were shocked by our arrival inthe Amazon. It was not only pouring rain, but it was super cold. We later heardthat the temperature had dropped from 35 to 10 degrees C overnight.

At the airport, the various lodgesgreet visitors for their journey into the Amazon. To get to our lodge, theInkaterra Reserva Amazonica, we took a bus to a check-in center about 5 minutesfrom the airport. Then it was a 20 minute bus ride to the boat. The transportboat looked like a large canoe with a small roof and an engine that previouslywas part of a car (similar to the Thailand river boats). We put our life jacketson, gave thanks to the fact we had rain coats, and began our 1 hour (very wetand cold) journey into the rainforest. The Inkaterra is one of the “remote, yetaccessible” of the Amazon ecolodges. One of Lila’s YGL friends owns a fewecolodges but they are 3-8 hour boat rides further than where we stayed (wejust didn’t have the time on this trip for visiting his award winninglodges). At our lodge, we were shown our cabana - #8, whichoverlooked the river. The “resort” has 35 stand-alone cabanas all with only 1wall, the rest was wood frame covered by mosquito screens. In warmtemperatures, that architecture would be lovely. Instead, we put on 3-5 layersof the summer clothing we brought in an effort to stay warm. The cabana hadrunning water (toilet, bath), a bed with additional mosquito netting, a sittingarea, and 2 hammocks – all inside our framed house, several feet above theground (in case the river floods &/or animals come for a night visit). TheInkaterra is supposed to be one the most luxurious of Peruvian Amazon lodges.

During our stay, we learned thedifference between a rainforest and a jungle. A rainforest has 4 layers ofvegetation, with the highest being ~200 ft. A jungle only has the 2 bottomlayers. More light shines through a jungle, because it doesn’t have the talltrees. Therefore, more vegetation grows on the ground level. In a rainforest,due to the lack of light, less grows on the ground – and therefore it’s easierto walk around. In the Amazon, the jungle is a subset of the Amazon rainforest.

At the adventure center, theyoutfitted us with mud boots that came up to our knees. For the next 2 days,we’d be living in these! By the time we really settled in, it was already 4pm.We went into the jungle on the grounds of the Inkaterra for a 1 hour walk,followed by a night walk a few hours later. A few observations …. Birds don’tlike cold – just like humans. They were all hiding. Little light made itthrough the 4 layers of the rainforest. It was very calm with little movement.And, if there was movement, it meant there was some creature moving (or therain!). The spiders are really big and ugly, and we saw several walking sticksand beetles.

All meals were included in ourstay. We got to choose from a set menu, all very good tropical-inspiredcuisine. In fact, the Inkaterra is supposed to have the best food in theAmazon. The restaurant, like our cabana, had screens as walls.

By 9pm, we retreated to our cabanafor an interesting night. Karl managed to sleep with a single layer, whereas Lilaslept in about 6 layers. The blankets were warm, so it really wasn’t too bad.At 11:30pm the generators were turned off, and we were without electricity. Thelanterns in our room provided enough candle light, but we weren’t prepared forKarl’s sleep breathing machine turning off.

8/4, Thursday: The Amazon

Our first activity started at 7am,Thursday morning. Thank goodness we woke up to overcast skies – but no rain! –and slightly warmer temperature. Our wake-up call was someone knocking at thedoor – but the birds were already starting to make their morning sounds! Allexcursions are included with our stay at the ecolodge. Excursions are led by anative guide with no more than 8 people to the group. In the morning, weselected to visit Lake Sandoval inside of the Tambopata National Reserve. Itrequired a 30 minute boat ride up the river, then a 1 hour hike, and then wetook a canoe on the lake. We were joined by a young Italian newlywed couple andtheir private guide. Luis, a native of the area and our guide, explainedthat the native people are more interested in mining and a variety of otherbusinesses – not ecotourism. In fact, it often causes problems within a familybecause their older relatives don’t understand why someone would do ecotourism. Why save animals in the jungle when they should be hunted/eaten? It’sslowly catching on, but still slow.

During our hike, we saw a varietyof birds (including a toucan), some monkeys hiding in the top of a tree, someleaf cutter ants (they use the cut leafs to grow fungus), and a few otherinsects. The walk was muddy and tough. During the canoe ride, we saw somereally unusual birds like cormorants and blue herons. We didn’t see anypiranhas although they’re supposed to be in the Amazon.

Upon return to the pick-up point,the boat wasn’t there. Lila walked around until I found cell service (it wasthe first time we had a connection since arriving into the Amazon). Our guidewas new to the lodge and a bit hesitant, but after 1.5 hours of waiting, weconvinced him to take action. We used our phone to call the check-in lodge, whothen radioed back to our lodge. We couldn’t believe it – they left us! Wecomplained later that our guide didn’t have a radio, and that no boat came. Thelodge manager explained that something happened to one of the boats, and thatour guide should have had a radio. They put the blame on the eco coordinatorwho was getting disciplinary action. We got (and took!) credit for “saving” thegroup of stranded folks. All it took was a bit of impatience and determinationto find cell service. J

In the afternoon, we went on awalk through the rainforest, including a canopy tour with hanging bridges. Thebridges were connected by 7 towers. It was fun to walk 100 ft above the ground…kindof scary occasionally, but with a very cool view. During the hike to get there,we found a vine hanging from a tree that was a few hundred feet high. Ofcourse, Lila had to swing…not too gracefully though. She was out-swung by theNorth Carolina kids that were with us (there was a family of 6 along on thehike).

In the evening, we went on atwilight cruise on the Madre de Dios river. It was absolutely incredible to seethe sky of the Southern Hemisphere. In fact, seeing the stars so close andclearly, it was easy to understand how the Incans connected to the sky. TheMilky Way looked like a reflection in the sky of the river! We spent an hour onthe boat cruising up and down the shoreline spotting white caimans (likecrocodiles). It was exciting and fun.

Afterwards, we had dinner &enjoyed a fun time with the Italian lawyers. The wife didn’t speak much Englishbut could understand when we talked slow. It was a lovely end to an excitingday. That night, we slept very well again – aside from the generator going offand Karl’s machine not working. Basically, if you go to the Amazon, you have tobe ready for no cell service and intermittent electricity.

8/5, Friday: Puerto Maldanado(Amazon) -> Lima

As our trip in the Amazon came toan end, we still had a half-day left. We went with another guide on a boat rideto the river island (aka Monkey Island – although we didn’t see monkeys). The island was called money island for the recently relocated monkeyfamilies moved there by one of the local universities. Our guidequestioned the study – he was concerned they had didn’t release enough of onespecies to ensure long term success/breeding.

On the way to the island, wespotted a variety of birds and white caimans along the shore. We also saw thesemachines that looked like old wooden manual contraptions. The locals use thesefor sifting for gold. They can find 5-10 grams per day in this area of theriver (and as much as 50 grams a day further upstream in a frontier part of theriver that even the local police don’t try to patrol).

Upon arrival to the river island,we went on a 2 hour hike. The weather had warmed up so the birds were finallyout. It was unbelievable how much noise they made! During the wet season, theisland is flooded by the river. The result is the vegetation was so differentthan other parts of the rainforest we had seen. It sounded, smelled, and feltlike a stereotypical jungle. It’s worth noting that unlike the Galapagos, theanimals in the Amazon don’t come close to humans. They’re often in trees orhiding. We borrowed binoculars to see the vibrant colored birds. Who would havethought that we would be so into bird watching! What was really amazing was towatch our guides. They grew up learning animals sounds and being able toimitate them (to attract the animals so they could hunt). The guides would hearthe birds and be able to name the specific species. It was amazing!

Back at the lodge, we packed upand prepped for the boat ride back to civilization. The ride back to PuertoMaldanado was so much better than the cold, rainy trip into the Amazon. Theweather was improving so well – another day and we’d see even more animals.Nevertheless, it was an exotic and interesting adventure. In Puerto Malanado,we had a chance to visit the butterfly house to see some of the 3800 Peruvianspecies flying around. They were beautiful!

Our flight out of the Amazonstopped back in Cusco for 30 min to pick up more passengers, before continuingto Lima. Our transfer guide told us more about the country and capital – so wegot a good overview of Lima and about Peru overall. We stayed at a smallB&B type of place in the Miraflores neighborhood, had an amazing dinner ata restaurant nearby, walked back along the coast, and called it a night by 9 pm(we had another 5am departure the next day).

Overall our trip to Peru trip was– Cusco, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, the Amazon, and a quick stop in Lima.It’s amazing how much we can cram into 7 days. J

PERU (7/29 – 8/2/11): Cusco, the Sacred Valley, and Machu Picchu

2011-09-10T23:44:00.000-07:00

7/29, Friday: Ecuador -> Lima, Peru

We arrived in Lima, from Ecuador, around 10:30pm.Fortunately our hotel was right across the street from the airport, making thearrival very convenient. The hotel, Costa del Sol, offered us 2 welcome drinks– which we gladly accepted. We are now in the land of the “Pisco Sour” – afrothy, limey, yummy drink made from Pisco (Peruvian brandy). We hadn’t haddinner so the accompanying fresh corn nuts were a welcomed treat. As with allof our transfers, we were met at the airport with someone to assist us. Whileit was probably overkill on this simple commute, it has made our trip great.They show up with printed boarding passes, get us from point A to point B, andgive us some context about where we’re at. The result has been stress free,burden-less travel!

7/30, Saturday: Lima -> Cusco

Our Lima morning started early, with a 7:45am departure fromthe hotel. Flights up to Cusco (“up” being 11,500 ft) depart in the morning. Wewere thrilled to find a Starbucks in the airport. The trip has disappointed uson coffee so far. It’s mainly been powdered Nescafe. While Ecuador is famousfor coffee – they export the good stuff! We boarded the plane and were thrilledto discover our 2 friends from the Galapagos cruise were seated right behindus. Josie and James, an Australian couple, had been the people we’d hung outwith the most. Turns out they were flying to the Amazon, with a stop in Cusco (basicallyour trip in reverse as we stopped in Cusco, then will continue to the Amazonlater in the week). It was fun to catch up.

Arriving in the high altitude turned out to be ok. We hadlearned from Tibet that Karl needed altitude medication (which one of hisco-travelers in Croatia prescribed upon return to SF), so he were wellprepared. Our guide and driver met us at the airport, then took us to the hotelto acclimate to the altitude. A tradition here in the highlands is to have cocatea to help adjust. For the record, there’s not much taste and there’sabsolutely no buzz. We were told the government oversees the farming – so notto worry about drug development. We’re convinced it just gets people to drinkwater and hydrate! Our hotel – Casa Cartagena – was gorgeous. It’s retained theold Spanish feel of this World Heritage site/city, but has fusion with moderndesign. The staff was fantastic, as was the service. It was also centrallylocated. So instead of resting for 2.5 hours like our guide told us to, we wentoff to explore the main square and have a yummy lunch of fresh fruit drinks andceviche (restaurant: Limo).

Our guide, Freddy, picked us up at 1:30 for a 3 hour touraround town. Our first stop was Sacsayhuaman – massive stones (e.g. 10 ft tall)perfectly cut and seamed together (without mortar) in a series of zigzag walls.We started learning about the Incan empire, and the massive destruction by theSpaniards in the 16^th century. The stones somewhat formed a pyramidalong 3 hills – reminiscent of Egypt. There’s no record of what the place was,those lots of speculation. We then made a quick stop by Q’enko, a cave-likealtar (note these words are cuecha which is the old Andean language). Fromthese 15^th century ruins, we went back into town to visit some ofthe first churches established by the Spanish. Cusco was the capital of theIncan empire.

The next stop was Q’orikancha – a Spanish convent that wasbuilt on top of and around the Inca temples. In fact, it was the first of theSpanish religious buildings. Afterwards we visited the cathedral – also buildon top of Inca buildings. Freddy explained a ton – but with sole focus on theIncas. With no hard facts or history of the Incas, we were left with a lot ofspeculation of the pre-16^th century life that surrounded us. Weclearly understood, however, that the Incas were phenomenal architects, livedin harmony with the land and with the skies. Overall, very fascinating. Lilawants to now study how lost ancient cultures are connected!

After our formal tour, we watched the sunset around the maintown plaza. It’s very quaint with its old Spanish architecture. We saw awedding couple be serenaded by college students – that was a treat! We also raninto one of Karl’s colleagues from San Diego – Joel. He was on vacation withhis family, including 2 sons. Small world!

Back at the hotel, we did a lesson on making Pisco Soursfrom the bartender who quickly became our friend. His name is Eddie, and hepreviously served on a cruise ship in Europe. For dinner, we ate at MAP – apopular restaurant at the PreColombian art museum – steps away from our hotel.

7/31, Sunday: Cusco, Chinchero, and the SacredValley (Urubamba, Ollataytanbo)

Our hotel offered a great breakfast. In fact, breakfast hasbeen included every stay. It’s been great because we’ve missed a few luncheshere & there due to schedule. We opted for no set lunch/dinner because wedidn’t want to be restricted by meal schedules. Freddy and the driver picked usup at 9 am for the hour drive to our first stop: Chinchero, a small villagewith two significant stops. The cool thing was that Chinchero wasn’t in ourtour book, but turned out to be a gem! The first stop was the VERY local Sundaymarket. Andean women - dressed in colorful outfits - sold food andcarried babies on their backs in colorful ponchos. The men sold some food, orwere hanging out at the stands that sold purple beer. The market was full ofwonderful smells like cilantro, potatoes, and many other fruits and vegetables.Karl got some great photographs. Freddy would occasionally speak with the farmwomen in the local language. It was truly a wonderful start to the day.Afterwards, we walked over to the textile “factory.” About a dozen women workedaway on their weaving while we learned about this Peruvian non-profit foundedto retain and support the weaving traditions. They focus on 4 communities – allwith different weaving styles. We were the only tourists in this smallcommunity, where we learned how they spin yarn from alpaca wool, color bynatural means, and finally weave in various styles. The goods were really greatand we wanted to buy more (even just to support the local women that got 90% ofthe sale price for the items they created). Everything looked so beautiful butunfortunately wasn’t soft due to the tight weaving style.

Our journey continued into the Valley. We would occasionallystop for a view of the snow capped Andes in the distant. Finally, we arrived inthe Sacred Valley. Our first stop was lunch. We weren’t really in the mood, butour guide talked us into trying some of the local cuisine. Potatoes are a bigside dish so we tried 4 different types of potatoes and a dehydrated potatothat is used in salads. To be honest, it wasn’t anything special (my guess isthey picked the 4 worst ones from the 2000 species they grow in Peru). We didenjoy some of the local salads made from beans and flowers.

The journey continued to Ollantaytambo, the last settlementbefore getting to Machu Picchu far, far away. The scenery was beautiful and thetown has it’s old charm with Inca grid of streets, canals, etc. After MachuPicchu, this temple is considered one of the Incas biggest architectural feats.They were able to defend Ollantaytambo against the Spanish in the 1530s, so theruins still are in good condition. We say “temple,” but like all Inca ruins,there’s no clear answer to what this really was.

The ruins were amazing – large stones fitted togetherperfectly and without masonry, hundreds of steep yet wide terraces, entrancesthat lined perfectly to the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year),etc. It’s hard to describe – you’ll have to see the pictures of the terraces.They not only leveled hillsides with rocks but also created a unique system ofirrigation. In addition, they transported layers of different soil types inorder to grow specific types of crops up the hillsides. One town we didn’tvisit, terraced down the earth in a circular shape in order to have warm enoughsoil to plant certain crops. They were true agricultural experts!

On way home, got stuck in traffic in Ollantaytambo – it washorrendous. Over 1 hr waiting for what could have been walked in 5 minutes. Theproblem is that the streets are so narrow that buses and cars take turns goingthrough. By the time we got back to Cusco, we were cold and tired. The weatherhere has been cool – and we didn’t pack enough warm clothes. We asked Freddy totake us to a shop where we did superfast shopping of alpaca sweaters (whichwould later be a life saver in the Amazon – who knew!?!).

Back at the hotel, we enjoyed an evening cocktail with ourbartender friend Eddie (he didn’t charge us! Hint: tip your bar tender well onthe first night of your stay). Dinner was at a restaurant next door. It wasrecommended in the guide book. It turns out the best restaurants in Cusco arebooked days in advance. We didn’t plan until we arrived, so we were out of luckfor the most part. At least the restaurants we still got into were good, hadamazing presentation, but sometimes felt a little over stylized on thepresentation.

8/1, Monday: Cusco-> Machu Picchu

Our days seem to start early on vacation, and end with sleepby (or before!) 10pm. On the first day of August, a supposedly symbolic day tothe farmers in the Peruvian highlands, we were out of our hotel by 6am. After a20 minute drive, we got to the train station. Freddy joined us on the“Vistadome” train to Aguas Calientes (the small town at the base of MachuPicchu). During the 4 hour, 69mile) journey, he pointed out many Inca trails, and natural highlights. Apparently you can only get to Machu Picchu bytrain or hiking 4 days on the Inca trail. The train had windows on the roof, soyou could get a great view as we headed “down” to Machu Picchu (still blows usaway that you climb to the top of the mountain and it’s less high than Cusco at11.5k ft). Freddy explained that he would stay with us to manage the entry intoMachu Picchu, give us a 3 hour or so tour, then catch the train back – leavingus on our own for the rest of Machu Picchu.

At the train station at Aguas Calientes, there is a group ofporters who take your bags directly to the hotel. We were left with just ourday pack. Fortunately we shed our sweaters because it turned out to be a verysteamy day at the top of the mountain. From the train, we walked to the bus,which took us to the top. Machu Picchu isn’t visible from the valley, nor fromthe ride in the bus on the way up. We arrived around 11:30am. Sun was strong.Tons of people. Steep stairs everywhere. Freddy took us around, and explainedhow Hiram Bingham “discovered” the lost city of the Incas in 1911, with thehelp of a local farmer. The setting is incredible - nestled between mountains.Only 2500 tourists are allowed in each day. We’re pretty sure they were allthere with us! After Freddy’s 3 hour tour, we did a hike towards the Sun Gateon the main trail that goes into Machu Picchu. It’s really hard to describe theruins or the experience. By 4pm, we were sweaty, exhausted, and with wobblyknees. We started the climb back down the ruins to the main gate, to catch thebus down. Back in Aguas Calientes, we walked 15 minutes more through the localcommunity back to our hotel – the Inkaterra lodge. The setting was beautiful –more on that tomorrow. After a shower, lots of cold tea, and our welcome drink(another Pisco Sour!), we enjoyed dinner at the hotel and an early night tosleep. We also made arrangements to do a “eco-hike” on Tuesday around thelodge.

8/2, Tuesday: Machu Picchu -> Cusco

We were out of the hotel by 6am, walked into town, thencaught the 30 min bus ride to the top of Machu Picchu. It was amazing to seehow long the bus line was in the morning! The first bus leaves around 5:30am.We were told to be there by 7am for the sunrise. Each day, about 400 people areallowed to climb Huaya Picchu – the tall mountain that’s always photographedbehind Machu Picchu. The hike is supposed to take about 1 hour and bereasonable – as well as steep. We missed our opportunity to climb (too manypeople beat us to the buses), so opted for hanging out at Machu Picchu again.

The sunrise was beautiful – not too crowded and great lightfor photography. We spent about 3 hours walking around Machu Picchu and doinganother hike in the area. This time the hike was about 45 minutes (beyond theMachu Picchu ruins) to an Inca bridge. High in the mountains, the Incas used a3 foot or so ledge as a trail. There was one point where the traildisconnected. They put small stones and 4 small logs to make a bridge. Today,you can’t cross the bridge – but you can get close to see how they put thesmall stones high in the mountains. It’s brilliant and amazing that they wereable to construct such a passage way! Around 10 am, we headed back into townfor a shower and nature walk at our hotel. The nature walk started with amagnifying glass. We were disappointed, thinking we’d see insects not theorchids we had hoped to see. We were pleasantly surprised to discover the walkwas full of the smallest orchids we’ve ever seen….we’re talking the “big” oneswere the size of Lila’s pinky finger nail. The owners of the Inkaterralodge have done a lot of conservation work on the 2 hectares of land. We spent2 hours walking around the orchid garden. Fascinating!

Grabbed lunch at Indo Felicite, a popular tourist spot withgood food, before heading back to Cusco via 4 hr train. During the train ride,we sat with a girl from California who was traveling with her dad, also ateenage Spanish girl traveling with her family. We ended up talking tothem for about ½ the trip ride. About ½ way through the ride, music started andout came a dancing human dressed in a bird outfit. It was hilarious – though,was aimed to be culturally entertaining. They then started a fashion show ofbaby alpaca clothing. It made the trip amusing.

We were met at the train station by the driver, who also hadour laundry entire washed and folded for US$10! The (same Cusco) hotel,Casa Cartagena, upgraded us on the last night. Our bartender friend, Eddie, had2 complimentary drinks waiting for us, along with a sampling of potato cakes.We grabbed a late dinner at Chicha restaurant, founded by a famous Peruvianchef, which came highly recommended by some friends we made in the Galapagos.This was the first night we could get in – and the wait was worth it. The foodwas amazing! The restaurant was about 5 minutes walk past the main square, sowe had a nice evening walk – with full bellies - back to our hotel.

8/3, Wednesday: Cusco -> Puerto Maldanado (Amazon)

Straight forward: woke up early, packed, breakfast, hotel,then the ride to the airport. We couldn’t figure out why the travel agent wasgetting us to the Cusco airport 2 hours early. In fact, we were a bit miffed.But when we got there, we found a line that was the longest line we’ve everseen in our lives at an airport (imagine Thanksgiving travel lines in a citythat was shut down for a snow storm)! And, it was just for baggage drop off(everyone prints boarding passes in advance)! There wasn’t even preferredcheck-in. With some negotiations and finagling, she managed to get us to thefront of the line . We then boarded the plane for the 30 minute flight toPuerto Maldanado, at the base of the Peruvian Amazon…..

ECUADOR (7/27-29): Salinas

2011-09-10T23:42:00.000-07:00

The story of Salinas is one of “extraordinary coincidences.”We decided to visit Salinas, a 2 hour drive from Guayaquil, based on a HouseHunters International episode we watched over the Christmas 2010 holidays. Atthe time, Karl did some quick research on the city – inspired by theavailability and inexpensive prices (e.g. $100/sq ft) of coastal property. Withour trip to S. America, we added Salinas to our itinerary, but did little toprepare.

Here’s how the story unfolded:

- Karl was locked out of his liebat.com e-mailaccount that had some of his initial December research – he waited untilarrival in Ecuador to try to retrieve the info.

- But we had no connectivity in the GalapagosIslands – none. So we charged our PC on the last day on the boat with hopes todownload the info upon arrival in Guayaquil (the airport city).

- We landed in Guayaquil – PC fully charged, butnot our personal wi-fi card. Two hours in the car to Salinas turned out to beanother missed opportunity to do/find the research.

- We arrived in Salinas, but without money to tipthe driver. We had tried to get money out at the Guayaquil airport, but the ATMwas down. So we didn’t even check into the hotel. We dropped our bags at thefront, then went with the driver to the downtown area – about 10 minutes away –in search of an ATM.

- About 3 minutes from the hotel, we realize wehad 20$ emergency stashed away. But by then, we were already in the car &on our way to town (and a bit miffed by the drive, no money, and the hotel notbeing in the center of town).

- Finally, we hit the ATM in downtown Salinas,tipped the driver, and decided to cool off a bit with a walk along the coast.We were less than 20 minutes into our stay and less than 5 minutes into thewalk when….

- We passed a couple. Karl turned to Lila and saidhe thought it might be the couple from House Hunters International episode.Lila stopped in disbelief, asked the probability, to which he replied 90%. Itwas good enough odds that…

- Lila ran a half block back, asked if they spokeEnglish, then asked if they were on HHI. It was them, and Karl even remembered they were from Chicago.

- After a few minutes chatting, we asked if theyknew any real estate agents that could help us last minute with a similarhousehold search. It turns out they are real estate agents! On the show, theywere the buyers (not agents). They offered to show us around the next day - Thursday at 9:30am.

- Without any prep or background, Kimberly came byour hotel at 9:30am. We talked through some options before she took us on awhirlwind adventure to 15-20 options (homes/condos/raw land from Salinas toOlon (~1.5 hr away). It was an amazing overview of the area. By the time wefinished the day (~6pm), we saw many options that piqued our interest, but weren’tset on any one specific property.

But the story doesn’t end here…

On Friday morning, Kimberly and Hector show up again at9:30. They have about 5 places they want to show us. After visiting a condo atthe Yacht Club, we are given the choice of property 45 minutes out of town, or5 condos in town. We opt for the property – which blew up the rest of the day’sschedule. The property was incredible! The owner recently decided to sell off 8portions of her bluff (which she’s owned for 15 years) overlooking the small,quaint fishing village of Ayangue. The property overlooks a charming beach - acalm, sandy, and shallow cove. The land is super reasonable for ocean front /beach access. We spent quite a lot of time there, and ended up rushing back tothe hotel (to catch the van to the airport).

Yet the story still doesn’t end here! Back at the airport inGuayaquil…

As we were walking down the jetway to board our flight toQuito, Karl pauses at a picture on the wall. It’s Ayangue! In fact, it’s a fewfrom the beach where you can see “our” bluff on the right hand side. Thepicture wasn’t labeled, and it could have been anywhere on the coast. But weknew it was “ours” from the shape of the cove to the houses on the oppositebluff.

We boarded the plane laughing about the Salinas adventureand how it unfolded. It could have turned out to be 2 days by the pool/beacheating ceviche. Instead, it was a series of coincidences that appeared tosuggest this should be our second home. J

We're still discussing whether this is the right place for us, but definitely fell in love with Ecuador and think it's a great investment!

ECUADOR (July 22-29, 2011) Quito & Galapagos Islands

2011-09-10T23:39:00.000-07:00

7/22, Friday: SFO->Miami->Quito

Spent much of the day en route to Quito, Ecuador (Karl’sfirst visit to America’s southern hemisphere). Fortunately it's CentralTime, so pretty easy to adjust. Lila ended up with a migraine from Miamito Quito, making the arrival in South America’s second highest capital reallypainful. Fortunately, she was fine the next day.

The Patio Andaluz, our boutique hotel, was located in theOld Town – also known as Quito’s Colonial core. The hotel was a charming,converted home (mansion) from centuries ago. It was conveniently located nearthe main square. Accommodations were classic and simple.

7/23, Saturday: Quito and the Andes Highlands

We started the day at 8:30am with a guide and driver whotook us back up to the Northern Hemisphere to explore the Otavalo mountainregion, about 60 miles north of Quito. The Otavalo Market is famous in SouthAmerica, especially on Saturdays when locals come for their weekly trades. Itwas colorful with bright textiles made from Alpaca and Llamas, spices, fruits& veggies, and handicrafts. The Otavalenos still wear traditionalclothing. The men have long straight black hair in ponytails, and women wear multi-strandedgold bead necklaces atop their white and navy blue embroidered outfits. Theyare one of many indigenous people in Ecuador. The country, which is the size ofColorado, was conquered by the Incas (~1000 AD) and later by the Spanish (~1450AD).

In the afternoon, we returned to Quito around 4pm to explorethe Old City, where we were staying. Quito is an attractive city. It was thefirst city in the world to be named a UNESCO World Heritage site. The buildingsin the Old Town date back to the 1500s, and include over 40 Catholic churches(we didn’t believe the number until we kept stumbling across them every 3-5minutes walking!). We spent 3 hours walking around – which sounds fine untilyou consider we were at 9200 ft. We were pretty exhausted after ourexploration. Fortunately, we found a charming restaurant called Theatrum withdelicious seafood and ceviche (which turns out to be as much Ecuadorian cuisineas Peruvian).

7/24, Sunday: Quito -> Guayaquil -> GalapagosIslands (Baltra and Santa Cruz Islands)

We departed the hotel at 5:45am – way too early for avacation! The journey to Galapagos wasn’t easy. We flew 30 minutes from thecapital of Quito to the city of Guayaquil, where we refueled and boarded morepassengers. Then we continued to Baltra Island, a former US military base, 1.5hours away. On Baltra, we took a bus to a ferry to Santa Cruz island. Then itwas another bus to the other side of the island, where we boarded an inflatabledinghy over some very rough waters to our cruise boat.

A few things struck us by this point. First, what a pain toget to the boat! By the time we boarded it was around 1pm. There was an olderDanish woman with a bad hip and an older American couple from Alabama. It waspainful to watch them make the transitions across the different transportationmodes. Clearly they didn’t do research to figure out this was an adventurebeyond their physical capacity. Second, the cruise boat was not what you havein your mind. The “Coral 1” run by Klein Tours (one of the oldest tour operatorsin the islands) holds 36 passengers. Most of the Galapagos cruises are aroundthis size, but some boats hold up to 100 passengers. We had a decent cabin anda boat full of Australians and Europeans, mainly multi-generational familieswho were super fun to travel with. By the end of the cruise, we really got toknow everyone.

At 4pm we went back to the land for a 3 hour journey throughthe Charles Darwin Research Center. The Darwin Research area was fascinating,especially as we weren’t super familiar with Darwin’s journey to the islands.During the cruise, however, we read a chapter from his journal with The Beaglethrough the Galapagos. He was still young in his career, talked a lot about thetortoise meat, dissecting lizards, etc. At the Research Center, there isa big focus on preserving the tortoises. They estimate that over 150k tortoiseswere killed for their meet in the 19^th and 20^thcenturies. The tortoises would last a long time (8+ months), required littlefood/water, and therefore would be good on the ships to sacrifice when the crewneeded food. The center explains how the tortoises adapted to the variousislands in the Galapagos, showcasing shells for tortoises in the highlands vs.low fertile lands. This was an early inspiration for Darwin’s theories ofevolution and natural selection. While at the center, we met LonesomeGeorge, the 150 year old tortoise who is the last of his species. We alsostumbled upon two giant tortoises mating! It was interesting to be able tostand close to them and learn about the preservation efforts.

Afterwards, we walked through the local, super cute town ofPuerto Ayora on Santa Cruz island (one of the few that are inhabited byhumans). There were some beautiful artist boutique shops and lots of outdoor bar/restaurantsplaying soccer games on big screen TVs!

The waters were rough that night, but we slept well – andearly! - with the rocking of the boat.

July 25, Monday: Espanola Island (Punta Suarez &Gardner Bay)

One of the highlights of the cruise was our first full day:Espanola island. Animals were abundant and interesting, but also fearless ofhumans. In fact, this is common around the Galapagos – the fact that animalswill go along their daily life without concern for the tourists who pass throughduring the day. It made touring the islands extremely special. The guideclaimed it’s because humans don’t disturb them. The Islands are part of anational park and highly regulated.

While on Espanola island, we saw green and blue footedboobies (birds) performing an awkward and amusing mating dance. Therewere marine iguanas everywhere with their red and black markings. They stayedclosed to each other to stay warm. We also saw Galapagos doves, a variety ofmocking birds and finches. The best part for us was the Albatross birds. Anestimated 12k bird pairs (they are monogamous for life!) inhabit this island –all but a fraction of the world’s population. Since it’s nesting season, wewere able to see many small albatross birds. We also went to the cliff to seethe “Albatross Airport” where the birds take off and land over the ocean. Totop it off, we also saw the Albatross doing their courtship fencing with largeyellow beaks. It was a spectacular morning!

In the afternoon we went to another part of the island,where we snorkeled with sea lions and stingrays. The beach was full of sealions and their pups. One was doing a performance in the water for Karl. Ingeneral the snorkeling was ok, but not great. The water was a little cold (wewere in wet suits) and murky. Despite being near the equator, the fish weren’tas colorful, differentiated, or clear as in the Red Sea.

From the boat, we saw a school of dolphins – at least 150.It was an amazing sight to see such a large school as they raced alongside the boat.

In preparation for our trip, Karl bought a new camera lensfrom one of his brother’s friends. It’s a 200-400mm lens. Basically, it’s thesize of one of our daughters! Needless to say, there were a lot of photo buffson our cruise. They all had lens-envy of Karl’s massive attachment. On thisday, and the ones that followed, he was regularly asked about it by othertouring groups, as well as jealously and jokingly teased by our fellowtravelers. It was pretty funny.

July 26, Tuesday: Floreana Island (Punta Cormorant,Champion, Post Office Bay)

The highlight of today was supposed to be the flamingos atthe foot of the volcano, but they weren’t there. Instead we hung out at thebeach watching birds dive into the water to catch fish – blue footed boobies,swallow tailed gulls. More marine and lava iguanas, as well as orange and bluecolored crabs along the volcanic rock. In the afternoon, we had 2excursions. The first was a dinghy ride around another volcano. The birds wereabundant and unbelievable. Karl got some stunning photographs. The final stopof the day was to the oldest post office in the islands, established in 1793 asa way to spy on the whalers. Over the centuries, people leave unstamped postcards in a barrel. Visitors would pick up a card to hand deliver. We picked up2 postcards from Cupertino and 1 from Healdsburg!

That night, we took a 2 hour nap on the top deck under thestars. Since it’s winter, the sky hadn’t been clear. We were told the SouthAmerican summer (Dec-Mar) is a beautiful time to visit – the weather is warm,the days are sunny, and the night skies are clear. That said, we thought thistime of year (“winter”) was great because of the nesting/mating season.

27^th: North Seymour Island

What a great way to end our adventure! North Seymour Islandis home to the frigate bird – a beautiful black bird with a 2 meter wing span.The males puff up their scarlet throat sacks to attract females. During our 1.5hour hike, we saw many frigates - puffed, flying/soaring above, and inmassive nests that housed several of the big birds. We even saw a few babies.There were also a few blue footed boobies, iguanas, and sea lions – but thefrigates made this island very special!

We boarded the boat and headed back to Baltra island tocatch our flight. Less than one week had passed, and the trip was alreadybeyond our expectations. The Galapagos islands are an amazing sanctuary towildlife we’d never seen before. We definitely recommend the adventure topeople who enjoy nature, photography, or a truly unique experience! Justmake sure you take comfortable enough shoes that you can walk over thelava-rocked islands and go in & out of boats with ease (we loved ourKeen’s).

It was much easier getting back to the airport than when wefirst landed. At the airport, we finally cell service and were able toreconnect to civilization. The best news was that the girls were weaned fromtheir bottles! Our trip was a great introduction to the Galapagos islands, andwe’re already talking about our next trip. From Baltra Island, we flew toGuayquil, where we then had a car waiting to take us to the coastal city ofSalinas, Ecuador.

Good to Be Legal: Our 1 Year China Anniversary

2009-03-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

We arrived exactly 1 year ago in China, and found out today that we are officially approved for a 2nd year in China. For some odd reason, we had to submit legal paperwork separately. Karl’s went through a week or so ago. Today Lila got the good news. With a renewed apartment lease and work visas – we’re good to go for year #2.
During last night’s dinner, we reminisced about everything that’s happened in the past year…

Moved to China, with 2 new jobs
Traveled to Vietnam, Portugal, Switzerland, the Olympics, Hangzhou, the Silk Road, & 4 water villages
Started to (try to) learn Chinese
Navigated Shanghai’s silk market, fabric markets, multiple wet markets, and our friend’s favorite: the fake market – as well as learned how to buy DVDs, how to negotiate in Chinese, and how to order food
Celebrated our 1 year anniversary
For work, Karl traveled to Singapore, Japan, and around China; Lila to Italy (country#66), Portugal (country#67), Chile, Panama, & Mexico
We both got to be more active in the World Economic Forum

It’s been truly amazing!

Karl’s Bike Race @ Yellow Mountain, Lila’s birthday, & Our 1 year China Anniverary

2009-03-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrated Lila’s birthday, 17 year Intel anniversary, and 1 year since leaving the US. Highlights included Lila taking the day off, lunch wih her friend Mae-Ling, going to the gym. Lila also worked a few hours at a Pacific Coffee -- her favorite brand during Hong Kong days that has only 2 branches in Shanghai - 1 only open on weekdays). For dinner, we went to Lila’s favorite sushi restaurant (Haiku) – continuing our “celebrating over sushi” tradition.

Karl also just completed his first bike race by China’s Yellow Mountain about 6 hours from Shanghai. He went for 3 days with a group of friends from Shanghai. The race went well. Karl’s especially proud that he didn’t finish last and didn’t fall off the bike during the race (something 8 of 9 of his friends couldn’t say). Lila was proud that Karl was able to do the race without training. The next day, before returning to Shanghai, Karl took the cable car up to the top of the Yellow Mountain only to find he was fogged in. Luckily the race didn’t kill him, so he was still able to hike up and down the mountain in the fog. We look forward to going back together to actually see the beautiful mountain top that is in almost every Chinese watercolor painting!

While Karl was at Yellow Mountain, Lila spent the weekend in Shanghai. She spent time at the gym, wandering the city,and getting the apartment organized with some new furniture that had arrived as part of our lease extension. She also enjoyed 1 girls’ night out with her friend Wendy. After a spa visit, they went for Mexican food at our favorite restaurant (Maya), then had drinks out on a bar’s balcony during an unusually warm March weekend. Two great 3-day weekends in a row!

Lila’s Adventure with Chinese Medicine: Magnets, Cups, & Pins with electrical current – oh my!

2009-03-20T19:49:00.000-07:00

About 1 month ago, I started acupuncture treatments – something I’ve wanted to try well before moving to China. I was both excited and nervous. Top priority was to find somewhere clean & an English-speaking doctor to minimize any confusion over what was going to happen. I chickened out and made an appointment at the health clinic that caters to foreigners. I knew it would be more expensive, but thought it was safer for me to understand what the process is all about.

Session#1: What did I get myself into?! The first session was interesting. She felt my pulse in 3 areas on my wrist, checked out my tongue, and asked me a lot of question. The doctor said first she would “reset” me, and then we’d work on my problem areas. I was told to lie on my stomach while she lit this torch and held a glass cup. It was a bit intimidating and I wondered what was going on!? Before I knew it she had put the torch in the glass to burn off air, and then quickly suctioned the glass on my back. It felt like a tight suction for the 5 minutes they were attached – nothing painful but definitely an odd feeling. This is called “cupping.”

Next up: the acupuncture pins. I don’t remember how many went in, but they didn’t hurt – except for one on my foot. I had to lay there for 30 minutes which seemed to be tolerable until she pulled out this little machine with wires. I never realized they put some type of electrical current through your body during this process?! It was hooked up to my stomach & right above my knees. It felt like I could feel my heart beat in those areas. Again no pain, though it felt awkward until my muscles relaxed. Apparently some very tiny current is the modern equivalent of a doctor massaging various points to stimulate specific points. The final step was applying 8 small acupressure magnets (covered in skin-colored adhesives) to my ear. She told me to keep them on until the next appointment and press regularly on them.

For the next few days, I had purple circles on my back – none of which hurt. I applied pressure on my ear magnets which actually seemed to help. I did wear my hair down as many days as possible to hide the magnets. You actually see people with these magnets on their ears a lot. We just never knew what it was all about. Overall, I felt more sluggish than usual. Was it the stress at work? The rain? My body’s energy being used to heal/reset? Not sure but I wasn’t ready to give up.

Session#2: Continuing to reset with the addition of fire
Again, out came the cups – this time 10! They were in different areas than before, making my back look polka dottish now. In the summer, you often see people with circles on their back – I guess we know why now. It’s interesting that each one is a different color with only 1 really purple (most toxins being released in that area). Next up: the pins. This time 17, 4 connected to the pulsating machine. Again, my foot and this time the area above my knees pinched a bit with the pins going in. Not sure what that means. The real surprise was the addition to a pin on each arm to help with my super cold finger tips. On top of the pin, she put something that looks and burns like an incense cone. We closed the 1 hour session with magnets added to my left ear. After dinner I was allowed to remove the ones on the right. I notice the left ear hurts less and the day after I felt my insides a bit more (perhaps just aware after the pulsing).

One Month Later...
After 2x/week for the past month, the doctor has started adding in a needle to the top of my head and removed the ear magnets. I’ve noticed I sleep much better since. The cupping is going well, and is my favorite part of the treatment. Although the back tissue drawn into the jar appears to bruise the skin –it doesn’t hurt. The amount of dark red or even purple blood drawn to the surface indicates the degree of stagnation (darker = more toxins in blood). I have gotten to the point where I only have light purple on 2 cup areas, and the remaining 6 leave little to no mark. Progress! Aside from that, I’ve noticed some changes but it’s hard for me to assess how much is related to the acupuncture. I do feel more aware of my body, and look forward to the 2 hours each week laying there doing nothing. I also really like the doctor a lot. She’s my age, and told me how she entered University in the late 80s as China was opening up. Less than 10 years ago, she did a 2 year rotation in Morocco as part of bilateral agreement the 2 countries have. Let's see how I feel a month from now.... !

Nanjing Weekend Get-Away

2009-03-16T18:05:00.000-07:00

To celebrate Lila’s birthday, Karl had planned a weekend away in Tangshan and Nanjing. Tangshan,about 3 hours from Shanghai, is famous for its hot springs. The resort, owned by a Balinese company, has around 20 private villas, each with it’s own private lap pool and hot spring jacuzzi, and stocked with your choice of music CDs. In each room of the villa, there were at least 2 walls of floor to ceiling windows – giving the place a very open feel.

We arrived on Saturday, with driver Peter. Upon checking in, we ate at a very local restaurant before sending Peter back to Shanghai. We then ventured out for a 45 minute bike ride through the countryside (Karl’s first time on a bike in three years and his ‘offical’ practice for the upcoming race), hung out in the jacuzzi, and figured out how to make use of the 24 hour butler service. We discovered they made really good (& complimentary!) fresh ginger-lemon tea (Lila consumed about 10 pots over the weekend) and had nice afternoon tea sets delivered to our villa. We also found the butlers very handy in filling the hot tub. They would drain it and put in new water … at just the right temperature! Without any typical spa chemicals, we enjoyed the fresh refills. Between the service and the atmosphere, we quickly relaxed and settled in. To top off a great start to our weekend vacation, Karl had arranged for a candlelit dinner in our villa.

On Sunday, we went into Nanjing city, about 45minutes away (the resort provided transportation). We were very surprised by Nanjing. For a city of 6 million people, it felt small with mountains, lakes, and greenery. Our only experience with Nanjing was knowing it means "South Capital" (as opposed to Beijing = North Capital) & the Japanese occupation as outlined in the movie "Rape of Nanking." Needless to say, the day was a pleasant surprise.

First stop in Nanjing was Purple Mountain, full of trees. Most of this area had been build up in the early 1900s. Highlights included the Sun Yatsen memorial/masoleum and an old Buddhist temple. From there, we went into town – visited the shopping area which we mistook for something completely different. It felt too much like Shanghai. We finally made our way to a beautiful Buddhist temple on a hill in the city. They gave out free prayer incense sticks. Upon watching others, we figured out what to do. The temple was very peaceful – a mustard yellow against the blue skies. We accidently stumbled across the old city wall, and walked that with kite fliers and a few other people, until it ended and we were forced to walk along the shores of the lake. We ended the day with a 30 minute massage and more time in the jacuzzi under the stars. Yes! We could see stars, very special scene which we can’t appreciate in Shanghai’s brightly neon-lit nights.

Monday we had a 2 hour massage appointment to end the long weekend. Driver Peter picked us up around noon, for the 3 hour journey back to Shanghai. We were able to get a lot of work done in the car – very important as Karl left later that evening for a 2.5 day business trip to Beijing. We both really enjoyed the weekend away. Note to selves: was amazing ...need more of these relaxing escapes!

Lila’s US Trip

2009-03-13T07:19:00.000-07:00

A quick 6-day trip to the US went well. Our team is going through an organizational change and moving to another group. After nearly 17 years at Intel, I’ve come to realize that changes are part of the norm. It has been just 1 year since my team was formed by combining 2 groups, and now we’re moving more-or-less entact to another group. The good news is we have strong business results, and are well positioned for growth. My trip to California and Oregon was to meet my new peer group, spend time with my new boss, and meet with some of our executives. I’ve returned excited about this change, though sad to leave the old team behind. Although the trip was extremely short, I managed to get in a few personal things too. Aside from the 1 day power shopping for foods/errands, I was also able to get in 2 gym sessions with trainer John. Could hardly move afterwards, but it felt GREAT! I spent the night with Melissa and Hai (who’s a cutie!), hung out with Nabeel (including our 10 year tradition of catching up over Mexican food), spent some time with Susan & the kids, and had happy hour with my old pals in Oregon. It made the trip very action-packed and no time for jetlag! However, I was thrilled to have some personal time. Hard to imagine nearly 1 year has passed.

Two Months Without Travel!

2009-03-05T07:19:00.000-08:00

A major benefit of the current economic slowdown is that most travel has cut. We are really enjoying being in Shanghai for weeks without travel. Granted, Karl had a 3 day trip to Tokyo & Lila’s about to leave for a 6 day trip to the US…but relative to our past months, this is nothing! We’ve really enjoyed socializing with some of our co-workers. We had drinks one Sunday night with Glen, Justin, & Eugene. Dinner with Wendy and Darren. Mae-Ling stopped by one evening for a girl’s chat. We enjoyed celebrating Caroline’s birthday, as well as a catch-up dinner with her. When we found out a few friends from work were at a restaurant nearby, we swung by. We have even gotten into a weekend morning routine – gym and return home to cook brunch together. It’s really wonderful!

Mexico’s Montezuma’s Revenge, Egypt’s Mummy Tummy. And in China? More painful!

2009-03-01T07:18:00.000-08:00

It finally happened: we ate something we weren’t supposed to. The payback was terrible. We’re not quite sure where or how it happened, but it’s likely to be some meat or vegetable from the market. After a fantastic weekend, Karl started feeling ill at dinner out with friends. By midnight, both of us had spent more time in the bathroom than in bed. The night continued quite terribly. Monday we could barely move from the couch. By the end of the day, we managed to eat a bowl of oatmeal and a banana. The weekend continued like this. Karl recovered more quickly, but ended up over-exerting himself to the point of being weak for a week. Lila recovered by Friday’s flight to the US. We have to admit – it was nice to have our clothes fit us a bit better, but it was a truly painful experience.

Expiring Lease: Where to live for the next year?

2009-02-27T07:16:00.000-08:00

In China it’s quite common for people to move around apartments after their one year lease expires. With inexpensive labor, it’s easy to move your belongings to a new neighborhood full of unexplored activities. It also provides renters with more negotiating power. You really have to be smart about what you get covered in the lease – far moreso than in the US. With our lease expiring in March, we have been looking around to find a place with more storage, different living environment, or better rent. The reality is that we love our apartment and location, but were curious what else is available in the slowing Shanghai housing market.
We really wanted to live in an old mansion that was split into several apartments. We had looked at one when we first moved to China. It was a gorgeous old French mansion. The problem was that the renovations were being finished and the place looked more like an easter egg than a 1930s home. They wouldn’t let us paint, so we opted for the place we live now. Despite our efforts to find a similar place, we had no luck. We looked at a few old mansions but the apartments were small or not in the condition we wanted.
We also looked at several Lane Houses. These are like multi-story condos with 2 side neighbors. Most of these were built in the ‘30s-50s and have been remodeled and updated. There are usually at least 5 floors – each one about half a flight up stairs with 1 or 2 rooms. We saw many beautiful ones, though they weren’t so practical….too big for 2 people and too cumbersome with all the flights for visitors.
We also looked at a few apartments – but nothing as nice as we have now. We even looked in our building, one floor up. The renters had just moved out of an end unit (there are 3 apartments on each floor). The layout was a bit odd, and we were shocked at how torn up the place looked. So in the end, we are signing a new lease in our current apartment with about a 15% decrease in cost. We also negotiated a few things – like increased shelving/storage, cleaning of area carpets, buffing of floors, some extra pieces of furniture, air filter renewal, etc. It is actually good for us as our neighborhood has an increasing amount of new, hip places as well as the diversity of western comforts and Chinese charm.

Chinese Antique Hunting

2009-02-21T07:13:00.000-08:00

Many of our friends are returning to the US this summer. As they start their preparations for the move home, we’ve noticed a common theme: they’re all having furniture made.
We decided to spend a weekend day investigating this "furniture making" craze. We started with Chinese antiques, including new antiques which are basically custom made but look like the old style. We got a bit distracted as it was rather fun looking at all the Chinese styled furniture – dreaming up ideas for shoe cabinets, garden furniture, dressers, etc. Four stores later, we made our way to a store which we’d heard so much about: Elm Workshop. They use Chinese Elm, American Oak, and (recycled) Burmese teak to make any of your favorite wooden furniture. Imagine catalogs upon catalogs of famous brand name furniture: stickley, pottery barn, etc. They can reproduce any of that in the stain you want. We spent a lot of time looking at photos from our California home,trying to identify what we want made. We have to admit – after less than 9 months in the house, we had forgotten a lot about what we needed. We still have some homework to doon where and what to make, but are excited by the prospect of coming home with some well designed custom pieces! :)

Davos Adventures

2009-01-30T05:21:00.000-08:00

(Overdue on posting. It's 3/29/09 and I found this in my draft box!)

Lila’s blog updates for work are here:

Karl’s update to his family and friends:

We just finished the trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos. What an incredible time to be with all the world leaders. The discussions were so global in scope: the current finance economy and what to do about the recession, the effects of the recession on: political stability, country protectionism, education, global warming, donations, the digital divide, developing nations, etc., and the overall globalization of everything we do. I only participated in two days of the conference, but watched all the major debates/discussions in the hotel room after my days on the slopes. The weather couldn’t have been better – it was uber perfect - sunny, wind still, and just around freezing.

Since all the hotel rooms were booked with world leaders and CEOs – the slopes were basically empty. No lift lines and very few people to have to ski around. Lila was extremely active in all the events and the evening networking & social events. I had my friend, David, visiting in from Boston so we skipped most of the conference events while he was there for four days. However on the two other days while David wasn’t there, I met many extremely cool people. I don’t do very well in the overcrowded, cocktail type, meet & greet engagements. These social buttery fly type introductions are just too much for me to handle for more than a few hours (I prefer the smaller, more intimate and focused discussions). However Lila was totally in her element, networking with all the worlds movers and shakers until the wee hours of the morning. Overall it was quite exciting to spend multiple days thinking about the global, macroeconomic environment we live in.

Before the WEF event – our trip to Sonoma County was wonderful. It was a great three days of Lila and I getting to spend some quality time together. The fresh area was a wonderful change from China & the Vegas conference settings. We enjoyed some great food and wonderful wine. The tours of the micro wineries was very special since we were 1:1 w/ the wine makers or overall vineyard manager. It provided great insights into the wine making business, as well as some great barrel samples of upcoming wines. We even had a nice stop with our personal sommelier at Ledson. He pulled out a $150 bottle of cab for us to try (probably the most expensive current vintage wine either of us has ever tried). We called just about 1 hour before we arrived, but everything for a private wine tour was setup perfectly -- > meat, cheese, chocolate tasting plate, a private room w/ every available wine available for our tasting, and our favorite wine buddy. They even printed a special welcome invitation/letter for us. It was just the cherry on top of the great overall weekend!

We are on the flight from Switzerland back to San Francisco now. We have a overnight layover, then back on a plane to China in the morning. Our total flight/transit time in airports is 35 hours! Overall, a great few weeks of travel for work and pleasure.

Karl’s Birthday

2009-01-24T20:42:00.000-08:00

Karl’s bday marks the end of our 3 day weekend. We woke up to the last night at Duchamp B&B. The beds are comfortable but the concrete furniture and stainless steel is still a bit too post-modern for us. Our preferences are somewhere post-Victorian and pre-post-modern.
Nevertheless, a fabulous stay. We spent the day trying out Zinfandels at the top wineries in the region, including Rafanelli, Bella, and Mazacco. The tasting was fun – “sip & spit tour” as Karl calls it. However, it turned into more of a guzzle & gulp tour. Who can say no to high end wines!?! We continue to enjoy both the lighter, drink-now Zins from higher elevations and the intense jammy/peppery ones from the warmer climates. Apparently, we’re a couple of extremes. Lunch included a quick stop at a taqueria. No matter how great California Wine Country cusisine is, we still can’t say no to a good burrito!
It was so nice to drive thru beautiful Dry Creek Valley, and (somewhat jokingly) talked about trying to find a winery to buy. No luck yet – we’re debating whether to invest in a winery (=farming) or island (=lazy beach time). We haven’t talked to Dad yet, but think he’d be the perfect “winery manager” with his expert farming skills.
We ended the day at Ledson. We decided we couldn't be in the area without a slight detour to Ledson.This is where we were married in June 2007. We really enjoyed the 2.5 hours in the private tasting room, snacking on the complimentary cheese & fruit platter and wine tasting with our personal (and 1 of 4000 official worldwide) sommelier Chris. He pulled out a $130 bottle to top off the all the other incredible tastings from our visit. What a spectacular finish to the day!
Now on our way back to the Peninsula to prepare for tomorrow’s Swiss adventure.

Healdsburg Welcomes Karl & Lila

2009-01-23T08:22:00.000-08:00

After our sales conference, we decided to take an early weekend. Afterall, we've lost most of our '09 weekends to work so far this year - including this Sunday which will be spent on yet another plane, going to yet another continent.
This morning we took a gentle cruise up Highway 1 to introduce Lila to Point Reyes and Bodega Bay. Sad that this has been in our backyard for so long, and she'd never been. Just north of San Francisco, we enjoyed the fresh ocean air with the windows down and heat turned up. We’re convinced the amount of fresh air from this 2 hour journey added days back to our life, after Shanghai-air.
The first stop of our 3 day weekend was Hoggs Island Oyster Company. This is where you shuck your own oysters right next to the mud flats, and enjoy the freshest oysters you’ll ever eat! We selected 3 types, our favorite was Kumamoto (or something like that), tiny oysters slightly larger than a man’s thumb. The highlight was Lila doning the shucking apparatus, proving that women can shuck oysters without chipping a nail. :) After a few, she let Karl finish the rest. After our aphrodisiac-inducing lunch, we continued on to Healdsburg for check-in at Duchamp, a 6 cottage post-modern B&B. Later in the afternoon, we visited Seghesio, Simi, and Wilson for some Zinfandel tasting. Made it back just in time for a refresh before dinner at Bistro Ralph. Dinner was lovely, and we finished with a walk around the old and charming town of Healdsburg.
Friday at 10am we were off in our own private tour of micro-wineries with Joe, our driver. This was the first wine tour we’ve ever done, and gave us a chance to not worry about where to go or about drinking & driving. Joe took us to 5 micro-wineries in 5 hours. The first stop was to visit Peter who owns Duchamp. His winery was the largest West Coast slaughterhouse in the 1800s. Today he runs art exhibition and wine tasting out of the very unique building. Next stop - Medlock-Ames, a bio-diverse winery that you won’t find on any map. The winery was 360 acres, planted with 100 acres of grapes. The 2 former college buddies have created a gravity-fed, spare no expense wine production facility. Ames spent quite a bit of time helping us barrel taste a few varietals. Then it was on to WF Wines, where Edith (a former HP exec), has a great taste for wines and a keen understanding of the wine business. We really enjoyed sitting around the dinner table with her & husband Tony discussing the pros/cons of asset-light wine production.
After just 3 stops, it was clear we were running behind. We were having such a wondeful time talking with the owners/wine makers. Joe finally fed us phenomenal sandwiches from Jimstown deli, while we drove to a few other wineries. We made the mistake of telling Joe we liked Zin’s, so we went off the planned tour in search of Zins. While the final 2 places were good, they were not as charming or memorable we where Joe took us at first. We’ve learned our lesson! The 5 hour private wine tour ended with a short rest before dinner.
For dinner, we went to Cyrus (Chef of Year '06). We sat at the bar area and ordered a la carte since we didn’t think we could manage a 5 or 8 course tasting menu! We stuck with 2 fantastic courses, including the best foie gras Lila has ever had (& she loves that stuff). Whether you’re a foodie or not, Cyrus’ mixologists have to be among the best! We ended the evening with a walk around the town searching for a low-cost dessert. We accidently got seduced by the Gratitude Café, with their fancy dessert names. Little did we know that it was vegan, a feel good hippy hang out. We tasted our vegan ice-cream while playing a self-discovery Gratitude game that had us in hysterics. When karl pulled the card, “What are you grateful for?” He immediately answered the “cashmere & silk sweater I’m wearing.” We soon questionned whether this was an ethical response at a vegan hang out while everyone else wore hemp & tie-dye. Needless to say, it was an offbeat & fun way to end the night.

Efficiency Redefined: 80 work hrs, 4 days, no sunlight since Sunday

2009-01-21T20:18:00.000-08:00

It all started Saturday, when we flew from SFO to Vegas. One might have called it the “Intel Shuttle” given all the employees on this United Flight. We were all heading to the same destination: Intel’s International Sales & Marketing Conference. 3500 employees, countless countries, and an extremely intense schedule. Quite frankly, the conference is a blur. We do remember a few things…

We returned jazzed - even with a down economy, teams were upbeat about the technology and positioning for ’09
Homecoming --- we had a chance to catch up with former teams and folks we know from our cummulative 30 years (yikes!) at Intel
We heard we got a new American President, but completely missed the innauguration. There were playback videos, but we were too focused on meetings at hand. Quite a shame, especially as Lila had an invite/tickets to the Huffington Ball. She sent her team & instead dedicated herself to ISMC (what the heck was she thinking?!)
Supposedly, Vegas is full of wonderful things. We only saw the Venetian, occasionally the Palazzo. We didn’t have any fresh air, no sunlight, and little contact with non-Intel-ites during the 4 days. We'll be in counseling for a while. ;)
We finally escaped the chaos thanks to Karl’s good friend’s extreme performance in ’08. It landed him (David) a limo ride to the airport. We were so excited to be treated like royalty and have a few extra breaths of fresh air. Thanks David!
The night before ISMC, Lila got girl’s night in with Deanna, Lisa, Kathy, & Becky. It was a rare & much needed treat!

US Stop-Over

2009-01-17T20:15:00.000-08:00

Greetings from the US! We arrived for a few days in California, on our way to Vegas. Karl was really popular because he brought special gifts from China, in the form of purses, pens, and watches. Based on reactions, we think we have potential for an import business! After the fun, it was all work. Lila’s team is restructuring and she has a new boss. Most of her time was with her team & new group in California and Oregon. Karl spent the days networking with former & current colleagues. All in all, an intense yet productive stop over from a work perspective.
The evenings were just as exciting as we caught up with colleagues/friends. Lila was able to catch up with Jean Ann & Gail for a much-needed relaxing night out. She saw Mel & Hai, who’s growing way too fast but still remembers Auntie Fishlips. we joined the Hockings, Navin, Chengs, & Derek for a new Palo Alto restaurant. Another night we went out with David, who graciously pulled out a ’00 Bordeaux with some of the best beef we’ve had in the past year! Wine & red meat -- ahhh! Things we miss about the US. Friday night was spent in San Francisco enjoying city life with Ahmad and Becky. The dinner at La Mar, a hot new Peruvian restaurant, was fabulous! We had a fun night out afterwards, dancing the night away. There never seems to be enough time, but we are thankful for the opportunity to reconnect with friends, colleagues, and share a few special memories. It’s what we miss the most about living so far away.

Welcome 2009: Red Lanterns Floating Over Huangpu River

2009-01-01T21:08:00.000-08:00

Our first New Year's in China. You might think there are huge parties in a city of 25 million people. However, the start to the year has been pretty low key. It’s an official holiday from the 1st to the 3rd and the streets are empty. Yet last night wasn’t much of a party scene. Most Chinese spend new year's eve with family at home hanging out. Nothing special. The real celebration comes during the Chinese Lunar New Year later in January.
We followed our tradition of Japanese food for New Years Eve dinner, after a full day of work. It all started back in San Diego when we didn't make big plans, but rather went down to our favorite sushi restaurant. This year we selected “Sun over Aqua,” on Shanghai's riverfront/Bund area. The restaurant was relatively empty, and we were surprised by how few people seemed to be celebrating the holiday. The blue fin tuna was fabulous. In fact, we did a tuna sampling as part of our menu.
After dinner, we joined thousands of young Chinese friends/couples walking along the river front. Music played and trinkets were being sold. We’d share photos, but somehow Lila’s digital camera disappeared that night (pick-pocketed?!). What a lousy way to end 2008.
The real highlight was watching the red lanterns float away. Groups of people would light a candle-like base of a red-paper balloon. Think of a hot air balloon, fueled by its base. The kids would write on the lantern. Our Chinese is limited but we could tell a few of the “loves” and “luck” messages. The base would be lit, and the kids would release the float/lantern/balloon, and it would float up into the sky and down the river. Magical! (of course, not quite envioronmentally friendly!)
We got back home around 12:10. We were hitting our limit of staying out, so we spent the final minutes of '08 in the car with Peter the driver, counting down with the radio in Chinese. Once home, we watched fireworks surround our home from our balcony. Over here, private citizens can purchase fireworks – and not the whimpy American kind. One of our neighbors put on a full 15-minute pyrotechnic show. It was amazing, but we were happy to watch afar. Our apartment is on the 7th floor with low rise neighborhoods surrounding, so we had a lovely view across several small fireworks shows. Apparently Chinese New Years gets really crazy with firecrackers and fireworks.
Today has been running errands at the tailor and fabric market. The streets are empty. Western restaurants are closed. It’s a nice, slow way to start 2009. Here's to a fabulous year ahead!

“What did we get ourselves into?": The 1 Year Anniversary

2008-11-23T00:47:00.000-08:00

One year ago we arrived in Shanghai, having just agreed to move to China for the job. Actually, let’s flashback to 2007. Lila finishes phone call with Tom about the job opportunity. She joins Karl, who’s sitting in the beautiful backyard of our lovely 1920s California bungalow home in Palo Alto – the one we purchased less then 6 months ago. Lila explained there were 2 opportunities, one of them was to take a job she thought sounded exciting – but required a move to Shanghai. After 10minutes of conversation, Karl declared “Let’s go to Shanghai!” to his wife of 5 months. And thus the decision was made.

A few weeks later, we were on the plane to Shanghai to figure out what we had just signed up for. Lila had been once before – long ago. It was Karl’s first time. We had a great week in November 2007, including Thanksgiving.

During that preview trip last year, we celebrated Thanksgiving in China. At the time, we had to choose between Hooters (who advertised their American Thanksgiving meals…among other things!) and Hairy Crabs (in season). We opted for the latter, complemented by dinner with some Americans from work.

So what will 2008 bring?! Karl’s friends are voting for Hooters, but Lila’s planning to keep us busy with other activities.

How lucky we are to have experienced so much personally and professionally since that decision and first visit a year ago!

Election Memories: Yes, we can!

2008-11-05T18:18:00.000-08:00

(From Lila)

I’m writing this from the Shanghai airport, on the way to Dubai. The US election results were announced earlier today, and I’m inspired to capture the history being made.
While we were growing up, politics replaced religion. International politics were discussed every day in the family, to the point in which we would intentionally pick disagreements with narrow minded history/political science teachers & profs. My junior high yearbook even says something about me being most likely to be in political office. Somewhere in my 20s, I became disenchanted and shut off political discussions. For some reason, this election appealed to that old side & lit a fire in me.
This morning I awoke to reports from the family. My sister, a gov’t employee in DC, said lines are out the door and that transition teams are poised to come into the office tomorrow. My brother, in California, remarked that ~2/3 of the county are permanent absentee voters but that people were still waiting when polls opened at 7am. Mom & Dad, in the battleground state of Indiana, commented on all the right wing conservative commentary heard around town and TV. After voting, mom helped with the Obama campaign. Go Mom!
I arrived at the office today just as the first American polls closed. There were 4 other Americans – all of us keeping each other posted on what was happening. I explained electoral votes to Sheila, my admin. Everytime I’d scream, she’d come in and ask the latest count. Then it happened. The state reports coming in. We stood on our chairs and screamed updates over the cube walls. We high fived and did little dances. Most of the Chinese co-workers laughed and thought we were amusing. Sheila, with great pride, told a few folks how she helped me mail in my absentee ballot. As she said, "In China, we don’t vote, so I want to make sure I do this right." Bless her for the enthusiastic extra care she took – it made me appreciate democracy so much more. On the drive home, I kept talking to myself as I read the news on my blackberry. "Unbelievable." Mr. Shen, the driver, clearly found me amusing and in limited English managed to comprehend my excitement was about our new President.
I got home early due to tonight’s travel. Karl and I watched Obama’s speech. It felt so unreal to be in Shanghai, watching US history being made from afar. As I read through status updates on Facebook, the sentiment of hope from friends around the world is incredibly inspiring. During my travels I’ve been asking people their thoughts on the US elections. Of course, they all think they should have a vote as the US President sets the tone for global environment. With the exception of the northern cone of Latin America (where they like free trade plans of Bush), there has been overwhelming support for Obama – a new face for world leadership.
As I sit around the Shanghai airport, I am listening in on people’s conversations about Obama. It’s everywhere – positive comments about the American people’s decision, the process, and America – the land of opportunity. Today I feel proud to walk through the airport with my American passport. It’s disappointing I do not always feel that way, but today is really special. The reality is things won’t be perfect. But, for at least a few moments, the world celebrates the American process, American people, and our new President elect.

Hotel Liebat Officially Opens for Business

2008-10-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

On the 21st, we had our first vacationing visitors arrive from the US. From Cincinnati, Erik came for his first visit to Asia with buddy Will. From our California friends, Ahmad arrived on the first day of his sabbatical, while Matt & Kjerstin arrived after a few days in Hong Kong. Three groups of friends all at once!
The first evening was a matter of keeping arrival times straight and getting folks settled. The real activity started Wednesday. Erik & Will woke up early due to jetlag and found their way around our neighborhood (we did a short orientation walk the night before). Lila then joined Erik & Will for a visit to the Museum of Urban Planning. For a city of 20M people, it was impressive to see the city planning efforts – both historical and plans for hosting the 2010 World Expo Afterwards we visited the incredible Shanghai Museum. The exhibits were fascinating and a wonderful China history lesson in bronze, currency, pottery, calligraphy, ethnic minorities, etc. All these months in Shanghai and we had never been to the museums.
In parallel, Karl took Ahmad, Kjerstin & Matt to the back street behind our apartment for a Chinese street breakfast (dumplings, fried bread, and Chinese breakfast crepes). They then went off to the fabric market to have some clothes made. They were quite proud of all "the money they saved" by having things tailor made.
We all met up for a lunch of famous dumplings at Yu gardens, which has been rebuilt in the old architecture. We had heard a ton about the restaurant, but had never been - so it was great exploration for us too. We all got a kick out of drinking soup out of a big steamed bun with a straw! We had originally planned for a water village in one of the nearby towns, but we ran out of time & energy. So we wandered around the Yu garden neighborhood, full of trinket shops and hundreds of thousands of people. From there we went to the next stop: Taikang street. The 1930s buildings now house a maze of small cafes, boutiques, and art shops.
It was 4:15 by the time most of us made it home for a break. Matt & Kjerstin opted to have a few suits made by the fancy tailor shop Karl loves on the way home. Erik & Will ended up walking around the French Concession some more. By 5:30, everyone was sleeping or resting with a glass of wine in their hand!
Dinner reservations were for 8pm at South Beauty, spicy Sichuan cuisine. Our table, on the outdoor deck, had views of the river and Bund all lit up, the Pearl tower, and the new financial tower (highest building in China). It was really incredible. While everyone would have loved more energy, we opted to go home. Erik & Will went out and explored some more, while the rest of us stayed back and packed for the Silk Road tour.
It was fun to play tourist, and we are thankful to have patient friends as we sort through how to host people here in Shanghai.

4 Days & 40 Hours Sitting

2008-10-20T18:16:00.000-07:00

The past 2 weeks have been a whirlwind. After Portugal, Karl returned to Shanghai for a whopping 24 hours before heading to Beijing, then Tokyo, and finally back to Shanghai. He spent the weekend at home, ill with his first Asian cold.
Meanwhile, Lila went to the US for a few days of meetings followed by a quick trip to Chile. When we mean quick, we are talking 15 hours on the ground in Santiago. What a shame it wasn't longer; it is such a beautiful city. Within 4 days, she spent 40 hours sitting on airplanes. Upon return to Shanghai, Lila had 2 team members visiting from the US. Tired of sitting for so long, she had requested a pedometer.
Back in Shanghai together, Lila struggled to stay awake past 8pm each night. The weekend finally came and we spent much of it socializing and making up for lost time. We went out for drinks Friday evening, met up with US work visitors, ran errands on Saturday (including to the flower market & a sporting goods store), had brunch with co-workers, and got Vietnamese cooking lessons and dinner on Sunday.

Voting: Enjoying our Democratic Privileges

2008-10-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like living in China to help you appreciate the right to vote. We can vote by sending in an absentee ballot. Since we did not receive one in time, we could fill out a form from the internet for overseas voters. US citizens even can FedEx their vote for free if they are based in China. It is a very empowering feeling to send in a vote by express mail! As Lila completed her paperwork, she asked her assistant (Sheila) to help send it. Sheila took so many precautions to ensure she did it right. As Sheila said, In China, we do not have elections so I really want to make sure I do this "ballot thing" right. It was such a charming and meaningful statement -- she may never know just how much I appreciated her comment.

Fun fact: Flying 2/3 around the World

2008-10-05T04:03:00.000-07:00

Today is a sad day – vacation ends. We’re convinced the world would be much better if vacations never ended. The interesting point about today is that we departed from Lisbon to Frankfurt together. From there, Karl and Lila depart at the same time. Karl goes East to Shanghai. Lila goes West to San Francisco. The total difference is a mere 200 miles. Given the distance between Shanghai & SF, this means the Liebats will fly 2/3 of the world today!

Perfect Portugal Vacation

2008-10-04T04:04:00.000-07:00

The week of September 30th was China’s MidAutumn Festival, a week long holiday. It also happened to be the first available week Lila could arrange business meetings in Portugal. We decided to cancel our initial holiday plans in Asia in lieu of work + holiday trip in Portugal. It was a fabulous week, marked by our Top 10 adventures below in no particular order:

1. Saturday w/Chavez & Socrates. Venezuelan President Chavez and Portuguese Prime Minister Socrates unveiled details regarding their trade agreement. Among the collaboration areas were the export of 1Mu of Magellan PCs based on Intel’s classmate PC reference design from Lila’s group. We attended the press conference, as perhaps the only Americans in the audience. Needless to say, exciting and fascinating. Later in the week, we passed an oil refinery in Northern Portugal. Karl asked the taxi driver where the oil came from. His response, “we sell computers to the crazy Chavez for oil.” Karl then inquired about the types of computer. “They’re very good, for children, and not so expensive.” How cool is that: taxi driver who’s totally on message. J

2. A trip of “firsts” – This trip marked our 1st trip to Europe together. It was also Karl’s 1st time flying over Siberia (arriving in Europe from the East) & 1st time to Portugal, and our 1st trip where we tagged vacation onto one of Lila’s international business trips.

3. Castles, Forts, & Churches – Oh My! After a week in the country, we believe there are castles on every hilltop and a few churches in every valley. Given the geographical location of Portugal and its very rich history, the architecture is a mix of various centuries and styles. We enjoyed exploring a large majority of them, though got a bit Churched and Forted out after a while.

4. Southern California with a Mediterranean Flair – We spent one afternoon driving along the coast North of Lisbon, visiting the towns of Estoril, Cascais, & Guincho. It was very reminiscent of the San Diego coastline, but with many white washed homes and red tiled roofs. We enjoyed the old fishing villages and visiting the western-most point of continental Europe.

5. Tasting Our Way Through Portugal – Everyday we ate at least 1 meal at a Michelin-rated restaurant. We also tasted port in Porto, wine in Evora, and smoked meats & cheese throughout. We tasted Codfish cooked a few of the acclaimed 365 Portuguese ways (or 1001 ways, depending who you ask). We saw Prosciutto carved off a hind leg of pig, right before our eyes at a high-end restaurant. We had the best shellfish our lives, covered in garlic and olive oil. We enjoyed many desserts, including cheese with pumpkin jam. It’s a good thing the holiday is only 1 week. We would weigh 500 lbs/each if we lived here!

6. Sintra – Our first side trip from Lisbon was Sintra. It’s supposedly a 45minute drive, but took us twice as long as we couldn’t figure out the Portuguese road signs! Famous as a romantic getaway, the town in hills has extraordinary architecture and we learned about Manueline architecture. Our first stop was an over the top estate (Quinta da Regaleira) built in early 1900s. We enjoyed all the hidden doors & staircases. From there we explored the Moorish castle which we equated to Portugal’s “great wall.” The 9th century fort overlooks the coastline with steps along the walls. We were going to make it to the other famous castles, but decided we were castle’d out & opted to hang out in town. We spent a few hours roaming around the tiny streets, small stores, and eating lunch in a café before driving back to Lisbon.

7. Porto – our favorite…and not just for the port! We spent 2 nights in Porto, a beautiful city 3 hours north of Lisbon -- famous for its port and 67 churches. We had a fabulous 1-day private tour around the city where we visited the major neighborhood areas of the hilly town, 6 churches, a tiled-covered railway station, the old stock exchange, and had dinner by the ocean. The highlights also included a 1hr cruise on the Douro river and a private port tasting In Vila Nova de Gaia Grahams. We left with a 1970 vintage bottle of port. The following day, we did a bit more port tasting including at Taylor and Noval. We finally found an area we disagree – Karl prefers ruby’s and Lila likes tawny’s. Overall, a fabulous getaway!

8. Evora – Sleeping at a Convent in a World Heritage Site. Per recommendation of a colleague, we ended our trip in the town of Evora, southeast of Lisbon. We spent 2 nights at a Sheraton Luxury Collection hotel which was a restored convent from the 1400s. During the day we visited a cork factory which was not on any tourist map! The owner called his son from home to give us a tour and explain how cork is imported from around the town, sorted, treated and shipped out for processing. We have a new appreciation for the complexity of cork manufacturing! We toured the country-side of small towns white washed houses and the Alentejo wine region. Most of the day was spent wandering inside the old town within the fortified walls. The trip ended with a private wine tasting in the hotel’s wine cave, with 2 of the hotel staff explaining Portugal’s wine regions and history. What a fabulous way to end our holiday.

9. Everything that China is not, Portugal is! Great wine, blue skies, no crowds, delicious meats, lots of fresh fish (without heads attached), great cheese, and clean public toilets. Portugal is everything that China is not.

10. Lisbon – While Lila had a few days of work, we managed to find time to explore various neighborhoods of Lisbon. It’s a very charming city with outstanding food and architecture. We’re very surprised it’s not more of a destination spot, aside for all the Europeans. While we really liked Lisbon, the quieter towns of Porto and Evora were more our vacation pace.

The lowlight?
Avoiding sticker SHOCK death - our sole entry to the list of worst memories: cost. The US dollar makes traveling in Europe an economic pain in the wallet. Monopoly money would have gotten us further. The perfect example is our tiny rental car cost $100 to fill up ¾ tank. And watching CNN’s coverage of the flailing US economy didn’t help. At least the memories and experiences were priceless!

24 hours: Beijing Beginnings * Munich Oktoberfest * Lost in Lisbon

2008-09-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

(9/27)After 2 days, our YGL activities had ended and we were on our 3 hour drive to Beijing airport. We arrived early enough to get a 50min massage to prepare us for the 15+ hour journey to Europe. First stop: Munich. It just happened to coincide with Oktoberfest! Can you imagine 6M liters of beer consumed in Oktoberfest 2 weeks?! We’re thrilled to have contributed our 2 pints during our short airport layover. After finally arriving in Lisbon, we realized we didn’t plan very well. To save a few euros, Lila made the decision to rent a manual car with no GPS. We quickly learned that if we decide not to get GPS in future, we should at least get maps! It turns out that the Hertz folks couldn’t tell us how to get to the Sheraton, that the city’s signs were useless, and we couldn’t even figure out how to ask the hotel for directions (by the time we called, we didn’t know where we even were). After our (very long) search, we settled for a nightcap with an incredible city view. Good thing we’re both so adventurous!

Changing the World with Our Generation

2008-09-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

It's been a while.... so we're just skipping to end of September travel.

Our journey began with the Annual Summit of Young Global Leaders (YGLs). In ’07, Lila was elected as a YGL by the World Economic Forum. YGLs are selected on their leadership in both business and civic responsibilities, as well as their age (<= 40). During their 5-year appointment, YGLs address the issues of the coming decades with the goal of creating a better world. Each year a summit is held that brings together ~200 of the 600 YGLs worldwide, including spouses. Lila and Karl joined this year’s summit in Tianjin, China near Beijing.

The first day’s activities were aimed at giving YGLs a better introduction of China. We started with a visit to a junior high school where the YGLs were split into teams. Our group, based out of the high school TV station, got an introduction of Chinese culture (tea ceremony, calligraphy, painting, etc.) from the students. Karl even practiced some Chinese calligraphy. In fact, Karl’s student ambassador kept a close eye on him including holding his hand thru various activities. Fortunately Lila is not the jealous type! J We had interesting discussions with the students regarding their concerns for the world in the coming decade.

After the school, we were hijacked by local officials who took us to their 3D museum. This is quite common in China. You’re taken where officials want to take you – not necessarily where you WANT to go. The museum was quite unique from a technological standpoint with 3D TVs, holographs, etc. Karl was especially happy because of the highlighted 3D adult content. Our final tour destination was a panel discuss at a local facility where entrepreneurs develop start-up ideas with government support. The day ended with a YGL networking dinner at an art museum which included a short workshop on dumpling making. We failed. The good news is that it’s only a few dollars to have a meal of famous Shanghai dumplings back home.

The 2nd day focused on leadership development. We were split by region and then by business sector. Within regional discussions, Karl joined the China group, and Lila the Americans. The most interesting part was creating a fable based on the leadership traits of our business sectors – whether financial, governmental, non-profits, technology etc. In the afternoon we spent time discussing basic leadership fundamentals for our generation. The evening included a dinner and very fun nightcap catching up with everyone. We are working on a separate blog entry summarizing our learnings from the day’s discussions.

Overall, the participants were amazingly well connected and influential – whether reporters for major news agencies, Royalty, business leaders, or bankers. Everyone is out to change world – they believe they can and they are already doing it. Everyone was also really friendly. Egos were checked at the door and we were all equal regardless of title (Prince, CEO, General Manager, or Spouse). Each time a group formed, people listened and were ok with collaborative leadership. We found this especially fascinating and contrary to work environment. It became very clear that a strong leader isn’t necessarily the one with the best idea, but the one who is able to bring diverging people and ideas to a common direction.

More to follow on this topic soon…

Liebats' Olympic Analysis - what won the Gold?!

2008-08-25T03:14:00.000-07:00

Alas the Olympics have ended. In honor of the history we've just witnessed, we'd like to take a moment to give our own medals of Olympic memories. Here are our parting thoughts from this side of the ocean...

GOLD: We witnessed Chinese cultural shift
The first weekend we saw first-hand the local crowd's limp response and the relatively empty stadiums. In contrast we saw foreigners with painted faces and crazy cheers willing to pay triple face value for scalped tickets (including ourselves!). We wondered over the next 3 weeks how the Chinese population would react to witnessing the foreign craziness.
During one local TV program, we heard an official recap how they had received complaints in the 1st week that seats weren't full and crowds were ambivalent. The government's response? "So we filled the seats and told the crowds to be more excited." And hence a culture has forever shifted.

SILVER: We didn't realize there were SO many games in the Olympics
Watching CCTV9 (affectionately referred to as "propaganda TV"), vs. American NBC, meant we got to skip the heartfelt stories of American Olympians overcoming ingrown toenails. The news focused more on the sports and the highlights - showing ALL countries participating. We created our own sport of guessing "what country flag is that?" and "what is this sport anyway?"

BRONZE: The 5% Off
While the Olympics were amazing, there was the 5% off. For example, it was illegal to scalp tickets but ok to buy (hence scalpers with "tickets wanted" signs). The boat loads of volunteers were so extremely helpful...but just a bit overly anxious. Olympic stores were everywhere, but we couldn't find "official game guides" or anything other than 1 of the 5 stuffed mascots. Beijing cleared the roads with special traffic laws (cars - based on even or odd plates - alternated days on the road), but the sky was still grey. The stadiums were amazing architectural feats, but unless you had a ticket you had to admire them thru the chain link fence.

Overall - absolutely fabulous. We're excited we went, and thrilled to have witnessed a small part of history.

Lila's Post Olympic Adventures in Mexico & the US

2008-08-22T05:10:00.000-07:00

(It's March 29, 2009, and I just found this hidden in my draft box....)

The day after our Olympic adventure, I was on a flight to Mexico. Small problem… a volcano spewing ashes resulted in the need for the flight to be rerouted and delayed by several hours. Upon arrival to SFO, 9 United international flights arrived late. It was PURE chaos. Sheila (admin) and I completely missed our flight to Mexico. We drove down to Palo Alto for a quick coffee, drove by our house to make sure all was well, and then to Intel's office for work and catching up with a few of the old team. We finished off with dinner with Nabeel & Asha before heading back to the airport for the redeye to Guadalajara.

The next 4 days in Mexico went well. Lila had her staff meeting and got to spend time with the (very impressive) team based there. Everything was excellent! We had software vendors, university experts, and a host of other people present to us. The local team also did a fabulous job making the staff feel welcomed and everyone bonded. I left Mexico very amazingly energized despite an intense schedule. Did I also mention how satisfying it was to have Mexican food?! That is one cuisine I crave in Asia as we haven't found any good restaurants.

Over the weekend was a great chance to catch up on a few errnads and with friends. By Sunday, in the US, Nabeel and I went to Sonoma to do some wine tasting. Wehad a great time exploring some family run wineries and ended the day at Ledson (where Karl and I were married).

The rest of the week was spent in work meetings and at the Intel Developer Forum. My team held some press and analyst briefings around our next generation classmate PC design. It's exciting to read how the press liked the features we are targeting based on years of research by our ethnographers, researchers, and user-centered designers.

Lila Named "Most Powerful Women Of The Channel"

2008-08-15T01:09:00.000-07:00

In case you missed Lila's latest 2 minutes of fame, below is an excerpt from VARBusiness(www.crn.com/it-channel/209903827). It's been a tough transition to the new role, but this is exciting for Lila and her team to be recognized for the work they are doing.

Collectively, they have a voice that resonates through every corner of the industry. Individually, their roles run the gamut from distribution executives to vendor channel leaders to presidents and CEOs of solution provider organizations. Meet the 2008 VARBusiness Most Powerful Women Of The Channel.

LILA IBRAHIM
General Manager, Emerging Markets Platform Group - Intel Corp., Shanghai, China
Years In Position: 6 months
Years In Channel: 6 months
Hope To Accomplish: Ibrahim firmly believes that access to technology improves economic and social conditions around the world. By partnering with the channel, she says we can make a sustainable difference. This year Intel will continue to make technology a key tool for education in both emerging and mature markets while offering channel customers continued opportunities to differentiate their products. Intel will also introduce new products that enable PC accessibility and skills to new users.

Mentor: For almost four years Ibrahim served as Chief of Staff to Intel Chairman Craig Barrett, a man she says is a "tireless advocate for improving education worldwide and facilitating access to technology for all people." Ibrahim calls him a "mentor and a role model--a man who is able to weather both the worst and best of times with humor and grace."

Executives You Admire: Ibrahim looks up to those with backbone and those who do what's right even when it's not popular. She says she has been fortunate to work for many who are role models in ethics and value, and who listen, learn and grow as leaders no matter how many years of experience they have.

WITNESSING CHINA WIN THE GOLD

2008-08-10T22:05:00.000-07:00

We woke up Sunday determined to get into the fenced off indoor stadium. After all, can you really claim to have "gone to the Olympics" without getting close to the Birds Nest, Water Cube, etc.?! We set off to find tickets….

SEARCHING FOR TICKETS
But first, we got distracted with our morning coffee and a few hours of hanging out with Jim. Alas, caffeine up, we set out. Our first stop was near a subway. It was fascinating to watch the co-existence of scalpers and police officers. Apparently it's legal to buy, but illegal to sell. So scalpers had signs that said they wanted to buy! We also learned to look for groups of people. Since it was the first weekend, the "scalping scene" had yet to be defined. There were quite a few tickets available, but most were for later in the evening (after our flight) or other days. Every ticket was at least 1000RNB ($150 US) - even though face value was 35RNB-200RNB. Having no luck by the subway stop, we walked the massive Beijing blocks to the main entrance of the indoor stadiums. Beijing is MASSIVE for those who don't know. A "block" is about 3 American blocks. Something that is "right around the corner" is about 10minutes away - sprinting. Ok, we're exaggerating - but not much!

GIVING UP
There were a lot more people scalping at the main entrance, but a lot less tickets. We walked up and down trying to find something - anything - for the afternoon. We finally took down some telephone numbers of scalpers who said to call back at 1:30. In the meantime, we went for lunch at this awesome restaurant place that Jim likes. We were a bit bummed we couldn't land any tickets, even though the day had been quite fun so far.
THE RACE TO MAKE THE START
With no expectations, we called one of the scalpers who actually had found diving tickets for 2:30. He called us a couple of times, asking if we were coming because he had people offering more than we paid (1250 RMB - so about 1000RNB scalping fee). While far more than we wanted, it was at least getting us into the stadium area. We raced back to the stadium to find all the streets around the venue were blocked for the street bike race. We were dropped off "nearby" which means about 2 miles from where the scalper was with 20 minutes until the start. The stadium area is fenced off, so we couldn't even shortcut in because first we needed to meet scalper guy for the ticket.
Once we finally got the ticket, getting through security was really easy given how well it's organized.

TICKETS FOR WHAT?!
It was only when we finally arrived at the Water Cube did we realize we were seeing Synchronized Woman’s Diving. We were a bit late to the start, but only missed the first of 5 rounds of dives for the 8 participating countries. The venue was awesome - so much more of the Olympic spirit. The event finished with the medal ceremony. It was particularly exciting as China won the Gold (Shanghai's first!), Russia won silver, & Germany bronze. We think China is still learning to be expressive. The audience and medal winners were far less rambunctious than the minority foreigners in the house.
We hung around inside the water cube - closer to the pool - watching the men's diving group warm up. Unfortunately we were kicked out for the next event, but not before Lila poked on the air-filled plastic walls of the water cube. It's really an interesting engineering approach to construction and gives the water cube a very dynamic shape.

THE INSIDE SCOOP
We were so excited to be walking around the inner area of the Olympics. We took pictures of the Birds Nest, went into some sponsor buildings, saw the National Indoor Stadium, the sculpture garden, the Olympic tower, etc.. We did notice, however, there were no stages or live music, or people tail gating. Definitely a more protected and serene environment, but didn't feel too Olympic.
As we were preparing to leave, there was a MASSIVE downpour. We hung out in some volunteer's tent, manned by University students. They helped us translate with Jim's driver to get picked up. Overall, the masses of volunteers were so warm, friendly, and helpful throughout both days.
Once the rain let up, we found Jim's driver and headed to the airport. Traffic was still wonderful. We like the half-capacity program where even and odd license plates alternate which days they are on the road. Overall, an absolutely wonderful trip - attending the opening weekend of the Olympics.

Olympics Day 1: Working the System for Rowing Tickets, Celebrating with Peking Duck

2008-08-09T23:52:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Beijing at 7:30am and quickly made our way’s to our friend Jim’s place. He had Olympic tickets for the first heat of the rowing preliminaries later in the day. We spent the morning catching up and plotting how we might be able to get 2 people in with the 1 extra ticket he had. We eventually headed out to pick up the other co-workers from their hotel, then made the 1-hour journey to the rowing/sculling venue.

It was shocking how few cars were on the highway. Starting nearly a month ago, the government restricted traffic on Beijing’s roads. License plate numbers determine which days cars can be out, alternating between even and odd plates, though taxis can drive every day. We had allowed extra time to get to the venue, which was way outside of the city towards the Great Wall. We arrived 1.5 hours early due to the wonderfully light traffic. With the extra time, we stopped at local Chinese restaurant to watch the rerun of the opening ceremony. It was our first glimpse of the magnificent performance since the train ride didn’t have TVs.

Jim, an American w/great Chinese skills, was the constant master of working the system. He managed to get our 2 vans right up to the entrance while most people had to take a bus from the barricade a few miles away. Then he negotiated with the volunteers to get us to the front of the line due to the 3 small girls who charmed the volunteers. The parents were so worried about the girls ability to handle the extreme heat: 95F with 95% humidity. The volunteers also let the 3 small girls without tickets which left us 2 extra tickets to get in! By the end of the day, Jim had definitely wow’d us all with his chinese negotiation skills and ability to work the system.

The rowing event was quite fun. One of the US visitors is a big rowing fan, so he gave us the full download on the athletes and sporting rules. We ended up squatting in seats towards the finish line, and enjoying the beautiful pace in which the athletes rowed. (I do believe, however, Karl was charmed more by the female athletes running around warming up in their skimpy outfits.)

After the event, we made our way back to Beijing with a very enjoyable Monitor at the Kerry Center bar. Those were the best mojitos we’ve had in the country – and extremely refreshing after a very hot & humid day. It was then off for a quick refresh before Jim went to a business dinner, and we explored the city for Peking Duck. Unfortunately Jim’s recommendation (1949) was totally booked, so the driver took us to another restaurant (forgot name) where we had an awesome meal. We were exhausted from the lack of sleep on the train and the day in the sun. Nevertheless, we rallied enough to make it to the Olympic stadium. We had hoped to take night pictures of all the venues, and were very disappointed to find a massive fence all around the water cube and bird’s nest buildings. There were a lot of people out in the street, walking around and taking pictures with the fence blocking the view to the distant buildings. You needed an official ticket for an event to get into the main area. We were surprised by the lack of tailgaters, partiers, etc. in the streets. It was still full of energy and gave us an opportunity to try to understand the scalping scene. We found out it wasn’t as easy as expected. Perhaps we’ll have better luck figuring out tickets tomorrow. We have none right now…

Olympics Bound: 8/8/08 Train Adventure

2008-08-09T08:26:00.000-07:00

Our journey to the Beijing Olympics started Friday evening. While billions of people worldwide watched the Opening Ceremony live, we opted for the 12 hour overnight train to Beijing (don’t worry, we’ll download the video!). Our train tickets were a mere US$71/ea and allowed us to work a full day before catching the 7:30pm northbound Z-train. Since this was the first time we’d taken the train, everyone was worried about us. My admin sent 3 messages and Driver Shen tried to buy an “accompanying” ticket to ensure we boarded the right car. The train policy during Olympics stopped him from taking us to the gate, which made Shen very nervous about us. While appreciative of the concerns, we were pretty comfortable finding our way around with minimal language abilities given our adventurous spirit. We got there early enough to enjoy wandering the train station's snack food shops, which sold every imaginable packaged Chinese snack (nuts, dried fish, instant noodles, & a bunch of stuff we couldn't recognize).

Overall, the train was great – quick check-in, very clean, and on time! Although many had compared the train to a 5 star hotel, it felt more like a 3 star with very clean rooms and attentive English-speaking staff. Each cabin had 4 bunks, fresh flowers, small table, hot water service (for tea & instant noodles) and slippers. There’s another 2-bed “T” train, but we weren’t able to get on.

Two downsides of the train. First, our roommate for the night was a Chinese man who slept as soon as we departed the station, and didn’t wake up until his phone rang at 5:30am Saturday morning! The other was the lack of electricity in the room....and no, not for our notebooks (which were not opened during the trip thankyouverymuch). There were, however, outlets at each end of the car. Luckily Karl had bought a 5meter extension cord to power his CEPAP machine through the night. The extension cable required convincing the train staff to allow us to run cable down the hallway. Our cabin neighbor (Penny) was bilingual and built a “life or death” story around Karl’s need to run the wiring. The train staff lady was so freaked out that she sat outside our room all night making sure no one unplugged the machine. We gladly abided to her request: provide feedback about her customer-orientation in the train log. Ah! Foreign-friendly customer service points.

The real highlight of the journey was that Penny was an exchange student to the US about 10 years ago. She was traveling with her host sister and brother in law from Texas – both really fun lawyers. We had a wonderful time hanging out with them talking in the halls, then downing a few beers in the dining train. It was great until 1am, when the beer had run through Lila (who slept on the top bunk). Imagine climbing down in pitch black, then squatting over a Chinese toilet of a moving train in the middle of the night!?! Needless to say, the train was a fun adventure and a great way to start our Olympic journey.

Olympics Bound!

2008-08-08T01:44:00.001-07:00

Tonight we are heading to Beijing on an overnight Z-train from Shanghai. The train is supposed to be super posh & some compare it to a five star hotel (we aren’t holding our breath). We’ll miss the Olympic Opening Ceremony -- wasn’t very high priority for us to buy uber-expensive tickets or be jammed outside the stadium to watch fireworks with 20 million strangers.
We’re pretty excited about experiencing the opening weekend. Unfortunately, we don’t have game tickets yet. Paying scalped ticket pricing of US $400/ticket for one swimming event seemed a bit ridiculous. So we’re going to see how in person scalping goes, per Nabeel & Lila’s learning at the Nagano Olympics. Karl spent the morning learning/practicing his Olympic ticket buying phrases in his Chinese language class! [Phrase of the day: Women xiang yao liang zhang tiao shui de piao; or those mandarin challenged -> we would like to buy two tickets to diving] We do think we’ll get rowing tickets Saturday afternoon from an Intel friend. We’re returning to Shanghai late Sunday.

Catching Up...

2008-08-06T01:44:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since we wrote updates. In fact, we are now in our 5th month living in Shanghai. Seems somewhat surreal to be honest. We both agreed that it feels like home now. We can go to Carrefour on Saturdays and not be completely overwhelmed by the million or so who decided to sift thru the bananas at the same time. We can communicate with our drivers and to complete strangers with enough vocabulary, sign language, and the trusted translation tool on Karl’s cell phone. Anyway, time to update the rest of the site… enjoy!

BASKETBALL: GO USA!!!

2008-08-05T01:45:00.000-07:00

Xiao is our hero tonight. He’s a former Intel colleague who went off for the sexier job with the NBA. He also got us tickets to the pre-Olympics exhibition basketball game: Team USA vs. Australia. We had box seats and even ran into a couple of Karl’s customers from Dell. Getting to the game was quite an experience! Driver Shen took us down 2 roads that were blocked off completely unless you had tickets in hand. No way could we pass thru the police barricade. Alas! Driver Shen is extremely resourceful. He found the road that got us around the mess to exactly where we needed to be. We had SO much fun watching professional players literally "wow" the audience with their speed, resilience, and dunks. The Australians weren’t bad either. Go USA! (ok, we’re feeling oddly patriotic right now)

THE FIRST DINNER PARTY

2008-08-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

Our weekend was nice. We spent the whole weekend cooking and grocery shopping. On Friday night, Lila just returned from Portugal and Karl found out that his Sunday Singapore trip was cancelled. We decided to host a party to thank our key friends that helped us get established here. It was mega late notice (we didn’t send out the e-mail invite until after 7pm on Friday night). We decided to do a BBQ / wine party. We didn’t really have an recipes in mind and Karl thought he’d pull some ideas from our family website. However when we discovered the site was being renovated on Saturday morning, we decided to look through the Bobby Flay cookbook (Christmas present from mom) for ideas. We made the following menu:

APPETIZERS: Lila’s family fried eggplant salad, Lila’s humus w/ various vegetables, Cheese & crackers imported from Germany (by Lila on Friday afternoon due to a plane transfer in Frankfurt), Grilled large shrimp tossed in a red chili vinaigrette
MAIN: Sixteen spice chicken served w/ roasted red pepper sauce and sweet cilantro / spinach pesto, Mashed potatoes w/ pesto folded in, Chopped romaine lettuce & three bean salad served with a mustard vinaigrette, Mexican grilled corn salad, and homemade sundried tomato focaccia bread
DESSERT: Homemade tapioca based dessert pudding with a cooked blueberry & mango topping.

Our friends added some hot/fresh bbq beef jerky (for an appetizer), two types of chocolate cakes, and some egg custard tarts. Throughout the meal we served three different CA white wines, three different CA red wines, and two bottles of French sparkling wine.
To build this feast, it took us stops at four separate grocery stores to gather all the ingredients. However even with all our searching (and pocket translation dictionary) we didn’t find things like fresh pumpkin seeds, onion powder, habanera peppers, tomatillos, or corn tortillas. I guess they don’t have many Mexican dishes / cooks here. We then spent most of Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning prepping all the sauces and raw ingredients. It was extremely relaxing for both Lila and I to spend the day in the kitchen.

The apartment looked great & the party turned out great! Fourteen of our friends were able to join the party. We enjoyed all the conversations – especially the ones that started, "Have you seen …. In Shanghai yet" It really meant a lot to us to be able to thank our co-workers and friends for all the help they’ve give us.

ALLERGIC TO CHINA: KARL’S RASH UPDATE

2008-08-03T01:47:00.000-07:00

The rash has been driving me crazy, but we’ve finally figured it out. It is NOT as the first doctor said, "you’re allergic to China." In fact, it’s wheat.

Over the past few weeks, the rash got better than terrible again. I finally went to the clinic for the third time. The Dr said I had 2 rashes: Eczema and Urticaria. They are both caused by something internal, not likely a contact rash. The Dr said it was either stress or a food allergy. After reviewing the foods we’ve been eating, he told me to stay away from mushrooms, local seafood (farm raised), and spicy foods. What was I to eat?! Anyway, he prescribed 3 new drugs including allergy medication and steroid cream for my legs. I had them also run a blood test to see if they can figure out the cause, but it would take 7-10 days to process.

The medicines helped a lot as I anxiously awaited the blood report. I was told that I have an extremely high allergy level to ragweed and mugwort, which is hay fever. However the doctors does not think this is the problem that is causing my skin rashes. However I have to watch this going forward. I have a low to medium level allergy to wheat flour. The doctor recommended that I eliminate (or greatly reduce) all the wheat from my diet. Our guess is that I’m eating more noodles, dumplings, and dishes thickened up with wheat products here. We had Sheila translate "NO WHEAT PRODUCTS" for our Ayi (Helper) when she cooks, and will be searching for alternative food options (or bringing them back by the suitcase-full from US!).

Also searching the web I found that watermelon and bananas (eating a ton of both) are the foods related to ragweed sensitivity. Mugwort sensitivity has foodstuff connections to coriander, garlic, carrots, paprika, and hazelnuts. Oh my gosh – these are all my favorites! I’ll try this for a while and see how I feel. Luckily I can add mushroom & spicy foods back into the diet. At least I now know I’m not allergic to China…. Well, kind of.

Lila in Portugal

2008-08-01T01:53:00.000-07:00

(Lila) I spent more time on airplanes this week then on the ground. But it’s ok because we had a huge win in Portugal, and it was really amazing to be a part of it. I departed Monday and got home Friday – but basically spent 3 days in airports. While on the ground in Lisbon, I had a great time catching up with my old team (Craig was there, Abdul too) and having meetings with the sales organization. The night after the launch my inbox was full of excited mails from my team around the globe. Their energy fueled mine, and resulted in not being able to sleep beyond 2 hours. I returned to China with a lot of energy and feeling very inspired.

You can check out the news at Intel's pressroom: "Intel Collaborates with Government of Portugal on a Comprehensive New Education Initiative" at http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20080730corp.htm?iid=pr1_releasepri_20080730r)

Along the way, I dealt with the Frankfurt airport during the Lufthansa strike. It turned out to be less of an issue than originally thought. Fortunately flights were on time. But no catering (food was small packaged snacks), no customs forms, and service that makes US domestic airlines look luxury (since you have to pay for food, but at least you get food).

On the return, I slept a total of 11 hours between the 2 flights which totaled ~13 hours.

Fabric Markets, Construction Magic, Cheap Massages, & More!!

2008-07-24T01:51:00.000-07:00

We were pretty delinquent in writing a July update, so here’s the summary of the month. While there was a lot of travel, we did a good job of preserving our weekends for time together. It was wonderful. Some of the things we enjoyed:

Fabric Market - We discovered and liked it enough to make 3 stops in 2 weeks. There are about 300 stalls of which we tried ~10. Only 1 was below expectations. After a bit of trial and error, we figured out how it works. You take clothing or pictures you really like and want copied. You pick the store based on the fabric options, price you’re able to negotiate, and your guess of their quality. Lila had several blouses, a suit and a skirt made. Karl had some shirts, shorts, and linen pants made.
Approximate prices we paid at the market:
Men’s dress shirts = $11; men’s linen pants = $11; men’s shorts = $8.50
Women’s blouses = $14; woman’s wool suit (180 wool) = $45; woman’s silk blouse = $14
We had a blast and are excited to find this very inexpensive and funky method of shopping!

Flower Markets – Visited 2 different ones in the past few weeks. We bought some beautiful orchids, some outdoor plants for the balcony, and a few stalks of lotus that are taller than Lila. Great bargain, adds life and color to our apartment. We still can’t figure out why they dye roses weird colors (blue), then wrap the flower itself in netting and paper to do arrangements. Not so attractive.

Construction Magic – We were on the Pudong side of town on a clear day and got to see the tallest building in world (at least this month it is!). It’s beautiful! Also, we were surprised one morning to wake up and notice workers removing a tower from the building across street. Next thing we know, it was torn down. We’ve learned that buildings age in dog years here, and are quick to be torn down so something bigger and more stylish can be built.

Massages: Thank goodness they’re cheap. We now have a favorite new one (Sakura) – which is 3 minutes walk away. We average one massage per week over the past few weeks. The 2 hour traditional massage costs us about $25.

Restaurants: We found a few new places. Whisk is right around the corner, tucked behind a gate. Good food, reasonable, and easy. They also have awesome chocolate desserts! We visited the Bund brewery and enjoyed some real micro brew beer. Lila’s colleagues took us out to the famed Constellation bar, with its uber-precise traditional mixologist. We had so much fun we went back on our own – convenient 5minute walk. And Karl finally took Lila to Driver Peter’s favorite noodle bar where the man pulls and throws a bunch of dough then presto! Noodles. J

Waterfront: One Saturday, we found ourselves at this funky old mansion turned restaurant on the east side of the river. We were surprised that Shanghai really doesn’t look so big from the waterfront. Karl described it as "LA-like." We watched the busy river and barges going by. Some of the barges were carrying so many rocks they were half way submerged. Clearly the transportation laws are a bit different.

Office Stuff: In July, Lila had to deliver her first business update meeting, represent the entire organization in Family Day (which required her wearing a purple wig and hip hopping on stage). She took business trips up north to Shenyang & Beijing. Karl changed cubicles and hosted a US coworker. He’s been learning a lot about China from his team and is always full of fun facts.

Wandering: We also spent a lot of time wandering around on "many hour walks." We walked from our apartment to Jing An Temple. We did the Frommers walking tour of Old Town – which took us through a wet market, by the ancient city wall, and by a fight at a Taoist temple which brought 3 policemen! We did another walking tour of the Bund by the old 1930 European-style buildings. We met a college couple who were anxious to practice their English. We also had our first art appreciation class provided by a college art group (of course we were encouraged to purchase their student artwork afterwards).

A MOMENT OF A 1-HOUR COMMUTE

2008-07-24T01:50:00.000-07:00

(Lila) Usually on my commute I catch up on email for the hour. I can’t do phone calls very well since the cell connection drops at least 3 places. It’s so frustrating. Anyway, today my computer died so I had to reboot. I found myself looking around instead – a rare experience. At a single intersection I saw…

A workman in a white button down shirt and grey slacks riding a bicycle. As soon as he stopped, he rolled up his shirt and tied it above his waist to get fresh air.
A woman on the back of the moped with her boyfriend. To shade her self from sun, she opened an umbrella.
I’m no longer shocked to see families of 3 or 4 on mopeds. (yes, a family of 5 still grabs my attention)
An old man standing by the side of the road in an undershirt and shorts pulling the hair out of his chin mole.
A 3 wheel bicycle cart carrying enough styrofoam to fill a dump truck! (this still amazes me how they pack so much on bikes)
A father carrying his little daughter. Chinese don’t use strollers, they carry kids as a way of nurture and protecting them. Given the 1-child law, there is a saying that 1 child has 6 parents – 2 sets of grandparents & 1 set parents. It’s the more spoiled generation.

And now my computer is working and we’re passed the intersection. Another glimpse of life in Shanghai…

The Best Chicken Feet

2008-07-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

Lila's traumatic 24 hours of food incidents…

Last night, as we were walking home from sushi dinner – Karl told me about the day’s lunch with his cube neighbor. “They were the best chicken feet e-VER.” The trauma caused me to forget everything else about the conversation. I do remember something about toe hairs falling off the bones oh so gently. He swears he said 'skin' not 'toe hairs.' I think my story is better. Either way, YUCK!

I work in the middle of nowhere – 1 hour outside of Shanghai. Everyday I bring my lunch. Today I forgot my forks/chopsticks from home. So I went to the office kitchenette and started rummaging through drawers. This happened one other time when I was forced to use 2 coffee stirrers as make-shift chopsticks. Just as I was about to resort to fake-chopsticks, the cleaning lady came and got me a cup. I know how to say “cup!” But that’s not wanted I wanted. Finally I got an engineer to help translate what I was looking for. The cleaning lady walked over to the --- get this --- refridgerator and pulled out plastic ware. Expensive storage.

JAPAN & EGYPT

2008-07-11T01:49:00.000-07:00

The past week had Karl in Japan and Lila in the Middle East. Fortunately we get to spend the weekend together here in Shanghai.

Lila in the Middle East: There’s nothing worse than being sick and traveling. Especially when going through so many airports: Shanghai. Dubai. Cairo. Abu Dhabi. Doha. Shanghai. Can you find those on a map?! The trip started very rough with feeling faint in the hour wait to check-in. I slept the entire flight, and was well enough to enjoy the few hour layover at the airport in Dubai. I really like the airport – it’s perhaps one of the most colorful, diverse, and clean airports.
My meetings in Cairo went really well, even though I wasn’t 100%. One evening we even made it to the Pyramid light show. Last time I went to the pyramids was 1994 with my grandmother. It was really amazing. We also had 1 weekend day – which included some sight seeing in Cairo. It was very special. The trip coincided with the entire regional sales team having a face to face in Cairo. I got to catch up with a lot of old friends. It was really wonderful. After my Cairo visit, I made a day stop in Abu Dhabi for meetings before continuing home.
I did realize that there are times that being an ‘Ibrahim’ is a good thing – like immigration in the Middle East. Although it’s officially my middle name, it stood out enough to always be asked "where are you from?" Trying to explain makes no sense and I’ve learned the right answer is that Dad’s from Lebanon.

Karl - JAPAN DELICACIES
I was in Japan for 4 days – Tokyo & Miyazaki, and will be returning every 6 weeks. Meetings went well, but the real highlight was the food. The sushi breakfast at the fish market in Tokyo was quite good, but dinner was one of the best meals ever at a restaurant recommended by the Imperial Hotel. I decided to build my own 5 course meal...
Course #1: Smoked summer vegetable with creamy anchovy sauce
2: Assorted fresh sashimi (including tuna, egg cockle, sea bream, ark shell, and halfbreak)
3: Grilled tuna cheek meat. Marinated in soy sauce
4: Roasted iberico pork with spicy tomato sauce
5: Tsugihagi special desert (plum cake, campaign gelatin with fresh fruit, chocolate cake, fresh cherry, fruit gelato)
Extras courses since I was sitting at bar: Cream cheese preserved in miso and Tuna liver with onion
Plus two glasses of sake:Azumaichi - Fukui Prefecture and Kakurei - Niigata Prefecture. Then finished with Japanese tea. I have to say this was one of the best meals ever!

BLUE SKIES OF SHANGHAI

2008-07-08T01:48:00.000-07:00

Karl : This is the best day I have ever seen in Shanghai: incredibly blue sky with beautiful clouds, crystal clear air, a great breeze, and ~88 degrees. It’s the type of weather that could convince millions of more people to move to Shanghai! It must have been like this for years before we move here (otherwise why would Shanghai now have 20M+ people). Actually, we’ve been surprised this summer just how nice the weather has been. It’s warm and humid, with days of occasional rains. However, we see the blue sky on regular occasions. It’s not as great as the Bay Area, but far better than we ever expected.

Fanagaling More Magazines: US Visitors descend on Shanghai

2008-06-29T05:31:00.000-07:00

Over the past 10 days, we were thrilled to host several US friends in town.

In the last update, we mentioned our first anniversary celebration weekend. Karl arrived home with beautiful flowers on June 16. Our special evening was spent with David, a Palo Alto neighbor and fellow Intel co-worker who happened to be in Shanghai for 1 night only. To compensate for crashing our anniversary, David managed to negotiate 3 free bottles of alcohol from the flight attendants as a gift for us! It was really fun to catch up. Later that week, Lila had a girl’s night out of foot massages & tapas with 2 colleagues, including 1 who was visiting from the US. On Saturday, Abdul, Ahmad, and Len arrived from Santa Clara. We hung out at the apartment for a few hours before heading for dumplings with one of Lila’s Shanghai colleagues and mutual friend of Ahmad’s. We learned a few important lessons during that visit: 1) we need to stock our fridge with more beer for when people come over, 2) having 2 guest rooms is great! (both Abdul & Ahmad stayed with us), and 3) the espresso maker was by far the best investment we’ve made! Sunday, Karl went to a resort area with Ahmad and a few Shanghai-based folks to enjoy volleyball, swimming, and an amazing brunch. About 14 hours later, they had managed to also squeeze in a night of poker (Karl tripled his money! :)), KFC, and a foot massage. Meanwhile, Lila met up with Craig, Abdul, Jim, and Len in Shanghai before flying to Chengdu in Sichuan Province. (Will post separate blog entry for update from earthquake impacted region.) By Tuesday, Lila had returned to Shanghai to host 2 of her staff. Overall, a fantastic week for catching up with 8 US visitors . We also managed to get Sudafed, 4 bottles of wine, a lot of news, and a stack of new magazines out of everyone’s visits.

Aside from the visitor excitement, Karl spent 2 days in Beijing. He’s becoming a pro of visiting up North. He then flew to Hong Kong, where they happened to have a level 3 Typhoon warning,which later turned into Level 8 (severe). All businesses closed, so he was stuck at the hotel for the entire day. Fortunately around noon, they downgraded the warning back to Level 3 and the mall opened for business. He returned home, after no meetings, but with shirts and appropriate sized tennis shoes (hard to find in Shanghai). Lila also spent 4 days in Penang, Malaysia, for her boss’ staff. Even though it’s in the same time zone, it took an entire work day to travel there & another day to travel home. Fortunately the meetings went well despite the cold she caught. For both of us, the week was full of airport delays. The previous blog entry was just a foreshadow of the remaining 6+ hours of delay we would face later in the week.

Lila returned to Shanghai on Saturday, 6/28. Karl had prepared a wonderful BBQ dinner of sausage, corn, a baked potato, and a bottle of wine. It was fabulous. We were both pretty exhausted today, so we caught up on movies (Kung Fu Panda and Sex&the City) for the entire morning. In the afternoon, we managed to get out for a 3 hour walk to Jing An temple and around our neighborhood. Dinner was another BBQ – chicken, mushrooms and a Chardonnay. We typically ration our wine, but since this is a month of busy travel we’ve decided to indulge!

Work is going well for both of us. Lila is finally finding her groove, which has been a big issue given all the changes her organization has gone through. The past 6 weeks have been good as we’ve both had limited travel, but the next 2 weeks will be tough as Karl goes to Japan, while Lila is in the Middle East.

While Lila types this blog update, Karl’s reviewing his Chinese studies. The language remains very difficult for us, especially as we have limited opportunity to practice. Until the next update…

Flight Prison

2008-06-23T23:21:00.000-07:00

Both of us ended up on flights delayed by at least 3 hours today. Lila's flight from Chengdu was delayed due to weather in Shanghai. Karl's flight from Shanghai was delayed due to weather in Beijing. The majority of the delay was spent waiting on the plane. We gained some cultural insight: no matter what country, passengers everywhere get frustrated with long delays! At least in China, the attendants serve you food and drinks.

The following are text messages from Karl...

9:51PM: After 4 plus hours at the gate, I am starting to feel like a prisoner. There are reports of a plane scheduled for one hour later departure already touching down in Beijing. All the passengers are starting to revolt and complain extremely loudly. If they don't do something shortly we could all end up being stormed by the Chinese police to settle this group down. All they keep saying on the intercom is sorry for the delay. I can't believe this!

10pm: We now have 50+ people standing up and screaming at the top of their lungs asking for an explanation. The flight attendants are smiling and saying they don't have any more information. This is getting funny. I wish I understood some of this tragic, comedic dialogue!
Ps now every flight request button is being pushed!
Ps I don't see any police, but they must be on the way!

10:11pm: We are moving! Looks like they are moving us to a spot easier to storm. Or maybe we are going to take off? I'll tell you shortly!

Since that was the last message I received from Karl, I assume he's on his way to Beijing. However, if I don't hear from him in 24 hours, I will have to figure out how to contact the police.

Pet Peeves: Enough of the Niceties

2008-06-22T21:16:00.000-07:00

We’ve moved out of the honeymoon period, and now are at the point of becoming more acclimated to Shanghai life. With that, comes some observations…

Top Pet Peeves

Internet connection is s_l_o_w, unstable, and often blocked
(frequently websites are inaccessible, particularly blogs)
The food is awesome, but if there was ½ as much oil, it would still be too much
Everyone talks SO loud – whether on the phone or to each other
(it really sounds like people are mad all the time)
It would be nice to have a cell phone connection that lasts more than 10minutes in a car
Did we mention the rough toilet paper? As Nabeel said, "never underestimate the value of your a… "
Spitting…and other bodily fluids and sounds: whenever. wherever. ICK!

Things that were pet peeves, but are now rather charming…

Without their little crotchless pants, little kids peeing on the street wouldn’t be as cute
The sheer size of Shanghai means there is much to explore. If you wake up early enough, you can even explore with only 10M of your closest friends. (Population estimates vary from 18-30M depending on who you ask, and what assumptions they have made about unofficial population numbers.)
CCTV Channel 9 is affectionally called "propoganda TV"
There is no shame in hanging laundry outside to dry for your neighbors to see, especially if it’s colorful undergarments

Pix: Around Shanghai

2008-06-19T02:13:00.000-07:00

Karl's pictures from around Shanghai:

http://www.liebat.com/gallery2/v/Karl/China/Shanghai_Summer_08

Vietnam: Pix Posted

2008-06-16T17:42:00.000-07:00

Karl finished posting his Vietnam pictures: http://www.liebat.com/gallery2/v/Karl/Vietnam/. We included the “whole-BBQ dog” pictures, so dog lovers skim pictures carefully.

One Year of Marital Bliss …and Change

2008-06-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

June 16 marked our first wedding anniversary. What a year it has been! In the past 14 months, we sold Karl’s house in San Diego, bought a house in Palo Alto, moved Lila from Sunnyvale, got married with the most amazing wedding (ok, we’re biased :)), had job changes for both of us, and moved to China. It has been a wonderful and amazing journey for us.
We decided to take a weekend away to celebrate. About 2 hours outside of Shanghai is a town famous for its tea, lake, and beauty. Even Marco Polo is said to have commented on Hangzhou’s beauty. You’d never guess this town of 6M people would be so pristine and relaxing!
Although it was a rainy weekend, there was some occasional sunshine. We started with the Tea Museum, which was fascinating. As all good museums, it ended in the store – but not before a bit of tea tasting. During our honeymoon stop in southern China, we really enjoyed tea tasing –and were thrilled to try again. We settled our belly full of tea with a local meal out of someone’s house before continuing on to the Silk museum. The afternoon ended with Karl’s driver Peter dropping us off at the hotel for the night. After some relaxation, we ventured out for dinner. We were so excited to say enough basic things in Chinese that the wait staff understood us! The famous dishes were river shrimp in tea, beggars chicken (even Lila liked it), and a pork dish. Dinner was followed by a long walk around the city and a few mosquito bites, before returning to the hotel for a fabulous 2 hour massage.
Early Sunday morning, we went biking for ~3 hours around the lake and into the tea field countryside. The lake is gorgeous with bridges, pedestrian walkways, lily pads & lotus ponds, little islands, tai chi & dancers. It was so much fun! Our hotel package included a 30min massage – which was just long enough to be a refreshing end to bike ride. After brunch, driver Shen picked us up. On our way out of Hangzhou, we stopped in the old town with a visit to the Chinese Medicine Museum (absolutely fascinating with the history of medicinal cures based on plants and weird animal parts!). Hangzhou was great - we will definitely be back.
While we were away, our drivers and Ayi (maid -3x/week) kept our Shanghai life on track - dropping off dry cleaning, picking up our artwork that was being framed, buying groceries, etc. This is especially helpful given 2 careers + Lila’s 2 hour commute each day + Karl’s customer meetings. We find we have more time together living here. With all the changes, we’ve had to depend on each other more. We are exploring, learning, and growing together. It’s been an adventurous first year of marriage – and a very special one at that! May it be followed by many, many more. J

Week of Action: from Texas to Taiwan, Grilling in China to being Generally Lazy

2008-06-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

Karl in Texas: Beef, Jeans, and Espresso. That is what stands out in my mind from a 6 day trip back to Texas. I was in Texas for a staff meeting and had a chance to even enjoy some good ol’ American baseball. Driving? Well, I didn’t hit anything. After a month of not driving, it actually came back pretty quick thanks to basic American driving rules (China’s driving rules are more spontaneous). I was a bit surprised that gas prices are so high – even in Texas. In China, gas is a set price at $2.60/gallon , which means it’s costing the chinese gov’t billions of dollars. Per a blog we read, that policy won’t change until after the Olympics is over. While in the US also had a chance to do some shopping. There were a few key purchases. First, benedryl for the never-ending rash as it’s not approved for sale in China. Also used some of the final wedding gift cards to purchase an espresso maker. While we love the coffee at Starbucks here (they warm the milk!), at $3.20 for plain coffee (latte is ~$5) it was getting to be an expensive habit. And for Lila, they don’t open until 7am – well after she’s departed to work for her hour commute. The highlight – other than catching up with the team - good Texas food – BBQ, steak, Mexican!

Lila in Shanghai/Taipei: While Karl was in the US, I had my first weekend to myself in Shanghai. I have to admit it was a bit depressing not to have anyone to call or go out with. My one friend had in-laws in town. At the same time, I decided to enjoy some quiet time. As Nabeel (brother) said, “it was the ‘old Lila’ weekend break.” I spent a lot of time at the gym, working at coffee shops, running errands, cooking, and sitting outside. It was very mellow, and exactly what I needed. I also spent 4 days in Taiwan for the Computex event, arriving the morning after their earthquake. That’s 2 of 3 times I’ve been to Taiwan in the past month when there’s been earthquakes. Computex went well for us – a lot of customer meetings and a big launch. It was great to see some US friends as well.

Together in SH: Karl returned on Saturday afternoon, just in time for a major rainstorm. We had a home-cooked Vietnamese dinner with some of Lila’s colleagues. It was fabulous food and great company. They live on the Pudong (east) side of the river with nice views. We even got to see a little fireworks show from their pad. Sunday was Dragon Boat Festival holiday. A lot of places were closed, but we managed to get a few errands in. We took 3 of the Vietnam paintings and 1 Chinese embroidery (purchased at antique market) to be framed. We had a wonderful brunch at T8 restaurant, and for dinner we barbecued! Yes, we shipped over our grill, managed to get it switched to Chinese propane (regulators & connectors different), and voila! BBQ! It was awesome. Monday was a work holiday, and we pretty much stayed put. Karl didn’t leave the house and Lila only left to pick up some ginger, milk, & bananas at the street market behind our house (for a whopping $3 total). We got a lot done around the house – some of the final unpacking/organizing. Karl worked on photos, and Lila did some work. The cleaning lady came too. We’ve realized that we get so much time back in our lives together with having drivers and Ayi (helper) running errands for us.

Vietnam - the end of our first vacation

2008-05-28T22:38:00.000-07:00

Our vacation has ended and tomorrow we return to work. We're both returning very refreshed and with everything in perspective. It feels great & was such a wonderful trip. After Halong Bay, we wandered around the city and bought some art. Our legs are so tired from all the walking! Had another nice dinner too.
Most of today was spent in airports. We left at 11am, transit in Hong Kong, and then arrived in Shanghai. Our Hong Kong connection was so tight that our luggage didn't make it! Fortunately there was nothing urgent we needed from the suitcases. And we actually had enough foresight to give Driver Shen a small suitcase before we left. He showed up at the airport with the suitcase for Karl, who continued onto Beijing for meetings.

Vietnam – Spectacular Halong Bay

2008-05-27T19:37:00.000-07:00

After reading so much about Halong Bay, we decided to do a 2-day/1night side trip. We did some investigation before arriving in Vietnam, but had not made reservations. Our desired tour didn’t include transfer from Hanoi – another $115 adder! We instead decided to go with the tour company recommended by the hotel. We left at 8:15 for a 3.5hr journey to Halong Bay. The boat, Bahya, is made of wood with Chinese Junk style influence. It’s very charming. The capacity is 40 people, but there are only 3 other groups on board (3 Austrian women, 9 Indonesians wrapping up 2 week family trip, and 2 other people who we barely saw). The bay itself is 600 square miles and ~3000 islands, located in the Gulf of Tonkin. It’s said the bay’s topography developed 250,000 years ago when the limestone was under the ocean.

This has been the highlight of Vietnam – hands down. The scenery is absolutely stunning and has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Picture 2000 islands made of limestone jetting out of the Bay. Old style junks and streamer boats wandering around, among the fisherman who are seeking squid and fish.

We watched the sunrise and sunset, learned how to squid fish, did Taichi exercises after sunrise, learned to make fried spring rolls, and dined outdoors. There were also a few side trips. We went into the ‘Surprise’ grotto and visited a fishing village where the houses are on water – no usable land nearby. The floating two room school house was very adorable, as were the kids on summer holiday who rowed up to see us. We quickly learned that life as a Vietnamese fisherman is not bad – the floating water village included multiple big screen TVs w/ satellite service. Fresh water and land foods are brought in daily by one of transport ships. There are no taxes and the government pays/subsidizes the fisherman. Not a bad life in this beautiful bay.

Every worry and rush seems to melt away while we’re out here. We definitely need to get to water more frequently! :) It’s been a wonderful – but way too short - stay on the boat. Life is good…!

Vietnam – Nice day in the countryside + the grossest sight ever!

2008-05-25T21:32:00.000-07:00

This may be surprising with a Shanghai address, but Karl really is not a city boy. While Lila loves city life, she’s also a country person as well. So after a day of sight-seeing and traffic in Hanoi, we hired a private tour guide and driver for the day trip to Ninh Binh & Hoa Lu. (Figured we could also do without the war memorials & museums.)

The first stop and highlight of the trip was a river cruise. The 2 hour journey was in a row boat, very low to the water. We were surrounded by rice paddies, limestone karsts (towering mountains), and a few other boats. Given the lack of westerners, we were a tourist site by ourselves for the school kids who were also on the river. We’ve had our picture taken with complete strangers, heard “Hello” countless times since moving to Asia. Although sometimes we feel like characters at Disneyland, it has also been charming. There’s not that much to say about the ride, aside from the fact it was beautiful, relaxing, and so hot that we were sweating endlessly! Lila even got some exercise in. She felt sorry for the old lady trying to row us, so she chipped into help. Clearly her professional strength is in the cubicle workplace and not on the river.

After a quick lunch break, we took country roads to the former capital of Vietnam, where we visited two temples that were 17th century recreations of the originals. Having lived in China, we have picked up 2 habits:
1) Our table manners have deteriorated relative to Western standards. We make a mess when we eat!
2) Chinese public toilets prepare you for anything. We can now go to any public bathroom and not be grossed out.

The drive back was so relaxing – passing rice fields with people and water buffalo. There were occasional towns with cathedrals jetting above the “skyline” – a reminder of past French missionaries who settled here in the early 1800s. It’s very picturesque and calming. The homes are quite narrow and tall. Taxes are based on the width of your land, and people save money for a decorative front facing. The facades are very colorful and ornate with unpainted concrete sides (assuming someone will build next door). Karl noted that this is reminiscent of a Hollywood set! The colorful facades are even found in the countryside, where you often see large rectangular ponds for raising duck and fish.

** Warning – following text may be too graphic for dog lovers **
Speaking of pets and food… we also passed a market where dog meat is sold. Apparently dog can be bbq or grilled. It’s often eaten in the 2nd half of month to rid bad luck. Our guide explained that the good news is that this delicacy is not the same as your pet. There are dog farms who specialize in raising tasty Fido. Despite all her travel, Lila has never seen this before. We did take a picture during a drive by. Upon close observation, the head of the dog is visible. Due to graphic nature, we’ve opted to keep it out.
** end gross story **

By the time we got back to the hotel, we were exhausted. We eventually made it to dinner, then had a long walk back to the hotel – successfully dodging mopeds. Although we’ve been gone a weekend, we definitely feel more relaxed and content. We’re both surprised by how quickly we were able to shut down from work!

Finally, a few key learnings about private tours:
* Always start 1 hour than they plan to start. It helps beat crowds and results in better lighting for photography. We only did 30min ahead – was good but not enough time.
* Make sure you don’t hit great photo sites in the middle of the day – if you do, then ask to adjust schedule (e.g. reverse order, starting earlier, etc.).
* Always do 1 thing off the standard tour schedule. We took country roads between sights versus standard roads. The result was a very bumpy – but very beautiful - drive.
* Ask to go to local restaurants and select off the menu versus the poor adaptation of local food tailored for western palates

Vietnam Vacation: People on the Move, Where Baby Puppets Come From, and other adventures

2008-05-24T19:29:00.000-07:00

Exactly 2 months after we arrived in Shanghai, we set off on our first vacation. Destination: Vietnam. It was a last minute trip resulting from both need for a break and opportunity (US out for Memorial Day)! Vietnam was chosen based on a past trip Lila made and that several of our friends love it here.

We arrived Friday afternoon in Hanoi -- population of 4.5M people and at least 3M mopeds! After 2 days here, the best description we have is that Hanoi is a city on the move. There is constant motion, and feels far more active than Shanghai.

Upon arrival, Lila “forced child culture” on Karl by insisting they go to the famous water puppet show. It’s a charming tourist trap and well worth the $3.50 for the hour performance. With live traditional music, very artistic puppeteers controlled the puppets with bamboo cane from under the water & behind the stage. Sound confusing?! It was! The highlight was the phoenix bird puppets who joined together momentarily before we realized they were actually reproducing. Out popped an egg puppet followed by a baby puppet. Not sure this qualified as G rated. We left the theatre to seek out dinner but were quickly confused by the poor maps. Fortunately a drunk bicycle taxi driver “helped” us. He led us on a 30 minute adventure in the front seat of the bicycle rickshaw. It was an exciting way to get indoctrinated into Hanoi’s traffic chaos (imagine bees – on bikes, in cars, in rickshaws, on mopeds- swarming a beehive). Dinner was at the very lovely Wild Lotus where we had an 8-dish set menu and bottle of wine for a mere $50 total in a very beautiful setting.

Saturday we spent 8 hours walking around Hanoi’s Old Quarter. Some highlights:
* The architecture is gorgeous. A lot of brightly colored, narrow and tall, French style building fronts. For ~80 years, Vietnam was a French colony and still has strong French influences.
* There really aren’t that many foreigners, and very few Americans. We’ve seen/heard a lot of French, Canadians, Australians, and Japanese. Interesting to note that the US dollar is accepted everywhere, in addition to local currency. We wonder how the foreign visitors are doing converting US dollars to their local currency in the price negotiations.
* There were 24 official stops according to the Frommers guide, but we mostly enjoyed the bargain basement shopping. Vietnam’s art, lacquer, and clothing options were all outstanding!
* A lot of farmer merchants actually wear the pointed cylindrical, woven hats and carry a pole on their shoulder balancing 2 extremely heavy baskets.
* Crossing the street is like a game of Frogger (lila translation of Karl’s video game reference: makes Purdue jaywalking seem like child’s play). There are no lights, lots of 2 & 4 wheeled vehicles, and no breaks. Karl was initially timid, while Lila embraced the challenge. It all changed when lila declared, “Follow-me! Follow-me!” Then BAM! A moped lightly ran into her. No injuries, just ego. Karl didn’t need Lila any longer to cross the street.
* There are “Reproduction Art Shops” everywhere – which do a great reproduction of oil paintings by famous artists. Example: a real painting by a high end Vietnamese artist is US $2,000 but a knock-off version is $20. They seem to have mastered the western artists much better than up& coming Vietnamese. Van Gogh for 20$ anyone?
* Streets are named after their original goods sold. Bamboo Street, for example, sells bamboo used for construction, decoration, and smoking pipes. Our route took us through door knob/lock street, shoe street, etc.
* There were people everywhere. No one seemed to be inside, except at internet cafes. It appears the favorite pastime is sitting at an outdoor restaurant eating with your friends.
* Local food is cheap! Lunch consisted of 2 noodle bowls with delicious toppings and 2 beers for a whopping $5.
* The President of Rwanda happens to be in Vietnam and staying at the same hotel. Lila feels like she's back on a geo trip with Craig - pointing out security and staffers. She met President Kagame in Rwanda last year, but didn't have guts to seek him out in Vietnam!
* We finished the day with dinner at the Green Tangerine, in honor of Melissa’s birthday. It’s a great French restaurant where Karl enjoyed green tea encrusted duck breast with lychee and Lila had a fabulous 3 rice seafood paella.

China Earthquake

2008-05-19T17:45:00.000-07:00

The big news last week was the earthquake. Lila was in Taiwan when Karl sent the following from Beijing (1000 miles from the epicenter): “Just my luck – I just arrived in Beijing for a meeting when we have an earthquake here. Now I'm starting to feel like home. I have no clue on the size --- but my guess is 5.3 or so. I just ignored it… but all the locals evacuated the buildings … I just looked outside and there are millions of people out there. I'm not sure what is safer – hiding in the building or waiting for one of them to collapse on top of you. I'm fine however the local Intel sales team thinks it might have been 10 years since they felt a earthquake here."
Karl then sent the follow-up mail: “Oh my gosh… I just pulled the report from the earthquake site. It is listed as a 7.8 only 6 miles below the surface (but over 1000 miles away). No wonder we felt it all the way over here!"
It turns out that the Shanghai site also felt it and sent everyone home. They were told to expect light aftershocks in the evening so people stayed home. Fortunately all is fine with everyone we know. The government just announced that May 19 - 21 will be the China Mourn Days to grieve the earthquake victims. During the 3 days, the national flag is at half-mast across the country and all the entertainment is to be stopped. We didn't realize what that meant until we got home and flipped on the TV. Several channels were blacked out with statements:
“Dear subscribers, According to an announcement of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, May 19 to May 21, 2008 are national mourning days. In order to express our heartfelt condolences for the victims of the disastrous earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan Province, we will suspend the relay of overseas channels with limited landing rights that contain entertainment programmes during the above period. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.”
Sports, the Discovery Channel, and Star Movies are still going. Meanwhile, the Chinese stations are filled with the sad images and reporting from out west. Between record snowfall and earth shaking, it appears Mother Earth is sending a message to China.

Airports Galore

2008-05-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

Somehow putting the below with the earthquake update didn't seem right. So on to the more mundane things in the Liebat household…

KARL: I spent 3 days in Beijing this week. The Chinese airport is so funny: for everything that is almost liquid they take it out of bags and smell it. Then they randomly decide what you can keep and what must be thrown away. This time they decided that my hair stuff had to go. After 4 trips, this happened to be the time someone decided hair products could not go through. Unfortunately, airport negations have not been covered in my Chinese lessons. However, I practiced my Chinese with Driver Peter, and he understood about 95% of all the words I said. I can now also count to 900,000!
This week I also found out that they don't sell Benedryl in china. I went to the pharmacy and they finally gave me two drugs in the same family. The problem is that they don’t work! They had to get doctors ok for both but said I could have gone to a Chinese clinic and gotten both without doctors approval. How strange. This rash over my body has me missing the overpriced American health system.
We shipped our grill from the US since it was brand new. Too bad the Porsche couldn’t be shipped too. Anyway, the total cost for installation and 2 tanks is about $115US. Each tank refill will be US$13 – not a bad recurring revenue. The company also has air filters. We have one now – that’s about the size of Lila. The “gas tank, air filter” guy said we need another one given the size of our apartment. Although they cost thousands of dollars, it’s a small price to pay for clean air.

LILA: I spent 2 days in Taiwan this week, before heading to the US for my boss’ staff meeting. Unfortunately I ended up with massive stomach pains that killed ½ day of work and my shopping night.. I’m convinced it was the clean air. The weather was gorgeous – even hit 90s in Portland. The greens were beautifully green and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky! After a business dinner the next night I did squeeze in the Costco-Target run to pick up stuff. It was kind of wild driving, knowing my way around, and there’s nothing like terrible TV to make you appreciate American commercials. I did end the week very tired of airports after having gone through 11 airports (only 5 unique) this week. The worst part was the security and check-in lines at SFO were horrendous and my seat mates (had a middle bulkhead) kept invading my personal space. Very excited to be home in China!

You must be allergic to China

2008-05-10T16:34:00.000-07:00

Karl’s rash saga continues. He made it to the doctor again, who finally determined, “you must be allergic to China!” He’s on another dose of benadryl and non-scratch cream. We also switched to a new hypo-allergenic laundry detergent vs. the “Chinese Tide” (or so we think it’s Tide because of the packaging tho we can’t read a darn thing!).

We ventured out this morning around 10am for a Frommers walking tour of the French Concession. The book said 4-6 hours but we couldn’t believe there would be that much to see. Guess what? We were out until about 5pm walking around! Last weekend, we did the Frommers walk from the JingAn temple to the waterfront in 3 hours. The book points out where to stop and gives you the history and background of the main points. For example, today’s walk took us by the hotel where Zhou Enlai and Nixon met in ’72 when China opened to the West. We went to Sun Yat Sen’s (China republic) former residence. We went into the lobby of the Hotel Okura and around the corner to see the beautifully restored art deco work.

Last week Lila’s staff was in town for 3 days of meeting. Three of them arrived with goodies we had requested – magazines, healthy snack food, wine, and cereal! It was good to have everyone from the US, Brazil, and China all in 1 spot for 3 days. Some folks came early & left late, so we also enjoyed the social time with everyone. Lila also traveled to Taiwan on Monday. It should be ~3hr flight, but you can’t fly directly between Taiwan and China due to political reasons. That means transit is required in Hong Kong, turning the short journey into a 6 hour trip. Hard to do in 1 day, but can be managed w/overnight. The rumor is some upcoming election may resolve this in time for direct flights to start in July.

Our sea shipment finally arrived. We hung up some pictures and are kicking ourselves for not bringing more. Some of our clothes smell like “yucky sea” so we’ve put everything through our tiny washing machine. We did laundry all weekend, but saved the ironing/folding for Ayi (helper/maid). We’re also sending relevant stuff to the dry cleaners, which is fortunately a tiny fraction of the US cost.

In honor of mother’s day tomorrow, we cracked open a can of Cincinnati’s famous skyline chili that Karl’s mom Mary gave us before we left and sitting out on the balcony with a glass of Zinfandel in honor of Lila’s mom. The weather is fabulous, though it’s rained the past few days. The view is quite nice as pollution and heat haven’t hit yet. There’s a symphony building near us so sometimes – like now – we can hear people practicing. It’s a nice distraction from the construction that’s happening about 3 more blocks down. It’s 7:40pm on Saturday night and they’re working!

Sunday afternoon we went up to the 12th floor club room of our apartment complex. We didn’t even know this place existed! The owners keep it for Thursday Mahjong parties with their friends and as their own benefit. They made the mistake of inviting the tenants up for “tea time.” The building is only 1/3 full or so, and the tenants are really vocal about everything that’s wrong. For example, the TV signal dates back to America 1950s (but in color) and the utility bills are outrageous (because we are charged commercial vs. residential rates, and charged for common areas such as lobby). The group now wants to take the Chinese landlords to a disputes court to hopefully resolve the billing differences. If that doesn’t work, most of the tenants will move out when their lease is complete (one already left and just walked away from his security deposit). As an FYI: the difference in utility bills between consumer & commercial rates is about $150-300 / month (depending on personal usage).

More Pix from Karl

2008-05-03T16:52:00.000-07:00

More pictures posted from weekend adventures from Nanxu (blog update to follow soon): http://www.liebat.com/gallery2/v/Karl/China/Nanxu/

We're way overdue on Shanghai pix. Lila has a few to post, but Karl added a few here: http://www.liebat.com/gallery2/v/Karl/China/Shanghai_08

Socializing! Kidney Massages, Duck Tongues, and Another Ancient Town

2008-05-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since the last update. We’re getting into the groove of living in Shanghai, especially as Lila hasn’t been traveling.

Last weekend we were lucky to finally have some social opportunities. Larry and Jean were visiting from the US, and we were able to meet up Friday and Sunday night for dinner. We had a great time with them, and they even helped us reconnect to Deanna (a former colleague) who now lives within walking distance from us. We also had Karl’s driver (Peter) show them around on the weekend – our first trial run. By the time the rest of you get here, this should be a well-oiled machine! We also met up with work colleagues on two other occasions – Saturday night and Sunday brunch. We’re slowly getting answers and tips to all of our expat orientation questions. In addition, it is so nice to start having a social life.

Among the weekend activities, Karl got his first kidney massage designed to remove toxins from your body. Karl decided that it was a little “too personal” for his western comfort zone. On the bright side, he felt less sluggish for the following days.

We spent Saturday exploring Suzhou, about 1.5 hour away. The old town, dating back to 464BC (!!) and famous for its gardens, is surrounded by a moat and canals with a modern city around the corner. We spent time at the “Humble Administrator’s Garden” (which is also translatable as ‘garden of the stupid officials’). Dating back to 1513, it would have been absolutely beautiful if there had been a few less hundreds of thousands of people. The nearby pagoda, topping 122 feet, was built in 1119 and now leans 10 degrees or so. The area was famous for its silk back in Tang Dynasty (600-900AD). The silk factory included some of the old looming machines that were unbelievably complex but still functional. For 15minutes, we watched 2 women operate the machine and still could NOT figure out what/how they were doing because of the complexity. We did gain another important key learning from the day: when a map looks like it is only 3 blocks, it’s really an hour walking away. Everything here is so spread out. We’re definitely getting a good share of walking exercise.

Karl had another business trip, this time to Xiamen on the southern coast of China across from Taiwan. The city has a population of 3M, and is mainly considered a tourist city. Karl’s customer manufactures and builds PCs here for North Asia. During his travel, Karl took Shanghai and Xiamen airlines. Because the government sets the airline prices, the smaller airlines differentiate themselves through service levels. Imagine this: they served beverages 3x, a meal and 2 hot towels during a 1.5 hour flight. The downside: no frequent flier miles with a US airline partner.

The food in China has been wonderful. Yesterday we found out there are > 40k restaurants in Shanghai! We haven’t gotten tired of Chinese food – there’s so much variety. In fact, Karl’s staff is trying to teach him how to identify the varieties of Chinese cuisine. This week was particularly interesting as they forced him to expand his culinary horizons while in Xiamen. He ate duck tongue, chicken feet, and multiple types of mushy unidentifiable sea stuff. Shanghai is known for its dumplings and sweet and sour flavors. There is a lot of oil and carbs in the food, which makes dieting difficult. We’re getting to the gym regularly to keep the weight in-check.

Other mundane daily life type things:
We both have our official Chinese work permits. Our sea shipment from the US should clear customs next week. We’re anxious to personalize our apartment! We are still learning to communicate with our ayi (maid). She now cooks dinners for us, does our laundry (though our whites & blacks are now both grey), irons (though everything still looks wrinkled), and cleans (but doesn’t pick up a vase to see the dust under it). This is actually very common here as standards of cleaning are different. We are still in training mode and hope the new book we bought (Ayi Survival Guide) will help. The drivers have been great. We are learning to have them run errands, grocery shopping and dry cleaning. The most difficult thing, however, is the timing. If you say pick up at 7am, you feel obligated to be there (time to finally invest in a ‘fake’ watch).

We had an English bookstore craving. As we were wandering around we found the very limited magazine section with a government issued catalog on the process for ordering foreign magazines and newspapers. A 1-year subscription to the New York Times costs $2500. Most every other magazine was over $400 / year. I guess we won’t be indulging in any US magazine subscriptions! In plain print, the catalog also states, “We hope our customer don't show the newspapers and periodicals on the public places.” ?!

We also discovered Taikang Lu. Tucked off the main road, it’s a hidden gem of small boutiques, art galleries, and restaurants housed in the old shikumen style buildings. The shikumen are British style terraced housing with elements of Chinese courtyard style house, literally translates as “stone gates” after their fancy archways. At times, up to 80% of population lived in these style houses. We read they cram 120 of these houses per acre (a developers dream!). The area was restored approximately 8 years ago, but hadn’t taken off as a successful shopping area until 2 years ago. Now every Japanese photo tourist has this top of their destination.

Pictures from Xitang, the water village

2008-04-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

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/

Boats, Planes, Really Old Villages and $10 Ice Cream

2008-04-23T05:52:00.000-07:00

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.

My Mouth Muscles Hurt!

2008-04-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

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.

Intel invades Shanghai; Multi-hour Nail Polish Search

2008-04-05T10:21:00.000-07:00

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.

$2 Charmin & Other 1st Week Experiences

2008-03-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

Shopping: We made it to Carrefour and IKEA on Thursday to buy basics, and back on Saturday to Carrefour for groceries. The only thing special about shopping at either location is doing it with your million closest friends. We learned never to go on weekends, unless you want to battle for bananas with 700 people.
When you don’t speak the language, shopping for familiar brands was the way we managed. One exception, however, was dishwasher soap. For 10minutes, we stared at shelves full of what said “dishwasher soap” but had pictures of hands or stacked clean dishes. We tried to ask people, but no one understood. Fortunately, about 20 minutes later, we found a European dishwasher soap in the next aisle (the hint was to remember the new tablets vs. liquid). Buying toilet paper was another challenge. No familiar brands, and the charmin squeeze test didn’t work on any of them. We went by price and picked the most expensive – which was US$4 for 12 rolls and still felt hard. The next day we found City Shop grocery store which is the high end foreign friendly store. They had charmin, but it was $2/roll of toilet paper. We guess our a$$ aren’t worth $2/roll afterall.

Chinese Conondrum: We had our first 2 hour Chinese lesson and were exhausted just trying to learn the basic sounds and 4 intonations (flat/high, rising, lowering, and lower+raise). We’d write more but don’t want to get discouraged. This language journey is going to be a long one.

Menacing Mattresses: After 1 night of “sleep” in our furnished apartment, we went to buy a new mattress. We’re convinced our wood floors are softer than the bed! The shopping journey took about a ½ day – longer then hoped. Imagine trying to purchase and arrange delivery of a bed when you don’t speak the language. We learned words for “longer” (given Karl’s feet hung over half of the mattress), “tomorrow” (for delivery), etc. We provided some entertainment for the mattress store people given the laughing and pointing going on. The good news is that we slept better with our new pillows, and the bed is arriving as scheduled tomorrow (or at least we think so). At the end, the store lady drug us upstairs to pick red envelopes off a silver Christmas tree. We had no clue what was going on. Imagine our relief when we realized Karl won 1000RMB (~120$US). The best part was the pay out was in cash.

Bonsai Bargain: Somehow we managed to tell Mr. Shen (driver) that we wanted to go to the flower markets. He drove us to the Pudong side (eastern side of river) to a 2-story flower market. We started with the fresh flowers that had beautiful arrangements, then got side-tracked with bonsai and orchids in the plant section. We purchased 2 amazing bonsai trees. One mini forest and one old tree. They’re really quite incredible and cost us less than $100. Karl also bought 3 types of orchids, including an unusual fragant one. A great stop for adding more life to our apartment.

Food Frenzy: We are living off guide books to find restaurants now. We’ve ventured off a few times to find things like a $1.50 breakfast with order of a coffee. Or, the food court downstairs from Carrefour for an awesome meal of ~$7. With IDF next week, some friends are in town and helping us explore. We tried the famous Laris at 3 on the Bund with Mark, Cameron, & Chris. Drinks were amazing, including Karl’s chili mango martini. Food was French-California style. Last night we met up Mark & Cameron again for margaritas at Zapatas, then found South Beauty in the French Concession. Lesson: never let Karl order at a Sichuan restaurant unless you LOVE spice. The dishes, full of chili peppers flavored with shrimp, chicken, or tofu, left us wishing we’d spent the $2/roll for charmin ultra soft! The meal ended with birds nest soup served in papaya. Karl ordered based on picture, not price. For those of you who’ve eaten this, you know it comes with a pretty price tag.

Random Settling In: Getting the apartment situated is a lot of work. We’re pretty comfortable and happy with the place so far. The location is very convenient to downtown areas and walking around. TV quality leaves a lot to be desired, so we found the DVD store where copies are sold for ~$1/ea. Mark also found a tailor in our neighborhood and took Karl along to order some slacks. The internet is generally slow, but we did get our vonage phone set up.

Early Relocation Days

2008-03-26T21:54:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been a whirlwind. Jetlag has hit hard and prevented us from sleeping through the entire night. Some highlights:

BANK ACCOUNT: Surprised how easy it was to set one up – if you speak the language. Fortunately, relo services helped us. It was quick, easy, and cheap – though we still wonder what type of account we really have?! For a mere 10RMB (~$1.50/yr), you too can have a Chinese bank account. You can also use any bank’s ATM machine for only 20cents versus the $2-$3 fee in the US. Wells Fargo allows us to transfer money for free to the Agriculture Bank of China, which happens to be ~2 blocks from our apartment.

DRIVERS: Intel provides us with drivers, which is a great thing since we have absolutely NO desire to drive in Shanghai. It’s insane with streets full of the 20 million or so people and people turning left from the middle lane. We’ll have one full time driver and one part-time given our varying work site locations and hours. We asked for an English driver who doesn’t smoke. We talked with 4 drivers, 3 of whom smoke and only 1 could speak broken English. We chose the latter gentleman and a very eager and pleasant driver who we will learn to communicate with. Both know there is no smoking in cars. We didn’t pick the driver with the 2nd rated English ability (managed Hello, How are you, and Goodbye) because his car smelled like an ashtray. The last one had the best car and didn’t smoke, but lives 1 hour away and didn’t want to work early hours.

APARTMENT VISIT: Yesterday we got our apartment keys and gym registration. While we were unloading our suitcases, they went to the local police station to get us our neighborhood registration. We love the fact that people will run errands with us, versus us standing around for 1 hour understanding 1 minute of what transpires in the translation service. That’s pretty much how the apartment check-in went too. Our relo assistant went through some laundry list with the apartment manager while we stood around getting a 1 second summary of a 5 minute conversation. After a while, we started doing our own thing – moving furniture around and unpacking. The apartment itself is really nice. We’re pleased with the location – right off a main shopping street. We also like the apartment a lot, even though it’s a bit sterile with minimal furniture and no pictures. Tomorrow we’ll visit Ikea and Carrefour to load up on basics so we can officially move in. Kind of hard to live there without soaps, toilet paper, plates/cups, etc.

HEALTH CHECK: Can you say assembly line?! This is a requirement for immigration. The whole “adventure” took a mere 2 hours for EKG, blood, ultrasound, chest x-ray, eye test, and general exam (including a “surgery check” to make sure we didn’t have scars on our bodies). Imagine 20 male and female strangers in robes – with no tops/bras on underneath, just slacks – being moved from room to room. Even the sitting area for each room was funny. One person goes in, everyone shifts down a seat. It was all ok until the very last 2 rooms which freaked Lila out, because very rude doctors yelling at her in Chinese. For example, Lila has had her blood pressure checked about 3x in the past month. It’s been great each time. Today, the doctor yelled at her “Relax! Relax!” because her blood pressure was so high. Karl loved the rude doctor who performed the ultrasound, shoving him onto his side so she could ram the sensor into his rib. Aside from those 2 rooms, we think it went well. We did learn that doctors’ unintelligible handwriting is a universal phenomenon.

FOOD: Hotel living has given us a chance to check out Shanghai’s famous culinary delights. With the help of our favorite travel guide, Frommers, we have embarked on best of Shanghai dining. Highlights include: The Door (Best restaurant Architecture), Crystal Jade (Best Chinese Dumplings), Element Fresh (Best healthy lunch), and tonight we will try Lapis Lapis (Best all around restaurant). Everything has been great since this portion of the trip is covered by the company’s expense reimbursement plan!

Shanghai Arrival

2008-03-24T07:20:00.000-07:00

We made it to Shanghai today! This is a great accomplishment given a four hour delay – in the plane / on the ground – to fix the food elevator at San Francisco Airport. The flight itself was a mere 12 hours; not too bad. We love the Shanghai airport’s efficiency. The immigration line was super quick. They have a voting system so you can rate your first interaction with Chinese airport staff. Can you imagine giving a US Immigration Officer a “Greatly satisifed” smiley face rating?!
Our six pieces of luggage were among the first off the carousel. We thought surely we’d be hit up by customs officers toting the suitcases and 4 pieces of carry on luggage we had. Alas! We made it through without any issue. Two drivers were waiting for us from the moving company. They insisted on helping us push our carts to the cars. Imagine a rather frail man pushing a cart with 4 American size suitcases up a mini ramp. Almost like a predictable B movie, the cart toppled over…twice. Hopefully no wine broke! We’re now on our way to the hotel for a few days why the finishing touches are made to our apartment.

“It’s weird not having anything on my calendar. It’s even more weird that we’re in a traffic jam at 9pm.” –Karl

March 23: Move + Easter + Birthday

2008-03-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

In following with tradition from the past 4 years, we decided to spend Lila's birthday on an airplane. The week leading up to the 23rd departure made us wish we had yet another week to get ready. It was unbelievable that we actually managed to get moved out of the house, after 3 days with the movers and 2 days packing on our own. Who knew we had so much?! Our house has been rented to a couple expecting their first child any day. Friends have bought our TV, receiver, kitchen cart, and a few other small items. Our cars are with Roadsport in Campbell, where Clint (car broker) will sell them for us. Nabeel & Asha are holding a few suitcases for our future US trips, and Mark is bringing 2 over for us in a couple of days. About 2000 lbs of our life is at sea, and the remainder in storage.
We moved to a hotel on Wednesday, then to the city on Friday. Karl arranged Friday night dinner at Michael Mina for Lila's birthday. We had a great time - highly recommend the restaurant! On Saturday, Karl went out on the bay with Jacques, while Lila was back at the house running last minute errands and made time for her last hamburger with Mel & Hai. Later that night, a few friends met us in the city for dinner and drinks. It was a great way to celebrate Lila's birthday and our send-off.
The trip was also a good forcing function for Lila to finally get her new drivers license and passport. She's traveling to China as Lila Ibrahim Liebat. It's interesting to have a middle name after so many years. Hopefully the matching last names will make things easier for us as we travel around - and of course, Karl is thrilled.

What were we thinking?!

2008-03-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

Karl’s friends had a surprise happy hour party for him on Wednesday, while many of them were in town for training. Karl thought he was going to grab drinks for an hour with Mark Parker and Lila. Meanwhile, ~30 Intel friends gathered at Faultline to wish him a happy deportation.
On Thursday, Lila kicked off the Santa Clara Women at Intel's 2008 speaker session with a 45 minute speech, followed by Q&A. Karl showed up in the audience - much to Lila's surprise. The first question dealt with balancing work and family life. After a brief response, Lila called on Karl to answer. That will teach him to show up at Lila's talks!
The big news of the week, however, was that reality hit. What were we thinking...agreeing to move to China?! We just got married. We just bought a house. We're finally settling into somewhat of a routine. Who will live in our house and buy our cars? How will we make new friends, learn a new culture/language/city, and adjust to living overseas? Lila's been through it before, but it's definitely different being older, more set in her ways, a home-owner, and wife. There's so much to do in the next few weeks....

All-in-One Party: House Warming + Going Away

2008-03-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

What great fun! We somehow managed to pull off our “all in one” party last night, even with Lila arriving from Shanghai yesterday and dinner plans with friends last night. Around 100 of our co-workers and friends joined us – from southern California, Folsom/Sacramento, and around the Bay Area. We started a bit early (4pm) since many friends were coming from out of town, with the last group leaving around midnight.
The menu included barbecue from Andys, baklawa from Shatilla bakery (Michigan), and Ohio’s famous chocolate buckeyes. Thanks to our moms for exporting the latter 2 items to California. Special thanks to our friends for helping us celebrate the new home and new move. It was a very fun celebration for us. Unfortunately, just as we're figuring out how to host parties, it's time to leave.

Leap Year News

2008-02-29T17:40:00.000-08:00

Happy Leap Year! We managed to squeeze in quite a lot with the extra day this year. In fact, this was a big week for new jobs in the Liebat household.
Lila just returned from her 2nd trip to Shanghai this year. The first was during the worst snow storm in China's history...or at least the last 15 years. The shuttle bus in Shanghai, for example, was running 4 hours late one day. In the US, we call that a "snow day" and take the entire day off! :) Lila has been busy adjusting to her new role, including a reorganization of the team. This week was the first time her new staff all got together to start planning for their future. She has come back energized and optimistic about the work year ahead. Also, a bit frantic since our house warming / we're moving "all in one " party is tomorrow night. Fortunately, Karl has helped with a lot of the planning.
Karl has just accepted a new role this week. We'd write it here, but probably better to let his new boss officially announce it first! We are both excited how well the position suits his interests and experience.
We have decided our move date as March 23 -- a mere 3 weeks away!?! We also finally got our authorization and were contacted by the moving company. Not quite sure why it's taken SO long. We decided to rent our house through a property management company to keep it simple for us. Still haven't sorted out the cars. Want a convertible or 2?!
More to follow post-party.

Random Updates

2008-02-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

THE BIG MOVE
Can’t believe we’re moving in a month! There’s still much to do with the house, cars, etc. We decided to rent our house through a property management company. While we weren’t thrilled about the fees, we felt it was the safest way to take care of our house especially as we’ve not lived there long enough to know its idiosyncrasies. We’ve already done a few small things to prepare the house for renting – paint touch-ups, bathroom fan, railing downstairs, etc. Now we can focus on the cars and belongings.

We’ve selected March 23 or 24 as our fly-out date. Yes, this is right on my birthday. After 3 years of birthdays on airplanes, it feels only appropriate that our Shanghai move would happen around then! This will give us a chance to pack up the week before, do a going away dinner with friends, and arrive in Shanghai in time for our health check and immigration paperwork.

VDAY = VIRUS DAY
Karl planned a wonderful date night on Valentine’s Day, but wasn’t feeling well. We were at Mantra having a fabulous fixed menu. When the entrée was served, he looked at me and said "we must leave now." When we got home, he gave me a beautiful orchid, a spicy chocolate bar, and a card. A few days later I gave him a card and medicine. Quite the romantic Vday – our first one as a married couple?! Karl was very sick for about 4 days, but has fortunately recuperated.

FAMILY LIEBAT VISIT
Mom Mary (Karl’s mom) and Paul (bro) arrived on Friday evening for a short visit. We went out in Palo Alto on Friday night for Tapas. Saturday we drove to San Francisco for the famous farmers market at the Ferry Terminal where we "sampled" breakfast by visiting all the stalls. We later continued on to Sonoma to pick up our last wine shipment and suspended our Wine Club. Did you know Ledson no longer does weddings?!? As always, we had a fabulous time up North. For dinner, we drove back and went to Manresa – a Michelin/Zagat rated restaurant in Los Gatos. Nabeel & Asha came by Sunday morning before we all left. The weather was terrible – pouring the majority of their stay. Despite the weather, it was fun to catch up over a quick weekend.
Paul and I get to see each other again at a conference in Vegas in April!

PARTY!
On 3/1, we will have a "House Warming/We’re Moving" party. We’re expecting around 80 people. We decided to rent heat lamps and have the food catered so we can enjoy the time with our friends. Karl’s threatening to put garage sale tags on everything!

AND WORK.
Work is going ok for both of us. Karl is deciding between 2 job opportunities in Asia, and hopes to have a decision soon. I have just announced a re-structuring of my team. I’m on my way to Shanghai to have the first staff meeting. When I combined the teams, I had 17 people reporting to me. It’s now down to a more manageable 10, including 2 who I brought in. We are working the next level of details and plan to roll out next week. I’m anxious to get this all done and move forward!

Christmas in the Midwest

2007-12-28T13:40:00.000-08:00

We’re now on our way back from the Midwest, delayed in Indianapolis due to Chicago snowfall. The holiday break was much needed and very relaxing. We flew into Indianapolis then drove 2 hours to Cincinnati for ~4 days with Karl’s mom and brother. On Christmas morning we drove back to Indiana for ~4 days with Lila’s family (sans Nabeel and Asha who are on their honeymoon in New Zealand).

While in Ohio we went to see “A Christmas Carol,” tried 2 awesome new restaurants, had an open house for Paul’s recently renovated pad, and met Paul’s new girlfriend, Amy. We celebrated Christmas Liebat style – big dinner Christmas Eve, followed by gift exchange. This year was a special gift exchange year – our moms received jewelry from our Asian honeymoon adventures, while Paul received a used camera (doh – need to work on that) that will soon be converted to a speciality infrared version. Paul gave Lila and Karl cooking lessons (a hint???) and mom gave us a beautiful Charlie Harper print and an intertwined heart necklace. Karl gave Lila a stunning sapphire and diamond bracelet to match her engagement ring. Lila needs work on her wife skills as she has yet to do Christmas shopping, despite it being her favorite holiday.

The nicest part of Christmas eve was spending it with the Liebat family together, while still making it to Indiana in time for the Ibrahim-style Christmas celebration. We arrived in Lafayette (a 3hr drive from Cincinnati) in time to finish filling the stockings. For the past decade or so, the Ibrahims have gotten small stocking stuffers as gifts while saving money for big family adventures. Because of the schedules, we did have one change to this year’s celebration – mom cooked. Typically the Ibrahim kids make Christmas dinner complete with handmade menus, but this year mom made an assortment of Arabic food for Christmas dinner and the days that followed.

Other holiday highlights included finishing our wedding thank you cards, much to the relief of our parents who were near disowning us. We also met up with Karl’s cousins in Ohio, and Lila’s childhood friend in Indiana. This was our first Christmas together married, and marked 2 years since we met each other’s families. May there be many more!

November Shanghai Pictures

2007-12-20T11:08:00.000-08:00

Some highlights from our Shanghai Preview trip are now posted: http://www.liebat.com/gallery2/v/lila/ .

Wrapping up our first week in Shanghai

2007-11-24T13:31:00.000-08:00

Our final few hours were spent exploring the neighborhood around Shanghai Mart (Intel’s sales & marketing office) before the driver picked us up for the hour journey to the airport. Apparently the world’s fastest train (magnetic levitating) also connects Pudong to the airport –but we haven’t figured out where the station is yet. After a week in Shanghai, United took pity on us and gave us a free upgrade to business class! The flight home was a mere 9.5 hours compared to the 13.5 hours going from the US to China. We arrived at 8:30am, 4 hours before we left. We’ve done well so far adjusting to the time difference – even took a walk to the farmers market and made it to the gym. Overall – Shanghai looks like it will be a great city to live in for a few years.
Some final thoughts:

Biggest surprises: very “foreigner-friendly” (can find everything and survive without Chinese language skills), more spread out than expected for a city of 20M people, you can have a blue sky in China
Thing we’ll miss most about the US: driving around in Karl’s Porsche with fresh/clean air
Thing we’re most looking forward to: the drivers, house cleaners, and experiencing China

While we’ve not settled on an exact move date, we’re thinking about March/April.

Lane Houses and a real Thanksgiving

2007-11-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

Based on Thursday’s adventure, we asked to see more houses and apartments in the French Concession neighborhood. We really like the tree-lined streets and character of the area. We began with 2 traditional Shanghai-style 1930s/1940s Lane Houses that had been restored. They are basically lanes of 4 to 5-floor townhouses off of main roads. In the end we decided it was too much stair climbing for a daily basis, especially if family comes to visit. One interesting housing possibility is a converted mansion subdivided into 2 or 3 bedroom apartments on a third of an acre lot in the middle of the action. The mansion option is amazing – except for the Chinese owners’ decorations which were inspired by an Italian designer who clearly loved Easter egg colors. We spent the afternoon on the Pudong (East side of river) checking out that neighborhood. We were in awe by a 4BR/3BA (plus maid quarters) apartment on the 43rd floor, which overlooked the river and the construction of the world’s tallest building (at least for a few months before the Dubai building finishes!). The apartment was as spectacular as the views. Unfortunately, Pudong is not convenient for work or downtown night life.
We finished the evening at Tom’s (Lila’s new boss) for dinner. He and his wife had over 3 other expat couples for a turkey dinner with all the fixings. Apparently turkeys are ordered from hotels since the local ovens are too small to cook turkeys. Also, we learned that cans of green beans cost $5/ea – so they had packed some from the last business trip! We had a great time and picked up quite a few tips on how to successfully transition to Shanghai.

House Hunting & Hairy Crab Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T22:26:00.000-08:00

While America celebrated Thanksgiving, we spent our first Thanksgiving as a married couple exploring Shanghai’s neighborhoods as part of our official “look see” preview trip. We met Juliana from the relocation company, who took us by surprise with her ability to flawlessly communicate in English, German, and Chinese.
The day started with apartments in the French Concession. This was the neighborhood everyone kept telling us we should live in as a young couple without kids. First stop: a brand new high-rise apartment with heated floors, Olympic size (mosaic) pool, daily breakfast, and beautiful views. While it sounds like a hotel, it certainly didn’t feel like it. The only issue was the location – a bit far from the main nightlife. We’ve decided we need to be in the middle of activity to motivate us to explore.
The other spectrum was an apartment in XinTianDi – a restored shopping district. GREAT location, tiny apartment with overly modern décor (read: red plastic with fake white fur!). Our favorite of the day was a newly restored 1930s French art deco building. It was a great location, the right size (3BR/2.5BA – big enough for guests!), good view, and nice furniture. Unlike Lila’s expats in Tokyo & Hong Kong, every Shanghai apartment comes furnished. This makes it difficult to find a place – you have to like the location, the apartment, and your Chinese landlord’s “decorating” skills.
While the 1930s French apartment was our favorite, we saw a handful of other locations where we could imagine living. We closed the day with a drive by tour of HongQiao neighborhood where many young families live in compounds. For example, our relo lady lives in a neighborhood of Canadian houses with all buildings and furnishings imported from Canada. The compounds vary in style (Japanese, American, etc.), but all have houses on small plots in a gated community which allows kids to have playmates and play in the compound streets.
After our “compound overview,” we stopped by Carrefour – a French-owned mega store that’s reminiscent of ‘Wal-Mart meets Costco.’ It appears we can find many US things here – with the exception of good California wine (hint if you ever come visit us!). We returned to the hotel for happy hour, where Lila discovered the secret to purifying ones throat after a day of pollution: a gargle of Johnny Walker sanitizes the body. While enjoying this discovery, we weighed our Thanksgiving dinner options carefully: turkey at Hooters, or Chinese Hairy Crab – both in season for a very limited time.
We opted for hair crab at a Chinese banquet restaurant. We entered the non-English speaking restaurant and were given a number while being escorted upstairs. After sitting for 5 minutes, we found our way to the room of fish tanks and raw vegetable stalls. With a bit of pointing, we were able to get our dinner ordered. However, we have to learn how to order preparation methodology outside of “stir fry with garlic.” We agree with local consensus: hair crab tastes great, but is far too much work to enjoy. Like every other evening, we closed the night with a very long walk to further explore our “home to be.”
ps. happy birthday Nabeel!

Jetlag kicks in hard core.

2007-11-21T22:25:00.000-08:00

Wednesday we woke up around 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep. By the time the 4:45 wakeup call arrived, both of us were showered and dressed for the day. Karl had a management review meeting that he needed to run with the folks back in the US at 5am local time. Lila headed into the office for another 8am start (and 9 straight hours of meetings). Two teams are being combined for her new group. One is predominantly engineering and product development. The other one is more focused on marketing, ethnographic research, and product definition. The majority of the team is split between the US and Shanghai, with some others in Brazil, India, and Egypt. While in Shanghai, Lila finished meeting everyone on her direct staff, a few peers, and also had some 1:1s with other very experienced people in her team. Although the job doesn’t officially start until December 6, she has a lot of responsibilities as the new general manager of the team. Karl spent the day around the hotel area to work out of the Shanghai Mart sales and marketing office. He had lunch with a friend’s co-worker, and the local site manager of the sales and marketing office. Everyone is extremely willing to help answer questions and start introductions that should allow Karl to find a new role for himself.
Wednesday evening, Karl arranged to have dinner with two other Intel expats. We headed back to the French Concession for a great Dim Sum dinner and another round of ‘ask for moving tips’ from the current expats. It’s amazing how different everyone thinks you should arrange the ideal transition. Caroline was in the minimalist mode – sell everything and move over with a suitcase. Our new friends on Wednesday said, “Move everything you own since you don’t know what you will need until you get here.” We will have to decide what strategy will work best when we head home on Saturday and start to digest everything we’ve learned. We’re looking forward to Thursday & Friday’s preview trip with the relocation company to settle on which neighborhood we want to live in. According to Karl’s friends, the most critical things to bring from the US are 2 high-end air filters for our new house and 1 for the car. According to them, the air quality is so bad that the government refuses to publish indicator reports. Even with all of the pollution and 2nd hand smoke, it’s supposed to still be better than Hong Kong. We wonder if oxygen tanks are also in our future!?!(ps. Excuse typos, still fighting jetlag --- writing this between frequent 5 minute naps)

Tuesday

2007-11-20T22:21:00.000-08:00

An early morning…. we had a 6:45am hotel departure to get to the office in time for 8am. The commute is only about 45minutes – but a bit unpredictable given traffic. Why aren’t we closer to the Intel site? There are 3 Intel sites in Shanghai: 1) there really is NOTHING out by the Zizhu Science & Tech Park (Lila’s office). (2) Visiting employees tend to stay in the Renaissance Hotel near ShanghaiMart (sales & marketing office), which is closer to the center of town , and (3) neither of us will work at the Pudong assembly site. Did you know Intel has over 7000 employees in China?
Lila’s work day was intense with back to back to back meetings. Karl had an exciting day though. At lunch, he moved from the beginner buffet line (Monday’s lunch adventure) to the advanced made-to-order noodle bowl line. Thankfully there was a few locals to help in translating everything. Karl and 2 other employees splurged for a combined total of < $2, while Lila skipped lunch because it was too expensive (and meetings prevailed). We were able to leave around 4pm and have enough time for a nap before Lila met someone who will be joining her team in December. By the end of the day, Lila had had about 24 meetings in a 2-day period, not unheard of - but definitely a lot to take in with a new job. By the way, the new job officially starts on 12/6.
Tuesday evening was dinner with a friend & peer of Lila’s, Caroline Pan, who moved to Shanghai about two years ago. We had a great Thai dinner in the French Concession neighborhood. That’s our favorite neighborhood so far because of the tree lined streets. After grilling Caroline for about three hours on everything to expect as an expat in China, we had a short visit to her house just minutes away. Thankfully we found her house to be a beautiful three bedroom, 2 bath condo, beautifully decorated – and within our expat housing budget range. Seeing Caroline’s house definitely reduced the stress of having to find an acceptable house in Shanghai. (Later we saw her complex is on our preview list for Friday.) For the shoppers out there, we have learned that there is a mall on every corner. It’s easy to understand why this city of 20M people is considered the most cosmopolitan of China’s mainland cities.

First Day at the Office

2007-11-19T22:08:00.001-08:00

Michael picked us up with his driver in the morning so we wouldn't get lost on our way to Intel's Zizhu office. Lila and Michael spent the 45minutes in a work conversation, while Karl sat in the back and counted 7 near miss traffic accidents. The Zizhu area has a technology park with very little going on around it aside from 2 universities and other tech companies. Lila spent the day meeting most of her new staff, while Karl used the time for online training and email.
We wrote yesterday's update on our 45minute commute back to the hotel. We found the commute back to the hotel to be good bonding time, and a nice start to our “date night.” Thanks to one of the admins’ arrangements, we had dinner at the “M on the Bund” restaurant which happens to be Josie & Mel's favorite restaurant. Apparently this Shanghai-favorite transformed the restaurant industry in ’99. Dinner was excellent – high-end western/French influenced cuisine – but overpriced. Lila’s favorite was the date pudding dessert, while Karl’s was the salt-encrusted lamb. We have realized we need to ration multi-course meals or invest in larger clothing. The view from the restaurant overlooked the river beautifully lit up at night. The lights weren’t just pretty – they were advertisements! This is China’s capitalism at its best. Karl was particularly fascinated by the mobile, high-resolution advertising screen sitting atop a floating barge. Lila’s favorite was the 50+ story high res that doubled as a 50-story LED billboard. As if the lights weren’t enough, we wandered down Nanjing walking street under the romantic glow of neon shopping signs. Karl practiced his “bu yao” (don’t want) every 10 seconds or so while hawkers offered watches, purses, and DVDs.

Discovering Shanghai

2007-11-18T22:30:00.000-08:00

Sunday was our “Shanghai Orientation” day. To get us started, we made a stop by the hotel giftshop to purchase the Lonely Planet Shanghai book. We have to say this is the best Lonely Planet book we’ve ever seen, and definitely more useful than the Shanghai Frommers book that was forgotten at home. Tom (my new boss) arranged for Stone, his driver, to take us around today. He is THE BEST driver in all of China. Qualifications: perfect English, great tour guide, excellent food orderer, Mandarin teacher, and a big gossip. The day started at the Bund, the financial district along the Yangtze river. The river divides Pudong (east) and Puxi (west) side of Shanghai. The highlights were the Pearl TV tower (a gigantic pink tripod with a pearl on the top), construction of the world’s tallest building, and a mix of collonial-style buildings which reflect the port city’s foreign influence over the centuries. Parking for ~2 hours in the prime location: $1.25. Gotta love Shanghai parking costs! Next stop: Old Town in the city center. This area reminded us of an old Japanese style country village – large wooden buildings with ornate rooftops. The surrounding market was crowded with shoppers. We learned an important phrase in the market here: bu yao (“not interested in your cheaper, cheaper rolex watches”). There was a long line outside the best dumpling place in town for take-out. We didn’t have patience to wait, but peeked in the window to see the dozens of workers hand making dumplings. It looked like people had been feeding the koi in the pond outside – they were perhaps the fattest we’ve ever seen. The area also boasts a Ming-style garden from the 1500s. It was gorgeous – and surprisingly large and complex. Yes, we got lost! On to the People’s Square for a short stop. Need to come back in the future, as it appears to be the equivalent of San Diego’s Balboa Park with museums, green lawns, and lots of flowers. We continued on to the French Concession part of town. There were a lot of “concessions” by the Chinese in their history – but no one seems to remember why (hint: anything for opium). We really liked the tree-lined streets, 1930s style buildings, and the fact that Shanghai Tang (our favorite store) was next to Ye Shanghai (yummy restaurant). We stopped by “Richgate” – a beautiful apartment building which looks as pretenious as its name. A mere $10-12k/mth for a 300 square meter flat. Not sure that’s in our budget. We departed French Concession for our first Shanghai meal in the People’s Square area. Our driver/guide/menu expert ordered an assortment of fabulous Shanghai food including pepper pickled veggies, crab and tofu, sweet & sour whole fish, another tofu mushroom dish, peppered pork, and a few other samplings. Total cost: $25. Final stop was an English bookstore. We both picked up flash cards and books. By the end of the evening, Karl had already learned to read 15 Chinese characters and say 7 Chinese words. We returned to the hotel for a 90minute tuina traditional chinese massage – much needed after our long adventure the day before. For dinner, we met up with Michael and Lilly, who studied and worked in the US before returning to Shanghai ~3 years ago. Michael runs the engineering and product development team that I’m inheriting. We went for spicy sichuan food, but soon realized no one has a spicier taste for food than Karl. By 10pm, we were back home at the Renaissance Yangtze, room 2611. I passed out due to jetlag approximately 26 seconds later. All in all, a good first day.

Arriving in Shanghai

2007-11-17T23:00:00.000-08:00

We made it to Shanghai! In fact, the adventure started this morning at 9am, Friday – but it wasn’t until 9pm, Saturday, that we arrived here. The “excitement” really started at 12, about the time we were supposed to depart. One of the engines was out and they tried to fix it – no luck. We’re just happy they found it at SFO! We finally departed at 3:30pm...by then our bottom’s already hurt from sitting so long! We were about 8 hours into the 13 hour flight when Karl turned to me and said, “If we were going to Siberia, we'd be there by now.” The great thing was the airport was new, extremely efficient (as measured by “time to get baggage”) and foreigner-friendly (even the immigration lady smiled when she talked to us!). The Renaissance Yangtze (as in river) has well appointed, tho very small rooms. This is where my group typically stays and it’s near the sales and marketing office. We’ll likely change hotels once I finish my 3 work days. Despite an Economy Plus window and middle seat, it took us time to de-pretzel ourselves upon arrival. So we decided to wander after unpacking. Unfortunately there isn’t much around here since it’s a business area. However, we still manage to find “Hello, Hello DVDs” and “cheaper, cheaper Rolex” being sold out of wagons on the side of the road. We even found a Hooters that serves Thanksgiving dinner if we can’t find a better option?! Tom (my new boss) is lending his driver to us tomorrow to tour the city. We’ll be having dinner with Michael (I’m inheriting his engineering team) and his wife. They are originally from Shanghai but lived in Oregon for a long time. More after we venture out tomorrow.

The life of our blog...

2007-11-01T15:39:00.000-07:00

Lila recently took a position within Intel which will take us to Shanghai. Karl is in the process of looking for a career move within Intel China, having given up his dream of being a stay-at-home Mahjong King hanging out with rich housewives. :)
You're probably wondering what the heck we're doing? Afterall, Karl did just sell his San Diego home in April. We bought a new house in May, and got married in June. Three weeks this summer we spent on our honeymoon in Asia - definitely not expecting to move there (at least not this soon!).
We have often talked about starting a blog, but have always ended up just sending emails to friends during our travels. We hope to do a better job of the updates by getting this site set up. Here's to the adventures that lie ahead!