Monday, March 26 - Back to the grind

Monday morning started with a hotel breakfast and a long cab ride to the office. I got a late start and paid the price, hitting rush hour head-on for my first time ever in Dalian. The cab ride took about 45 minutes and gave me the opportunity to reflect on a few observations. First, they have begun posting traffic police at many of the worst intersections, and I think, traffic is getting somewhat more controlled - although I see a fair amount of "crazy". One case in point, some cars were approaching an intersection where they would be behind a street car. Since they wanted to turn left, and didn't want to wait, about 10 of them passed it on the left blocking all oncoming traffic. This was all done right in front of a traffic cop - wow. Also, from my previous trip, I had noted about 10 straight city blocks where old condo units were all being torn down. This time, they have been replaced by really nice looking modern hi-rise condos - generally about 30 stories tall or so. There are still plenty of old ones awaiting rebuilding, but the turnover is definately there. Also, I don't really notice any new "American" companies here other thatn the ones I have seen before (McDonalds, KFC, and a few Starbucks) - with one exception: I have already seen about 10 different "Authorised Reseller" shops with an "Apple-like" logo. I cannot be sure if they are legit or not, but they have definately popped up over the last year. One more observation, From my first visit five years ago, I see almost none of the old tiny 3 wheeled mini-cars, and old 3-wheeled bikes that resemble a pickup truck. My guess of the traffic breakdown: Old Chinese taxi's (like old Datsuns) 15%, buses 15%, western small-medium sized cards 60%, and the remaining 10%, trucks, and the old vehicles mentioned earlier. Also, not many motorcycles or bicycles - the traffic is just too dense. With that high density of traffic, I am still seeing almost every block pedestrians content to wait 2 lanes into 6 lanes of traffic trying to cross the street. Wow. And yes, they still insist upon beeping all the time to communicate their intentions.

Back to my day... We walked about 5 blocks to a newer Chinese restaurant that had seating configured as a western restaurant - a trend that is growing here. We enjoyed a standard meal, but also had some fagra which was almost good. I left the office at 5:00pm and was back in my hotel room, doing some work by 6:00pm. I received my room service dinner by 7:00pm that featured a bowl of hand-made noodles with spinach and mushrooms and a plate of fruit with a coke. I didn't care for the broth, but the noodles were tasty.

After dinner, I continued on finishing up some work and turned in around 10:00pm.