Thursday and Friday

Thursday was a normal work day in the office with a quick lunch in the building cafeteria. In the afternoon, Grace entered our office and asked what we wanted for dinner. Since Mike already had his fare share of Japanese meals, so I spoke up and requested seafood – specifically crab. So, after work, about 6:00pm or so, we piled into a couple of cabs and headed near Shanghai Square. You may recall, that is the area by the bay where the giant book was from our last visit.

Inside the restaurant, the first floor was entirely taken up with the selection areas, of which, their were two main parts – the live tanks, and the fresh seafood displayed in open-faced cooler tables. Walking around the coolers, I saw some fish I don’t recall seeing before – like angler fish (the deep-sea fish with the lure on its head) as well as swordfish, and some various white blind fish. In addition to the seafood, the coolers had side dishes as well, including a heaping plate of very large chicken’s feet – but we didn’t have any this time. The live tanks were of the standard Chinese restaurant variety: lobster, flounder, many other fishes, and shellfish.

While some of the group continued to make the selections, we headed up the stairs to the 3^rd floor where our private room awaited us. We all took our seats around the customary large round table and the food began arriving. Some of the items of interest were conch – looked like a large snail and as you pulled it out of the shell it just kept coming – actually pretty disgusting to pull out. I watched Mike take the first bite as he also put on a squeamish face while extracting – upon his chewing it, his face crumpled a bit more. As I ate my own conch, it became clear why. The conch had a taste similar to clam, with a variety of rubbery and chewy gobs of sea goodness. I was really wishing for some cocktail sauce. Anyway, the rest of the meal was excellent – including the crab. As a matter of fact, that crab (which looked like Dungeness, but were told it was called flying crab) was easily the best tasting crab I have ever eaten in my life, period. It was as sweet as if it had been swimming in butter it’s whole life, but without even a drop of butter on it. Wow. I ate my entire crab and half of another. I would have gone on, but I think everyone else was about done eating. I wasn’t as fast at eating the crab, as I am used to some sort of utensil to crack the shells and extract the meat – but not here, you do it all by hand and mouth – a bit of a messy affair. Nearing the end of the meal, they brought out some sort of rice soup for everyone. It had chunks of I-don’t-know-what all over in it, but once it cooled, I gave it a try. Very salty, but surprisingly good. Mike mentioned that it resembled grits. As we finished our last Budweiser’s, we headed out. Nancy and Grace took Mike and I back to the Roosevelt mall and we did a bit more shopping. Again, the abundance of workers was very impressive – In a large department store, there was a worker stationed for every section – about 1 every 20x20 foot area. And this is over at least 4 giant floors – and that is just one of the stores. Quite impressive. By 9:00pm, the mall was closing and they took us back to our hotel where we called it a night.

Friday was our last day in China. We had our 7:20 breakfast, and was in the office by 8:15am or so. We finished up a few things, said our goodbyes, and headed back to the hotel to checkout around 10:30am. Fany, from the localization team, offered to be our bodyguards for our trip back to the airport, so she walked back with us. A very impressive aerial display of 3 Mig fighters circled the city continuously for our walk back. We gathered our things and checked out. Barely fitting into the cab, we made our 20 minute ride to the airport. The ride was your standard China harrowing taxi ride, but otherwise uneventful.

We made our goodbyes and checked in about 12:00pm. Our Japan Airlines 767 left around 1:00pm, flying over North Korea over to Tokyo. On the way, we were served an obviously very Japanese lunch with a pleasant surprise. In a cupcake foil, sat about 6 mini red shrimp, complete shrimp, which included the long tentacles. However, I couldn’t resist trying them – I am glad that I did. Believe it or not, despite the feeling of the long tentacles in my mouth, the flavor was actually fantastic. They were sweet tasting with no fishy flavor at all. After about two and one half hours, we landed in Tokyo. We deplaned, found the American Airlines transfer gate, checked into that flight, and enjoyed about 20 minutes in the AA lounge before heading out to board our final segment. The flight left Tokyo at 6:10pm and is scheduled to arrive in Chicago around 4:00pm (also on Friday). I settled into my now familiar business class seat, and awaited my steak dinner. For my dinner drink, I ordered a sprite, but ended up with a gin and tonic. Not my top choice for a drink, but it sure helped me sleep. I polished off dinner, had a bowl of ice cream with blueberries and nodded off to sleep somewhere over the Pacific. Actually slept most of the way back, woke up to an omlette breakfast, and returned home uneventfully.

Well, that is it in a nutshell – until next time – take care everyone.

Chinese Drinking Games! (Tuesday & Wednesday)

Tuesday was a bit of a blur, but I do remember that we went to a new shopping mall for lunch. We were told that the translation is "Roosevelt Mall". Anyway, it was fairly new, about 4 stories tall, and both longer and wider than Southridge.

Upon entering the mall, I was very surprised at the sheer scale of the building. The walking areas in front of the stores had to be 100 yards away for the walking area on the opposite side. The middle was almost entirely open, with just the occasional bridge connecting the opposite sides. It was very brightly lit, with an abundance of light, polished tile and glass. We ventured up to the fourth floor or so where we made our way down to a Chinese Hot Pot Restaurant.

The 6 of us sat around the large round table and the food was quickly ordered. I got to pick one item, so I went with the Jellyfish. The waitress brought out the large, nicely decorated hotpot, filled it with water, and then began the process of adding the fresh seasonings. Many different items were added that I did not recognize, and soon it was ready for the food. First was the slices of lamb, which came in what resembled packages of bacon. Next was a plate of what I can best describe as black rubbery flower petal shaped thingies. I was told that it is a moss that grows near the base of trees - interesting. Additionally, there were plates of shrimp paste, and assorted greens. All of which entered the hotpot. As we enjoyed the meal, we also received a plate of Peking duck. This plate was duck shaped, with a recognizable cooked head of the duck as well! Similar to other restaurants that served duck here, you take the slices of meat, and put them on a flour tortilla and add some of the tasty brown sauce. Similar to other restaurants here, the duck was also very tasty. In fact, it seemed that the duck was about the only thing Mike was eating. He didn't even try one bite of the jellyfish. The Jellyfish was served in small slices on a plate. It was translucent orange-brown, was cold, slightly rubbery, and pleasantly sweet - actually very good.. After enjoying our large lunch, we were treated to some popsicles of some sweet flavor that was less intense then pineapple. We learned that the price was 7 cents apiece.

Leaving the mall, half of the group returned to the office, and a couple of them took us next door to a huge computer store. We walked through there for about 20 minutes, and grabbed a taxi back to the office.

That evening, Christine, Fany, and 2 others from the Localization team, took us out for dinner at a Japanese Hibachi restaurant. Entering the restaurant, we walked up a couple of flights of wooden stairs to our private dining room. It had a few couches, its own private bathroom, and a table with six seats facing the chef’s station and the large grill. Above and behind the chef was a flat screen TV. We ordered our meals and Mike and I received each a large bottle of Tsing Tao beer. The chef began preparing what looked like our first course - large shrimp - only he was just cooking the head. I sat there a bit confused as our salads arrived - very tasty. As the chef continued to cook those giant shrimp heads, I wondered just where the meat actually was. As the heads were finished, the chef put one of them on each plate - with the head sticking up. At that point I realized they were just plate decoration and he soon began cooking the bodies of the giant shrimp. Long story short, we ended up having shrimp, lobster, steak, vegetables, and rice. For dessert they ordered an ice cream dessert which actually consisted of a half-bite of angel food cake and a 1/2 teaspoon of whipped cream. Dinner was absolutely delicious, and many laughs were had. The localization team is one of the most fun groups here.

After leaving the restaurant, (about 7:45pm) we hopped into a couple of cabs and headed over to a jazz club near to our hotel. This is the same club that they ended up at on Sunday night for the party that we missed. Entering the bar, we went downstairs to a very standard bar setup. It consisted or a large bar area in the middle, many tables around, and a small music stage in the corner. The style was very interesting - heavy wooden beams, with even old heavy fancy doors as the tables. It actually had a very Olde European flair to it. We ordered our round of drinks - I went with a Captain Morgan and Coke, and other had Margaritas and long Island Ice teas. Soon after our drinks arrived, the band started up. It consisted of a guitar player, a keyboard player, a saxophone player, and a lady singer. They played a smooth jazz style of some American and some Chinese songs. As the music played and the drinks flowed, we got onto the subject of drinking games.

We first learned of their game called "Police". The way that you play is that someone starts and yells "Police" and points to someone in the group. They then immediately point to someone and yell "Theft". That person points and yells "Shoot" and points to a final person. That person yells "aggh", crosses their arms over their chest, and the person on the right raises their right arm, the person on the left raises their left arm. Sounds simple, but going fast was guite fun. We then felt brave enough to play in Chinese. It translated to "Chin Chee", "Sheo To", "Pew", and finally "aggh (but with a Chinese accent)". We played that a bit and then I taught them the one where you all put your hands on the table overlapping your arms with the neighbors. Then single tap around the table and double-taps reverse. For those about to ask, no, we did not get to play the Chinese drinking game from Shanghai Noon. They had not seen the movie and didn't know what it was. After a few hours of fun and laughs, it was time to call it a night (about 10:30pm for those keeping score). As far as life experiences go, I would have not predicted a night in a Jazz Club with 4 women (and Mike), in China! But I think it was the most fun I have had here in China so far!

Wednesday was a very busy work day, where we asked to just eat a quick meal in the cafeteria. We worked until about 7:30pm and headed back to the hotel. We had a conference call that night at 9:00pm, so we just ordered room service. I finished up some other work emails, had about 15 minutes to relax, and called into the conference call, which went until just after 10pm. And that was Wednesday in 100 words or less.

Sunday and Monday - Warning: dull content

Sunday ended up being a bit less interesting than planned, but a bit more relaxing. Mike was not all that hungry in the morning, so I went down for brunch only to learn it was by reservation only. The hotel must have a local reputation for their Easter brunch as a ton of western families were all over the lobby. In fact, the hotel lobby was packed with 10 times the amount of people that I had ever seen before. The hotel put on a very nice setup for the kids that included the Easter Bunny, many activities for kids, and even a 10x10 fenced in little barnyard area complete with rabbits and little chicks. After watching the little kids enjoying themselves for a bit, I headed back upstairs and just ordered some room service. While eating my lunch, I have to admit that I surprised myself on just how much I missed my own kids watching the others run around with so much excitement.

A bit later in the afternoon, Mike and I bravely ventured out to do some shopping on our own. We went to the outside market and into another upscale mall nearby where our wild adventurous nature paid off: We found a Dairy Queen – I had a vanilla cone and Mike an Oreo Blizzard. For my world-traveling co-workers who say we are too dull in our travels I say “Take that!” :)

I then called Fany to say that Mike and I were not going to join their party – we really didn’t want turn their fun day into worrying about us and taking us back and forth between events. Maybe we are not that adventurous after all. L

For dinner, Mike and I again just had the hotel buffet, but kept the evening lively by playing a game of Power Grid in the hotel lobby. A few hours later, Mike pulled off a win, and I went up dejectedly to bed.

Monday was a very busy day at the office with lunch at their obviously favorite Japanese restaurant (which we went to last week). This time I had the Prawn Tempura – which was pretty good. We worked late, went back to the hotel, and again just had room service.

Friday and Saturday

Friday morning was supposed to be a standard day, meeting for breakfast at 7:20am. However, Mike overslept his alarm and arrived in the lobby at 7:37am. For those from work keeping track – that is 17 minutes late – so there should be some donuts for all to enjoy after our return to Milwaukee. I had no problem being there at 7:20, since I was awake since 5:00am (not by choice – just didn’t sleep well). I then had to hear how Mike was tired from “too much sleep”. Anyway, we ate and headed off to the office at 8:00am.

After a normal morning of work, Grace took us out to lunch at a great local Japanese restaurant a couple of blocks away. We had eaten there on our previous trip, and we knew it would be delicious. Mike was especially happy, as he has a legendary love for Sushi. Upon entering the small restaurant, we took the familiar walk upstairs (where most of the dining rooms are here), removed our shoes, and climbed down into our floor level seats. The table was about one foot above the floor, with a cut-out section underneath that was just large enough for my long legs. The table had enough room for four people, so the others in the group sat at a similar table next to us. I ordered shrimp tempura, while Mike went with his standard Sushi. The meals were brought out on individual trays and were quite crowded with food. My tray consisted of a plate of 5 pieces of different raw fish and eel on rice, a plate of tempura, a large bowl of Japanese noodles, a small dish of accent toppings, and a small bowl of soy sauce. In addition, we each were given a bowl of soup. The meal was tasty and soon we were walking back for an afternoon of work.

In the afternoon, the localization team stopped by to invite us to a party that was going to take place at an employees house on Sunday. Looking over the itinerary for the party, I was quite impressed:

9:00am – Noon Cooking (and eating)
Noon – 3:00pm Games and hiking along the beach
3:00m – 7:00pm KTV
7:00pm – Midnight Drinking at a Jazz bar

I was unsure of what exactly “KTV” meant, and was told that it is a karaoke facility – that makes me a bit nervous, however, we may give that a try anyway depending how the weekend goes.

In addition to Sunday’s planned festivities, two other employees, Nancy and Carol offered to take us shopping on Saturday – which we gladly accepted.

We finished up work around 6:00pm, and again Frank and some others offered to take us to dinner. We ended up at the same restaurant we went to for lunch on Thursday. We again had the mushrooms and dumplings. In addition, we enjoyed a bowl of beans with dates. If memory serves, we also had cooked shrimp, cooked celery and onions, numerous other dishes I cannot recall, and many laughs. By 8:00pm we were back at the hotel. By 9:00pm, I was simply overcome with extreme sleepiness. The only other time I have really experienced this was just after arriving on our first trip here as well as a few days following returning home. Very strange how it hits. For me, it feels like “waves” hitting, each one seemingly capable of rendering me unconscious. Within a few minutes, I was in bed and off to sleep.

I awoke after 10 hours of sleep feeling fantastic. I declared to myself that my body is now fully on Chinese time - a very nice change from the last few days. We had breakfast at 9:20am, and met Nancy and Carol in the lobby at 10:00am.

We walked to the large shopping area behind the hotel. It extends for a number of blocks in all directions. The indoor mall we entered was reminiscent of large US malls, but about 6 stories tall. A “lucky tree” in the atrium caught our eye. It was a part of a tree, with a large message board next to it. On the message board were many notes in Chinese. We were told that you write a message and post it on the board. We all put a message up there and began our shopping day. The outside shopping was quite interesting with a mix of tables similar to a flea market that sprawled out over all of the walking areas (a number of streets where cars are not permitted). The tables featured many different items from USB Jump Drives, sunglasses, toys, jewelry stands, and many small food stands. We hit a few malls, a number of outside stands, took a taxi to another shopping area, and then took a break for lunch.

Lunch was in a large building located about a block from the hotel. It features “Shanghai Style” cuisine. That means that the flavors were less salty and a bit more sweet. Again going upstairs to our dining area, the four of us sat at a large round table, but this time – no lazy-suzan. We had Crab, beef with black pepper, bamboo, baked shrimp (quite crispy), a strange black seeded sponge cookie, Chinese dumplings, and a large “river fish”. The fish was served on a large platter, with the customary head and tail, but all of the bits of fish were soaking in a soupy broth. Mike and I both noted how vast the menus are here – probably 200 different dishes to choose from – each plate with a color picture in the large menu book. It was another very tasty meal.

After lunch, we went back to the hotel for a break. Mike and I met about 6:30pm to return to the mall and pick up a few more items, have some dinner, and maybe a drink at the bar. For dinner, we had the hotel buffet. I was torn in that they had very tasty looking oysters, but was a bit gun-shy after my last visit’s illness. So, I reluctantly passed on the raw seafood. After dinner, we walked over to the hotel bar where we caught a few minutes of the live music which consisted of a piano player and a singer. Sounded nice, but in Chinese. By 9:00pm or so, we called it a night.

The RSI Driver Team World Tour FY08 Continues...

Well, here I am again. It is Thursday evening, and Mike and I have just spent our first full day here in Dalian, China. I am in my hotel room and finally have some time to fill you in on our last 36 hours or so...

It began around 5:00am or so on Tuesday morning, March 18th, when I awoke from my short nights sleep, showered, and headed out the door to begin my return trip to China for work.

I arrived downtown Milwaukee and picked up Mike in our parking lot around 6:30am. From there we headed to O'Hare to catch our 10:55am flight for Shanghai. Paving projects in Illinois made the journey slow, but we eventually got there and dropped off the rental car around 8:45am. Checking in was uneventful and we headed to the Admiral's Club (AA lounge) to await boarding.

The club was large, but no free food and only a coupon for one free drink (which neither of us used) is all we had to show for our short wait at O’Hare. As we sat there relaxing, I caught a glimpse of concern on Mike's face. Tragically, the concern was well founded, as he had just made the realization that he had forgotten his IPod. Naturally, I offered condolences and have not teased him about it since (yeah right!). Anywho, around 10:30am, we made our way to the gate and boarded the big beautiful American Airlines 777.

Our business class seats were much more high-tech than what we experienced on our Asiana 747 on the last trip. These were fully computer-controlled. I put it through it's paces by first going for the full recline position. I wanted to know what my maximum comfort level was going to be for the 14 1/2 flight to Shanghai. To my surprise, the seat arched, raised, then lowered, and lowered, and lowered - until I was seemingly near the floor and nearly flat in my own little happy space. I felt very comfortable and hoped that this trip would not be so bad after all. It was, however, at that moment that I realized that all of the coach passengers were filing by on their way to their own personal hell, and I felt a sense of compassion and returned my seat to a more normal position. I couldn't wait to finish the meal so I could see of I could get some real sleep.

After a delay due to cargo still being loaded, we taxied all of about 30 seconds (easily a record for quickest taxi at O'Hare).. W then slowly accelerated down the runway, lifted off into the overcast sky and headed north. I set my video screen to GPS display to monitor our progress and awaited my lunch. About 30 minutes into the flight we received our lunch. We had the choice of Western or Asian cuisine– I went for the Cowboy Steak – it was quite tasty and for dessert, I had the vanilla ice cream w/ brownie. Immediately after eating, I pressed the “Zzzzzzz” seat position, wrapped up with my blanket and attempted to sleep.

After about two hours of sleep (that is great for me on a plane) sat up a bit, and watched “Dan is Real Life”. Kind of a chick-flick, but it was ok. After that, it was a bit of a daze but I think I laid down for awhile and watched all 6 episodes of “The Office”.

When I said earlier that we headed north, it was in fact, absolute north. We went straight up over Hudson Bay, and actually passed within 90 miles of the north pole. The clouds cleared enough a bit to present me with an unforgettable view – miles and miles of ice and snow. We came back down south over Siberia and then actually flew SSE toward Shanghai.

Somewhere after crossing the north pole, the guy next to me flagged down an attendant and was not at all feeling well. They ended up paging a Doctor on the plane and it turned out that he had a severe migraine. He said that he had taken 2 vicodin and 2 hydrocodones, but it didn’t help with the pain at all. They got him some ice packs, a HUGE barf bag, and told me not to open the window or turn on the light. Too bad for me since I wanted to look out the window and read a book – oh well. After the Dr. gave him something else, he was knocked out for the rest of the flight. Upon landing, he woke up and said he was doing better. Unfortunately for me, I just had to lay there and watch our slow progress on the screen for the rest of the flight.

We arrived in Shanghai Pu Dong airport around 3:00pm Wednesday (after about 16 hours on the plane). It was like landing in Denver – nothing around the airport but farm fields. We had to go through customs, pick up our luggage, then check in for our flight to Dalian. Once we checked back in, we waited a bit in the terminal and at 5:00pm headed over to our gate for boarding.

Our flight from Shanghai to Dalian was scheduled for an hour and forty minutes aboard an Airbus 321. It was packed 3x3 seating, but actually quite a new plane. For those of you who have flown on any China airline, the newness of the plane was a pleasant surprise. The inside was brightly lit with a strong Asian twist – as one would expect. Bright blue headrests, crisp led signs in green and red, were actually quite impressive (as impressive as the inside of a passenger plane can be). The flight was smooth and Mike and I both drifted in and out of sleep and we landed in Dalian around 7:30pm – about 20 minutes late – again, do to long cargo load times.

Upon arrival, we gathered our belongings and headed to the baggage claim area. It was there that we spotted our rides Frank and Nancy, from work. Mike, in a state of excitement, exhaustion, and general confusion, headed over to say hello. As he approached our friends, I was wondering at what point he would realize that he needed to pick up his luggage from the conveyer belt. The answer soon came – he realized it just after exiting the passenger area. That is to say, the point of no return. As he spun around, I waved and cheerily picked up my suitcase. As he stood there red-faced and weary in the distance, I began to wonder just what his luggage looked like. After a failed attempt by Mike to quietly re-enter the baggage claim area, I knew what two things had to be done: 1) Savor this moment for posterity in this blog and 2) retrieve his luggage for him. A large blue bag making it’s second loop on the conveyer was my best guess – so I retrieved it, and after a short discussion with the baggage claim verifier, was able to bring his bag to him.

We took the standard 20 minute harrowing taxi ride to our hotel – The Swissotel (same place as last time). On arrival at the hotel (now about 8:30pm), we checked in, and headed to our rooms for some much deserved rest.

After a surprisingly restful nights sleep, we met at 8:20am for breakfast in the hotel and then headed to the office. Our 5 block walk was accompanied by a hazy, cloudless sky and about 45 degrees. We took the familiar elevator ride up to our area on the 23^rd floor and Frank showed us to our office. We would share an office this time, in a nice sized room with a view. There we sat down and began our work for the day.

At 11:30am or so, our team took us out to a familiar spicy Chinese restaurant. It seems to be the favorite lunch spot as we had gone there twice before on our previous visit. My mad chopstick skills soon returned to me as I feasted on the tasty lunch. My favorite dishes today were the mushrooms, spicy noodles, and the Chinese dumplings.

We returned to the office after about 45 minutes, and finished up the day around 5:45pm or so. Mike and I both “hit the wall” around 4pm and decided to just eat back at the hotel for dinner. We both chose to take it easy and just get room service tonight. I went with the California burger – tasty but not nearly enough catsup (can you ever really have enough catsup?).

Interesting side note of a political nature: The CNN feed is somewhat messy – with screen glitches every couple of seconds or so. I Didn’t think much about it until CNN reported that China was intercepting their video feed and “screening” it for content regarding Tibet. About half of the time that a CNN report comes up on the subject, the video and sound cuts out. Very strange.

It is now 9:30pm, and I am going to wrap this up for the night so that I can get some sleep. Good night all.