globalflight.us » China

Back from my trip

Justin — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 04:19:08 +0000

I’m back in Tokyo now after nearly two weeks on the road visiting Singapore and then Shanghai. I’ve posted some pictures over at Flickr but unfortunately wasn’t able to take so many while in Singapore. I did walk around a little on Shanghai and tried to take some pictures of busy shopping area on Nanjing Rd. (South) down near the Huangpu River.

I also took a few pictures from my hotel room that turned out ok despite shooting through a dirty window.

Sightseeing along the Huangpu River

Justin — Wed, 30 May 2007 13:27:24 +0000

I spent my last full and free day in Shanghai doing a little sightseeing along the Huangpu River. It was a warm and slightly hazy day – a good time for a walk along the Pudong side of the river. I enjoyed a frappucino at the river side Starbucks (Starbuck is everywhere – I think worse than McDonald’s). One of the first walks I took in Shanghai was right in this same area. I wrote about it in this blog entry. I guess it was fitting that I end my time in Shanghai right back where I started.

Here are some pictures (more over at Flickr).

Farewells

Justin — Tue, 29 May 2007 14:24:20 +0000

The farewells are basically done now. I even got a bouquet of flowers. I’ve gone through this several times in the past so I guess I’m used to saying goodbye. It’s strange to think that my office, my home, my co-workers for the past year will soon just be another memory. Hopefully our paths will cross again sometime, but it’s hard to know when that might be. I have a day off tomorrow before flying to Japan on Thursday. Perhaps I’ll do some sightseeing in Shanghai if the weather is good. I’ll miss the constantly changing skyline and fast pace. I’ll miss the people. I’ve been blessed to have had the opportunity to work in so many places and meet so many people. Shanghai is no exception.

Point profess your excellency seat

Justin — Mon, 28 May 2007 13:12:52 +0000

I’m not usually one to comment on examples of poor English. Not being able to speak any dialect of Chinese, I don’t usually thinks it fair to pick on a non-native speaker’s English ability. But this sign giving emergency instructions in my hotel room was just too good to pass up. It’s a good thing it comes with a map otherwise I would have no idea what the meaning is. Especially the last point, “Point profess your excellency seat.” I have no clue what they wanted to say. For a 5-star hotel I am little disappointed the hotel management couldn’t bother to spend a couple of extra bucks to have a native speaker (or even a person with a couple of years English instruction) check this. Any ideas?

One week to go

Justin — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:45:12 +0000

Well, I’m down to my last 7 days of living in Shanghai. I still have a number of farewell parties to go and it is difficult and sad sometimes to realize that most of the people I’ve met here I will probably never see again. With tools like Skype and of course email it is easier to keep in touch, but without face-to-face contact it is hard to keep up with everyone.

I’ve always enjoyed living in new and different places and making friends in so many different countries. But it also means that I’ve had to say a lot of goodbyes along the way. I hope I have the chance to see a lot of my friends from Shanghai again but realistically it’s going to be difficult. Perhaps one or two I’ll have the chance to meet here or in Tokyo again. I certainly hope so.

Moving Headache No. 2

Justin — Wed, 16 May 2007 15:43:52 +0000

A lot of paperwork is involved in shipping goods out of China. Fortunately most of it is taken care of by the moving company. But this time my headache is that they take away my passport for three days to do customs clearance. So during those 3 days I can’t apply for a visa at the Japanese embassy or even do something simple like check into a hotel. None of this would be so bad except that I am on a very tight schedule for leaving the country. Oh well, I suppose part of the experience of living in China is learning how to deal with getting out.

6 for 9

Justin — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:54:27 +0000

Tonight was the 6th night of the last 9 that I’ve eaten dinner out. This time was a dinner marking the arrival of two new staff and the departure of one. The food was apparently Macao-style soup. I’m not sure what you would call this in English, but you basically get a little pot with a flame under it and put various vegetables and meats inside cooking them in a boiling broth. After a couple minutes you pick the stuff out with chopsticks and dip in a sauce and eat. While everyone was saying the food was Macao-style I swear I had exactly the same thing a few weeks ago and everyone was calling it Taiwanese food. Anyway, it’s actually pretty good (despite how it looks in the pictures) and you get to pick and mix your own sauces for dipping.

Looking forward to the weekend already…except that I’ve got another dinner on Saturday night!

Gmail and Google Blocked Again

Justin — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 03:44:38 +0000

For whatever reason I (and probably everyone else living in China) am not able to access my Gmail account since last night. If anyone is trying to reach me you can leave a comment on this post and I’ll get back to you.

Not only is Gmail being blocked right now, Google (including even google.com.cn) is also completely blocked for some reason. I wonder what Google did to get the government angry? Or is this just one of those temporary blockages that no one can explain and mysteriously goes away after a few days?

I’ve had good success with Gmail over the past year since moving to China. Until now even when Google.com or Gmail.com have been blocked I have always been able to download my email using a regular email client like Thunderbird. This time – no dice. No access at all and no idea when the situation might improve.

>>> UPDATE: It seems this was a problem with OpenDNS. I turned it off and now both Gmail and Google work. I can’t believe OpenDNS would block Google (that would be suicidal) so I am guessing it was actually due to a conflict between my provider here in China and OpenDNS. China Telecom probably doesn’t like people using DNS other than their own. Who knows.

View from the taxi window

Justin — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 14:21:53 +0000

For those of you who might be interested in typical Shanghai scenery I took a few pics from my taxi along the way home today from getting my haircut.

As we made our way through an intersection I snapped this pic of another taxi. The most popular (by far) model of taxi is made by VW. These VW’s are made in China as VW has had a (joint venture?) plant here for a long time. Taxi’s in Shanghai are usually pretty clean and quite cheap.

This is a pic of the backside of what is now an exhibition center. You can see the Chinese flag flying above the building.

The bus is a very popular form of mass transit here. I haven’t ridden one in Shanghai but they look pretty good and I know they are relatively cheap. Some are air-conditioned (some not).

The black car parked on the street is a Buick. Like the VW this is actually made right here in China. This style of car is very popular as a company car and a lot of business people use them and have a driver. Having a car and driver is certainly more expensive than driving yourself, but still a lot a cheaper relatively speaking than it would be in many western countries.

This is what I would call a typical local storefront. Some boxes on the street. A little disorganized looking. But the prices will certainly be lower than if you went shopping for the same kind of stuff at a western style supermarket.

The trip home took about 15 minutes (not much traffic today) and cost about 15 RMB. That’s about US $2.

New downtown luxury

Justin — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:30:36 +0000

I decided to check out one of Shanghai’s newest hotels, the Le Royal Meridien. It is actually not so new now having opened up just over six months ago. The hotel itself is located in a big modern skyscraper with the lobby on about the 8th floor (or something like that) and rooms above that up to the 60 something floor. The location is convenient for shopping and sightseeing with the base of the hotel being located right off Nanjing Rd., the major tourist shopping street. I checked out a couple of rooms. The first was a “standard” Grand Deluxe Room. A little small but with enough room for a desk, chair and decent sized bathroom. I also checked out a Grand Deluxe Suite. These rooms seems to be located on the corners of the building. The one I checked out had a separate bedroom and living area. The living area had a nice sofa and chairs, flat panel TV, small dining table, and bar/kitchen area (which you can’t see in my picture).

This is the Grand Deluxe Room

This is the Grand Deluxe Suite (the bedroom is similar to above).

There is a lot in Shanghai that is cheaper compared to wetern countries or Japan. Not luxury hotels. Rooms here start at around USD $250 a night. But if you want a modern first class hotel in a very convenient location, then you might want to check the Le Meridien out.