Some more sights in Shanghai. And almost time to go home (yay)

Yesterday is mostly a blur. I did work stuff in the morning spending an hour with one of the new designers, and writing up some documents.

At lunch Sam had offered to take me to the fabric market, so we found Itamar and met Yngmei (not sure how to spell it, actually), and the four of us went to a new area of Shanghai (for me).



We had Cantonese food and then wandered around the fabric market. I was too tired and overwhelmed to actually buy anything (I know that's so awful), but it was 3 floors of fabric and tailors so I am so planning better for when I get to come back to Shanghai. They can recreate any design so you can bring a photo of a coat from a magazine and have them make it! The selection was gigantic, of course. But you have to bargain. Anyway, we wandered, I admired, but I didn't get anything.



After that I took the afternoon to chill out a bit. I've totally hit the wall on travel and am ready to go home. We were going to go out in the evening, so I took a nap and relaxed.

Around 7 I met up with Sam and Itamar again and we went to Xintiandi, a very cool neighborhood that is like a high-end cafe/shopping area built out of old Shanghai buildings. It's very European, and in some ways it's a bit artificial, but because of the alleys and buildings, I found it quite cozy.



Itamar, who is Brazilian, had suggested a Brazilian BBQ, so that's where we ate dinner. It was meat overload! They kept coming buy and cutting off more meat onto my plate! I had chicken heart, which was a first. Plus about 6 different areas of beef, some chicken, some lamb, who knows what else. Plus some traditional Brazilian side dishes and desserts, too. Very tasty and nice company.



After that we walked more around the city, down to the People's Square and Sam took me to some of his favorite buildings.


Itamar headed home to his wife, and once Sam and I walked a bit more around the square, we cabbed it back, too. I stayed up to do some packing, got a little sleep, and now I'm up so that David can take me to Yu Garden, which is apparently one of the best areas of the city. We only have a couple of hours, but it will be fun to walk around. I drove by the area before and the buildings look beautiful.

Did I mention I'm happy to be going home? I'm so tired and travel-weary. Even better, I thought I got home late on Friday, but it's actually the evening, so yay. Okay, off to get ready for a little more touring.

Shanghai nights

Up over 500 photos now!

I did my presentation this morning and it went pretty well. I had a few dozen people in the room. I always enjoy showing people clips from usability tests we've done too. But I forgot to get somebody to take pictures of me!

Anyway, prep and presenting took up the first half of the day. After that I went to lunch with the Shanghai designers, which was nice. We ate food that is from a region near Shanghai. Much of it was quite spicy, but good. And there was a famous dish, which I'm calling the chicken pot. It was very tasty. Irene got the chicken head and Sam got the foot. They also had tasty tofu. I have had so many wondeful tofu dishes since I've been here!



I also learned at lunch that Prison Break is a very popular show here. How odd. After lunch I did some work and managed to get my development team together for a picture, which I forgot to do last night. Great group of guys, these are!



I came back to the hotel near the end of the work day and just chilled out for a bit. Qiong and I were supposed to go shopping, but she ended up doing work stuff, so Sam, the office tour guide (even though he's actually from Hong Kong), took me out to dinner and then for walks around. We went for Hong Kong style food, which I enjoyed very much. I really loved the pineapple roll, the noodles, and the BBQ dishes. I also tried some of what Sam called "spoiled egg". Not sure how it's spoiled, but it's definitely black. Surprisingly, it wasn't bad at all.



The hotel and office are in Pudong, which is the more newly built tech-heavy, skyscraper-heavy side. On the other side of the river is older Shanghai, including The Bund (the shiny happy shopping street), the old French buildings, and cool views of Pudong from across the river. So we just wandered and I took lots of photos of things along the way. But night pictures are hard with my camera so many are fuzzy.



Sam assures me that we'll be able to see some of the older streets and more Chinese areas tomorrow.



I'm still having fun, but I'm getting pretty tired of trying to do everything. I look forward to getting home, hugging my dogs, and sleeping in my own bed...

Off to the office and meeting great people!

Today was my first day at work! It was very exciting.

Actually the morning started with discovering my hotel shower was like having my own rain cloud. Very fancy! Then I went up to the 40th floor club lounge for a very civilized breakfast. Frenchmen in the elevator, Germans by the buffet, South African asking for his coat... it's a multicultural place, the club lounge is.

And after getting myself ready, I looked outside and saw the thing that is almost a stereotype... a group of similarly dressed Chinese people doing calisthenics together in a big court. So strange. I even took video for full effect, but I'll be uploading video when I get back home.



Then I met up with Qiong and Xiaoyu and we walked over to the office. It's a pretty quick walk.



It was strange walking into a building jam-packed with people (the second half of the building is being renovated so there's too many people in the one half right now). One of the designers took us around to meet people, so I met the other designers that are here. Then I met up with David, the dev manager, who introduced me to most of the dev team I've been working with for close to two years. It was so wonderful to put faces to the names!

I spent most of the day doing emails, bugs, and other normal work. But it was nice to go discuss bugs with the developers. And I also had the dev manager plan a time for me to give a presentation about user research. It's the same one I gave to the Manchester team, but with far more people ready to attend. I don't think they'll all fit into the room!

For lunch, the designers from the architecture and engineering products went out, plus the development manager. That was fun. We went to a place that has Taiwanese type food. I had chicken, which was great. And Sam, next to me, had beef, which was also great. They also had a green tea jello-type dessert which was quite tasty!



After more work through the afternoon, my development guys took me out to dinner. The food was in the style of Gallen's home town (he's the lead developer), which is 500 km north of Shanghai. Some of it was medium spicy, but all of it was good. There was only one dish out of a dozen that I didn't really like, and I tried everything on the table. My favorite was tofu (shocking) and some of the mushrooms. Yum. The team seemed entertained that I could use chopsticks (check me out and my ability to pick up a peanut!), that I wanted to try everything and know what it was, and that I liked everything I tried. They were also fascinated that I have dogs. Not quite sure why, but they seemed quite interested by it. Anyway, I did not take nearly enough pictures of the food or the people, but here's the one I have.



After dinner we went back to the office and killed time before our 8pm meeting. Normally I'm on the other side of this, but it was fun to be in the room with the guys. Particularly because this was when we declared our feature complete and that we have no more regular meetings. Woot! No early morning tuesdays for me for a while, and no late nights for them! Also, I showed them a picture of the pugs. They thought they were great. I forget what David said the name for pug is here...

Finally, I walked back to my hotel with Sam, who was headed to his bus stop. He's from Hong Kong and is incredibly animated. If you ever saw the UBS guy on the old MadTV, he reminds me of him. :)

When I got back to the hotel, I found my laundry that I had them do today. It was in a basket in linen with an orchid on it. How posh is that?!



And now I must go to bed. When I volunteered to do the presentation, I wasn't quite figuring it to be tomorrow morning first thing, so even though I could easily do most of it off the top of my head, the large number of attendees means I need to at least run through what I'm going to say once or twice in the morning.

Also, in health news, I woke up with the stuffed nose, but after getting out of bed, it seemed to clear up and has been only a bit runny today. Hooray! Maybe I won't have a painful sinus infection when I fly home!

Shanghai or Blade Runner set? You decide...

I made it to Shanghai! Check out the view from my room!



Not much exciting stuff from today other than just being here. I hung out in the Beijing hotel room, had a fabulous breakfast in the club lounge (because I was staying in a posh part of the hotel), then went with Qiong and Jia to the airport. We had a great lunch at the airport, but I didn't take a picture, so you get a pic of the snack on the airplane, instead.



The airport and flying and travel to and from took most of the day, so we arrived at the St. Regis hotel in Shanghai in the late evening. This is a five-star hotel and you get personal butler service and everything. Thanks to my company for paying for this!

Check out the gorgeous bathroom sink including a fresh rose and Bvlgari lotion!



I'm on one of the two "women's only" floors where they give you nice lotions and fashion magazines. Sort of silly, but also quite cool.

Tomorrow it's literally back to work, with going to the company office 10 minutes away. Qiong and I have discussed ducking out early one day for shopping, but it won't be tomorrow. Not only will I be at the office all day, I'm on the other side of my team meeting. Normally it's 7am (or 8am during daylight savings), but for me it's 8pm tomorrow. Whee!

Okay, off to get some sleep. My nose is a little better, but I'm hoping sleeping in a less dry environment after drinking tons of water and taking decongestant will help.

So long to Beijing, but not before eating the famous duck

I am about 85% to a sinus infection. All that smoke in the hotel really did me in and I haven't been able to breathe through my right nostril for more than a day. Hopefully taking some medicine, a shower, and doing a little neti pot action will help, but I suspect I could make a doctor's appointment for when I get back and take full advantage of it. Ugh. I hope flying today is okay.

Yesterday I woke up and was extremely happy to be leaving that hotel, even though we were there all day. The afternoon session went well. I introduced myself and then Qiong and Xiaoyu taught the class. I went over to the other 'desker class for a while, but since Dong was doing at least 1/2 in Chinese anyway, I thought I'd just sit in my own class and take photos to record the big event.



After the class we said our goodbyes to coworkers, and then Qiong, her husband, Jia, and his friend loaded us up into his friend's car and the three of them took me to one of the most famous places in Beijing for roast duck (aka Beijing Duck, aka Peking Duck, aka the thing you MUST have when you come to Beijing).



Needless to say, it was a spectacular restaurant and the duck was fantastic. You actually take the duct and put it into the little tortilla-like thing with sprouts and sauce and then eat it like a mini burrito!



I also had duck feet in spicy mustard, more jellyfish, and Japanese tofu. And of course the noraml things like bamboo shoots, corn, chicken, and duck soup. It was all fantastic.



Everybody still seems impressed with how much I love the food and how willing I am to try everything that comes out. If I don't like something, that's fine, but if I don't take a bite of everything, that's just unimaginable to me.

Look, it's me and some fresh ducks hanging by the door!


After that we came to our new hotel downtown, which is a super-fancy nice hotel. And I have a club room, so it's got a great view and it's quite posh. It felt good to have the reception and concierge folks speaking enough English to be helpful, and the bed was great, and the bathroom is very slick. Ahhh... luxury...



I know I can do crashing in lesser hotels if that's the plan, but the conference hotel purports to be a fancy high-end hotel and it just isn't, so that was the most frustrating part. And the smoke. Ugh.

Anyway, I have a few hours before we leave for the airport and fly down to Shanghai. There's much in Beijing I didn't get to do, but I did a lot. And it just means there's more to do when I come back!

*bump*

Well not only am I bumped from the class I was going to help teach, but I got bumped from the class I was going to take. Rightfully, so, really... the instructor decided to teach in Chinese because most of the attendees are young fresh-out-of-school Chinese people, and although he offered his sister to be my personal translator, I figured I'd just step out since I would have to leave early to check out anyway. I got his info so I can get the slides from him and maybe ask him a few questions.

So now I have a few minutes for things I've thought of but haven't written about...

- The driving in Beijing is rather scary, only there seems to be some orderly system. People drive between lanes in traffic until they figure out which lane will go faster and then they dart into that one. Taxis and other cars edge into the next lane over until either the person there gives way or they almost crash. They really get inches away from each other all the time. And if somebody is trying to edge you out, you just honk your horn "beep beep beep beep" to let them know that you will not be stopping to let them in. The amount of darting between lanes when there doesn't seem like there's room for it is amazing. Strangely, though, I haven't felt more than once or twice like we might actually get into an accident, and I've only seen one accident on the road. Weird.

- So all those Great Wall photos in the mist? Well the day before I went was perfectly clear and the day after I went was perfectly clear. Figures! Today and yesterday at the conference have been misty, though, so it's not like that one day was the only cloudy one.

- I forgot to mention that we passed through the Olympic Village! I saw the bird's nest stadium, the athelete apartments, the archery and tennis buildings, and the swimming building. Very cool! Also, they have Olympic stores everywhere selling gear. And I've even seen ads on tv teaching "Olympic English". The last one I saw was learning how to say "a strong will". :)

- I'm amazed at how many of the characters I can recognize on signs because of the Japanese I learned so many years ago. I don't always remember the meaning, but I have learned that the meanings in Japanese are pretty much the same as they are in Chinese, even though the spoken words are completely different. My counting 1 to 10 in Japanese characters is the same for Chinese. Also, since I'm somewhat used to looking at characters, I can recognize some of the same words when I see them on signs. Pretty cool!

- The huge groups of gigantic apartment buildings that are everywhere in Beijing are just unreal. The buildings are so huge and then they'll be 8-12 clumped together and then you'll see dozens of those clumps as you drive around. I mean, there's 17 million people in the city, so they need someplace to live, but the buildings just seem so impersonal to me. Or maybe it's just that they are foreign to me. And big. Very big.

Food and coworkers were the best part of my day

There are now 343 photos from my time in China. Wow!

Today was conference day 1. I'm not really that impressed with the conference setup or organization, and the hotel is smoke-filled and not quite up to snuff for me. But I've spent time with lovely coworkers from Shanghai, Calgary, San Rafael, and of course NH and MA. That coupled with the spreads of traditional Chinese food they have at every meal has made for a pleasant day.

This morning we started with breakfast. No Starbucks or muffins here, baby! The potstickers are amazing, and the other stuff is very tasty. Yum! The only thing I really missed was coffee.



We kicked off the day with morning sessions. They gave me a little simultaneous translator to have on my ear, but the reception was bad, so I gave up and Qiong helped translate some of it. Two of the speakers were in English and the Chinese speaker was mostly reporting on survey results, so I didn't miss much.



After the morning sessions we had a tasty lunch, and I just hung out with the crew and spent a long time in the banquet hall. And then, since I had woken up quite early, I went to take a nap. It was much needed!

The evening included some sessions followed by the big banquet, which featured many wondeful dishes. It was especially nice to have native people there to tell me what things were, though I certainly tried everything.



At lunch my first time food (or maybe I had a wee bit before) was beef tongue. It was part of a cold salad and I had several pieces and had finished my meal before Qiong mentioned what it was. That's just so funny to me, that I ate it and had no idea... Anyway, dinner's new items for me were jellyfish (oh my god, so good) and sea cucumber (good flavor but I didn't like the texture). Apparently much of our dinner meal was more Shanghainese food. *shrug*

And for the day and through dinner, the company was also great, with 'deskers all sitting together and having a good time. Also, because I'm a speaker, along with Xiaoyu and Qiong, I got a wonderful framed paper cutout. It's really beautiful!



So even though the smokey hotel is really getting to me and I haven't gotten much out of the courses so far today, I still have fun stories to tell. I think the Shanghai people (and Chinese living in the States) from my company are all impressed with my willingness to try everything and the fact that I love so much of the food. I can't help it, flavors are good and I love trying new ones!

I'm keeping a note to myself about other things that have struck me while being here, but I've been to tired to really put them together, so hopefully I'll get to it when we get to Shanghai. Or when I get back! :)

Today was not the day I thought I was going to have when I woke up...

This afternoon turned out to be WAAAAAAAYYYYYY more of an adventure than I ever expected when I was getting ready to leave downtown Beijing this morning. I think the most exciting part was not being sure we could get from a real, out-in-nowhere, countryside restaurant back to our hotel, then taking an illegal taxi that seemed like it was going to fall apart back to the hotel.

Let's back up.

I got to the Resort hotel (where the conference is) around 1pm. Only the complex is so big that I got dropped off at the wrong hotel and had to work with a limited English speaking desk host to figure that out. Then a bellhop helped me carry my bags to the right building, where I checked in and proceeded to leave my backpack at the reception desk. I did not notice this until I had gone up to the room, gone down to register at the conference, and then came back to the room. By this time, the bag was not where I left it, and my attempts to communicate with the staff were for naught. I went to the UPA volunteers, one of whom was nice enough to start the chase. Then I went to the company booth in the hall, met some more coworkers I hadn't met before, and Sam came down with me to talk to the asst. mgr. We met up with the helpful UPA lady and the two of them talked to the asst mgr, and a few minutes later my bag was found. Phew! What a relief.

Anyway, I went back to the booth to meet up with some coworkers (using this term for people who work in my company... nobody but Qiong actually works in my group, or even in my office) for a trip to "The seven towers", though it was unclear if we even knew where we were going or how to get there. Eventually we got organized enough to get four of us into a taxi, whom we paid to take us to this off-the-beaten-path location and wait for us to climb up to the towers and back. Dong, our only Chinese speaker (for the most part... Itamar can speak some) was the key to getting us there and back. So we got there and started walking, only we didn't know which path to take, so Sara and Dong climbed the mountain while Itamar and I waited for a while. Did I mention this was at dusk? Yeah, well, all of a sudden it was getting dark and Sara and Dong were on top of the mountain. They yelled at us to walk down a little path to see the towers, so we did that, and they really were pretty amazing. Obviously very very old, probably based on Tibetan Buddhism structures, not at all like anything I've seen since I've been here (except one of the towers on the back of the Summer Palace). So, of course I took some pictures.



We didn't stay there long, but by the time we were making it back to the taxi, it was pretty dark. We were thankful the taxi driver was still there! Meanwhile, Sara and Dong were still on their way down and it got very dark. It was a little scary to think of losing people in the mountains or getting lost ourselves!

So we all finally made it back into the taxi and then we wanted to try a good local restaurant. Again, Dong was our hero, talking with the taxi driver about where to go and before we knew it, we were at a very quaint local countryside restaurant. Even the folks who spent time here said this was as real a traditional Chinese restaurant as you can get.




We got bean curd tea, ostrich, sweet potato, goose (in some kind of soup), corn meal buns, and rice with beans. There was debate about the taste of the broth the goose came in, but everything was really wonderful. I don't think I can do the bean curd tea for a long time, but it was neat to have. Then I switched to tea. Do I have to mention that Dong did all of the translating and ordering, too? :)



So we had this wonderful meal, then we thought we'd be able to find a taxi. Only, the restaurant is really kind of nowhere. So we thought they'd be able to call us a taxi. But the restaurant could only get us the "illegal" taxi, where you pay more up front and get no receipt. So we tried calling our previous driver, but he was downtown (an hour away). And then we tried calling the hotel to send us a taxi, but they had not taxis to send. So we made a deal with the restaurant folks and they called the illegal taxi dude. While this was all happening (meaning while Dong was on the phone and talking to people), we walked a bit more around the restaurant, which had dozens of small rooms for private groups. It really was very quaint.

Finally the taxi showed up and it was an old run-down very mini van. No shocks, the seats looked like they were going to fall apart, and the whole thing reeked of exhaust. Lovely! But we piled in and Sara and I were laughing in the back. We sure got an adventure! And even though the van had to drive slow and we had lungs full of exhaust, we did make it back to the hotel. Phew!



The tv in the hotel is very different than what was downtown. In the other hotel I had 5 or 6 channels of English (3 movie channels). Here I have CNN. But I've run across badmitton, go (the chess-like game), and have gotten to see much more in the way of game shows and such in Chinese. I won't really have much time for tv in the next two days, with sessions going on all day.

No really, this time work actually does start tomorrow. :)

Lots less pictures per day, I'm afraid... so begins the work part of my trip

Sadly, today is when my time here turns to mostly work. I think my posts won't be nearly as filled with fun tales of adventures and I'm not going to be taking 100+ photos a day, but I'm sure I'll fit in interesting non-work things so I'll still keep posting. The good part is that I get to meet up with Qiong and Xiaoyu, who work in the states with me but are from China. I think I will probably ask them a ton of questions about things I've learned since I've been here!

I woke up with a sore throat, so I'm trying to drink a ton of fluids and I got a large amount of sleep (though I did wake up around 5am for an hour or so). I hope I avoid getting sick! I've got too much to do!

Some moments I forgot to mention before:
- The cool thing about the mist on the Great Wall was how much it reminded me of some old paintings and movies (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for one), where they're training or fighting in the mist in the mountains...

- Speaking of crouching tiger and a dragon, the two hills that are on either side of the road to the Ming tombs are called, yep, Dragon Hill and Crouching Tiger Hill.... I don't know why I think that's cool, but I do. Is that where the name for the movie came from? It's hard to tell, since dragons and tigers are just generally popular motifs...

- The jade factory felt forced (they make you stand with them for the "tour" before making you stay for 30 minutes before you can leave), but I did get to see them carving and learned a bit about how to tell real jade from fake Jade, so that was cool. Plus some of the show pieces they have are pretty amazing...

- Some Chinese girls asked 3 of us form my tour (German young man, Russian older man, and myself) to be in a picture with them on the wall. Now I'm a tourist attraction!

- The amount of building construction here is pretty amazing. I'm told Shanghai has tons more, but still, there's lots of stuff going on, and they do welding right above the sidewalk with just a few feet between the building and barrier. Less safety rules here, I think!

I climbed the Great Wall! And avoided buying a sweatshirt that said as much.

First of all... Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I have much to be thankful for, including but not limited to:
- My amazing parents, who are, at this point in my life, also fantastic friends and supporters. I am so lucky to have such an amazing relationship with each of them.
- My amazing friends and family. Alix and Jag have been my rocks through the last few months of tough times, but my dozens of other friends and family sending me love and support (and gifts!) warms my heart and shows me how good people can be. Thank you all very much.
- My pugs. Because they're cute, and even when they're a pain in the ass, they give me dog love.
- My job, which is not only interesting and challenging, but surrounds me with smart and wonderful people, who are much like a family. I also am appreciated and rewarded for doing good work, and since I enjoy the work, it's like bonuses on my bonus.
- My house. It is a place of comfort and even though I could move without much drama (I'm a nomad from childhood), I really enjoy the space I have.
- My health. Both physically and mentally, I have had a strong year and I hope to continue that.
- My future. So bright, I have to wear shades.

And on to the day....

Well, I did it. I climbed the Great Wall of China. The weather today was really icky compared to the last few days, so I'm sad that my pictures consist of a lot of grey fog. But some of them are cool, and I certainly took many.



The tour group (and most tour groups here are) was state sponsored, so you are forced to stop at factories (in our case, a jade factory, plus a place that makes cloisonne), and you get a rather ho-hum lunch. But we went to the 13 Ming Tombs in the morning and the Great Wall at Badaling in the afternoon. My group of 6 wasn't very talkative, but I made friends with a German guy, probably a few years younger than me, and his father. The two were vacationing together and were very nice. They probably know way more about me than they want to, but I just can't spend the entire day in silence!

So our morning was the drive out to the Ming Tombs. Then we walked around the tomb of the 3rd Emperor for a bit, and saw some relics that came from the 13th Emperor's tomb. The buildings were similar to what I've seen, but there was some lovely scenery and interesting tidbits about the area and the Emperors. I think the most interesting building was the Tower, which stands in front of the actual tomb.



Then we did the Jade factory, where I bought stuff I probably shouldn't have.



And then lunch. I was hoping for wow Chinese food, but it was pretty much like what I've gotten in good Chinatown places (certainly better than NH places, but NH Chinese is pretty bad).

After that it was off to the Great Wall. When I booked they told me we would be going to Mutainyu, but it turned out to be Badaling, which is supposed to be more full of annoying sales people. Sadly, it was full of annoying sales people. But my method of a firm "No" and not making eye contact or even saying hello seemed to work pretty well. Plus, if I stuck by the Germans, the sales folks would think we were a family and pester the German dad. He was way too nice with them...



Anyway, we hiked up the hard part to the topmost tower. At one point the stairs are so steep that you feel like you're going straight uphill. And when you come down, it's quite scary. Easy place to get vertigo!



So, despite the fact that it was very cold and very cloudy, I'm pleased that I did it and it was quite a decent way to spend my Thanksgiving if I couldn't be with my family.

I wish I could write more poetically about it, really, but with the weather and the fog and the sales people, I only had a few moments of peace and joy while actually on the wall. I'd like to come back and visit some of the less busy places (though we were lucky that there weren't that many other tourists today). Still, one more wonder of the world down!