Early Relocation Days

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!