While in California...

It's been awhile since I've blogged, but here are some fun pictures (and one scary one...see if you can figure out which one!) from our short trip to Tahoe for some skiiing and snowboarding at Kirkwood. The show was quite nice and it started falling again as we drove home, we actually saw a three car accident due to the new snow on the ground - a little scary!

Censorship in China

Censorship in China has has been pumped up due to the Olympics next August in Beijing. Of course none of this is ever discussed on any of the news channels here in China, but it seems that weekly there are more and more articles about it on The New York Times website and the BBC website.

Here's one that was posted today, titles "Great Firewall of China"

I only really notice the censorship when I'm trying to access sites like, Wikipedia, Blogs, etc. What I notice more is the lack of "real" news on the television stations. With the recent terrible weather and the horrible conditions people have been facing the self-censorship of the news is more obvious than ever. The only way to really learn about what is happening is to check non-chinese news resources. The only news one will hear about in China is that "the weather has been bad, but all the stranded people in the train stations are patient and understanding of the situation." Which is a load of crap. People have been stranded in train stations for days now without hot water, electricity, etc. The government has been totally unprepared for the weather, it's really quite awful.

Back in California

We're back in Sunny CA for a week - I'll start adding new posts once we're back in China!

Beijing Pictures!

Some photos from my short trip to Beijing - I've had some trouble uploading photos in China (slower connection) so now that I'm back in CA I can upload much faster! Enjoy. :-)

You'll see photos of the Forbidden City (with Mao's photo), Tienanamen Square (with soldiers), and Mao's Mausoleum (public viewings are common, people line up around the block to see his body).

Today's News

Today Shanghai had the heaviest fog of the year (wait, isn't it just Jan 7th, 2008?) - check out the hardcore front page story that was on today's newspaper, The Shanghai Daily:

Fog envelops Shanghai this morning by -- MORNING traffic was chaos due to the heaviest fog of the year and the Shanghai government said no employee should be punished for being late for work this morning.

The fog covered almost all of eastern China. In...

Beijing Reminds me of Texas

Beijing! The capitol city of China, full of history and change. Home to the Forbidden City, Tienanmen Square, and one of the most fully restored sections of the Great Wall, and it still reminds me of Dallas, TX.

Why??

It's HUGE! The city is full of huge wide streets, massive buildings, large freeways and everything is spread out. This is not a walking city like Shanghai, it's a massive place where a car or taxi is much mandatory since the subway system isn't great.

But this trip was short and I saw the main sights above last year when I was in China so this trip was focused on other things. I saw a few museums and went to the silk & pearl street for the first time. What an experience - if you're looking for ANY "name brand" items, purses, wallets, clothes, literally anything you can find it here including all kinds of kitschy Chinese items. But be prepared to be harassed by all of the stall girls who work there, they love to call out to the foreigners "hey, pretty lady! You want new sweater, you like nike?! Come here!" It's an experience that's for sure!!

Happy New Year!!!

Happy new year from Shanghai! We spent out night out with some friends, drinks, dinner at a Spanish tapas restaurant and then on to the Bund to ring in the new year at a bar called "New Heights". It was a great time with a fantastic view!!

I hope to have some pictures up of it all very soon!

Happy 2008 to everyone!

KFC

My first fast food experience in China!

Andy and I were rushing to meet a real estate agent last weekend and ran out of time for a long lunch so we decided what the heck, let's try the local KFC - it's always packed! Menu options are the same except there are a lot more sandwiches than just plain chicken. People aren't as used to the idea of eating a lot of meat at meals. I'm no KFC connoisseur but it was good - I love fried chicken so it was a nice change from noodles, etc. :-)

*Interesting side note: People in groups of 3-4 tend to buy the bucket 'o chicken and share it at the table. It doesn't seem that take out is as popular, although delivery is another story - I'll get into that more later. :-)

Christmas in China

Christmas was a little different than usual this year but we certainly did our best to bring some Christmas spirit to Shanghai! Turns out that many Expat friendly restaurants do special dinners for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we decided to go to dinner on the 24th.

We choose a place called Frankie's - which apparently also has a restaurant in London (who knows?). Either way it was really nice and the food was excellent. Many other Expats and their families were there as well. I posted some pics below of our menu and the food. It was a 5 course set menu, delicious!




















Christmas day was very low key - we opened some presents, went for a walk, watched a move (Polar Express - one of my favorites!) and then made dinner. Different from the normal craziness of Turkey, gifts, and family but it was very nice. :-)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday too!!

Streets of Old Shanghai

Some pictures I took while we were out last weekend - these are of "Old Shanghai". See if you can guess what the old man on the street is doing. ;-)

Chinese Health Check - Communism At It's Best ?

Today was the day for my health check. Excellent, right? Not so much.

Well, I exaggerate a little - it wasn't so bad really. It was a very interesting experience though. In order for anyone to receive a residence permit to live in China for an extended period of time, you much go through a Health Check to prove that you don't have any infectious diseases like Typhoid, Cholera, Yellow Fever etc.

I wish I had been able to take some photos while I was there! Imagine a white building, plain with no color. Inside everyone is wearing the same clothing, face masks and hair "nets" covering their hair - all with very serious faces. I got the impression that smiling and friendliness wasn't allowed.

Step 1. Sign in with passport, photos and company certification #
Step 2. Change into a white robe top for examinations
Step 3. Blood Test
Step 4. X-Ray of Chest
Step 5. Ultrasound of your stomach and liver (no joke)
Step 6. ECG - To measure your heart rate
Step 7. Eye, Ear and Nose check
Step 8. General Health Exam (blood pressure, breathing, etc.)
Step 9. Change back into clothing
Step 10. Finished!! Pay and pray that you passed and will be allowed to stay in China!

During the process you aren't alone - you're basically being herded into each room along with many other non-chinese all wearing the same white robe and sporting the same confused look. It was awesome. ;-)

I'll let you know if I passed or not later on...

Beijing Olympics? 233 Days to go!

It seems that we're going to the 2008 Beijing Olympics in August. It's going to be insanity but it'll also be amazing to see it. The most exciting thing is that my sister will be traveling to China to join us for the Olympics!

What it takes to get tickets in incredible - Andy's office had to pool together to enter into a lottery at least 6 months ago. The Chinese nationals were given a chance to enter into the lottery before any international were which gave us an advantage. We did get some tickets, we're going to see: Tennis, Diving, Swimming, and Table Tennis. I'm hoping we'll be able to find tickets to the opening ceremony somehow...

The word on the streets here in Shanghai is that Beijing isn't ready for the HUGE mass of people that will be coming to the city in August. Everyone is saying that it's going to be impossible to get anywhere and that traffic will be worse than anyone can imagine. Most people seem to think the only way around it is to make all locals who aren't attending the games stay out of their cars so that the roads are only open to tourists and people attending the games....who knows. Either way, it's certainly going to be an experience!

Real Estate Hunting in Shanghai

Yes, we're doing it - taking the plunge into the real estate market here in Shanghai. Specifically we're looking for a home/investment while we're here in China.

We started the search yesterday afternoon, it seems that Sunday is the typical house hunting day here in Shanghai. We used a local agent (chinese speaking only) who showed us around specifically two districts/neighborhoods. First let me clarify by saying that a "house" typically refers to an apartment in a highrise building, usually new or only a few years old. An actual house by western standards can only be found outside of the downtown area in a section of Shanghai called Pudong. This is typically where many expat families live since it's close to most of the international schools. Also here, single family homes are called "villas" and are really nice. From what I've seen they look almost exactly like a western style home. Great, if you have a family! But we're not there yet - so we are really only interested in being downtown, close to the restaurants, shopping and all the other big city offerings Shanghai has which limits us to looking for an apartment!

The process of house hunting isn't entirely too different from the way it is in the States, you use an agent, go look at homes new and pre-lived in, but the main difference is in the appearance of those homes. I learned that typically if you buy a house that has already been lived in, you will completely re-model it which seems a bit wasteful to me. Strip everything out (all appliances, fixtures, flooring, everything!) and re-do the whole thing per your taste!

Labor is so cheap that it doesn't add too much to the cost of your new home. Amazing.
Anyway, back to my point - so pre-lived in homes look like crap. Seriously, when you go and look in a home that's for sale that is not brand new the homeowner usually is there in the place as you're looking through it and they don't do squat to make it look nice. We were in one place yesterday where the woman was still in the kitchen making dinner! AH....cultural differences.

I will keep you posted on our house hunting adventures.....:-)

Hangzhou

This past weekend we took Ken (Andy's cousin) to Hangzhou which is southwest of Shanghai - about a 2 hours car ride out of the city. This is the city that Marco Polo declared paradise and the finest city he'd ever seen (of course whether or not Marco Polo ever even visited China is still debated, so who knows). First of all I was impressed by the HUGE highways that have been built - and that no one obeys any kind of speed limit. Of course based on the insane traffic in the city, I shouldn't be shocked that people don't obey the rules outside of the city either. :-)

Some history: Much of this ancient city that had been the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty(1127-1279) was destroyed during the Taiping Rebellion in the mid-nineteenth century. Today the city is mainly known for it's huge lake which is called West Lake.

It is a beautiful, picturesque area that spans 3 square miles. While the cities of China don't strike me as romantic in any way at all, West Lake is actually very romantic and would probably be best seen in the spring when it's not too cold or too hot. You can also rent bikes and ride around the entire lake instead of walking. You know, I was actually surprised - it was crowded but not as bad as I was expecting. Of course even at West Lake you'll find a vast array of western goodies to keep you satisfied like Starbucks and Haagen Daz (more on that later).

Check out the pictures we took!

Chinese foot massage

It's a phenomenon like I've never seen before. It's the chinese foot massage and it's everywhere! All over are Massage "parlors" which at first I assumed were the sketchy kind, you know like the ones we have in San Francisco that offer "massage" among many other things for men. Of course I'm sure there are some of those here as well, but for the most part massage is typically a foot massage, and I LOVE IT!

I've been going to a place that caters to expats (english speaking staff makes my life so much easier) and has multiple locations around Shanghai, it's called Dragonfly (www.dragonfly.net.cn). We even ended up with a membership, so for my friends that end up visiting, we will most certainly stop for a massage.

The massage is one hour, and starts with being lead into a quiet, dimly lit room with your typical soothing spa music. You're seated in a soft reclining chair and handed a cup of hot tea. Then your masseuse comes in and wraps a shoulder warmer around your neck and begins to give you a neck and shoulder massage, then she moves to your arms and give you a wonderful hand and lower arm massage. All the while your feet are soaking in a warm tub of water. At last she begins the Chinese foot massage which uses ancient Chinese reflexology with massage and will make you so relaxed that you'll fall asleep in no time! It's a wonderful treatment for the over-stimulated Shanghai streets that you face everyday.