Entry #7 - Looks like someone's got a case of the Mundays!

Monday morning had us in our usual morning routine of meeting for breakfast at 7:15am. The cafe in the hotel has a very typical western hotel restaurant feel to it. We are greeted, as usual, by a swarm of attendants who take our rooms numbers and show us to our table. It is a standard breakfast buffet with a 60% Asian selection of food. I usually go with a variety of juices (Orange, Apple, Grapefruit, etc.), some fruit, a pastry. I also mix in some French Toast, Pancakes, bacon, hard boiled eggs, and sometimes a hash brown. It is a good breakfast, and if I was a big breakfast person I could also choose from a variety of Asian dishes - fish cakes, Asian salads, and other various hot vegetable plates. By 7:45 or so, we make our way to the office - a short 5 blocks away or so - however, today we see that it is 40 degrees and raining lightly. I plan to stop at the hotel desk to ask for some umbrellas when we run into Frank - who had run down to the hotel to help us get a taxi to the office. Once outside, Frank learns that there are no taxis to be found because they are very busy today due to the rain. So we make a brisk walk into work...
The office building, if I didn't go into detail previously, is a tall Japanese built building with a Starbucks in the lobby (for you coffee fans out there). Attendants greet us in English at the door in the morning and we head for the elevators to our floor - the 23rd. Rockwell Software has the top 3 floors in the building (22-24). Mike and I were each given our own office adjacent to each other) and Frank brings us a Coke and a bottled water in the morning. The work day here is office typical with occasional light chatter, but mostly quiet. Sometime during the morning, Grace Li - who we met from here visit to Milwaukee earlier in the summer arrived straight from the airport where she had just returned from a week in Cleveland. She greeted us and ended up taking us to the building cafeteria for lunch at 11:15 or so. It was a very busy and very crowded area where we were clearly a curiosity. I went with grace a got a large plate of noodles with a pear. As I sat down I realized that noodles are not a great choice for the chopstick impaired (such as myself). As I struggled through lunch, the lady next to me introduced herself as someone that I email with frequently - always nice to match a face with a name. As we finished lunch, we worked our way through the crowd out of the cafeteria where we say that the line had grown exponentially since we had arrived. Very Very busy place (shared by all the companies in this building).
After a busy afternoon of work, Frank, Cindy, and another coworker took us to a nearby favorite Sushi restaurant about a block or two away. We went upstairs and were lead to a private room. We all removed our shoes and jackets and entered the dining area. There we sat around a table about 1 foot high (underneath was cut out for legroom. A 3foot wide hardwood floor surrounded the 7' long rectangular table and that was our entire room. We sat on small seat cushions with wooden backs (like a seat with back support that you would use at Lambaeu). They went through their usual ordering sequence and soon our food arrived. It was similar to our Sushi restaurant from the hotel, but the food was even better. I got a bit of grief from the attendants for not being good with chopsticks and not eating the hot things right away - I didn't even try to explain my affection for nearly room-temperature food. I should also mention that after they brought us a course and left, they would close a sliding door, leaving us sealed off from the outside world - it was a very enjoyable experience (a bit warm however). Although I may be able to attribute the warmth from the order of Saki that Mike and I split (our companions didn't want any part of it). During dinner, we discussed homes (where here you don't pay taxes on the house and you can keep it for 70 years). Cindy asked us for jokes, but being unprepared, we really couldn't come up with anything good (if you know a good one for us, post it in the comments - thanks!). As we finished dinner and prepared to leave I asked for a practice set of chopsticks which they provided. Frank asked us if we knew our way back from there and we felt pretty confident that we did so we headed back to the hotel.
As we walked in darkness down a small side street and made a few turns, things started to unravel for us. First the rains returned, and then we found ourselves down the wrong street on the wrong side of town. With our phones being useless, we needed to improvise, and quickly. The rainwater soon had the gutters overflowing and up to our knees. The swift cool water threatened to sweep us away when we noticed a fire escape ladder which we took. Mike ascended first, and as the creaks and groans of the old steel reminded us - we were two big fellas on small rusty stairs. As the wind and rain picked up - Mike's backpack was blown off. It's falling mass nearly knocking me clear off the ladder. Since I knew we were a couple of stories up at this point, I used every ounce of energy to keep my grip. At the top of the stairs, we appeared at a balcony of an apartment which we entered after knocking first...
If you are familiar with the saying that things can go from bad to worse, then it will come as no surprise that we had entered the apartment of a Chinese guard or soldier of some sort. I hastily produced my passport and Mike's face went pale. His passport was lost with his backpack. We were in trouble (well Mike was, anyway). At that point, I need to end the suspense and tell you that nothing like that really happened - our walk back from the restaurant was largely uneventful (although it was dark, we did nearly get lost, and there was a rather large puddle that we had to walk around). :)
Stay tuned for the next exciting episode...