Anyway, as the title suggests, things have started to slow down around here. Work has gotten more interesting, thankfully, but a lot of my initial excitement for being here has also worn off. Rather than seeing things that Chinese people do differently than Americans as quirky, I'm starting to look for underlying reasons for those differences. I'm probably going to comment more on that now (although I think I'm also going to cover what I work on so that I don't forget).
July 1
I'm working on creating a fixture to hold a workpiece to be machined in a CNC mill. I'm taking multi-faceted drawings from AutoCAD and recreating them in Unigraphics NX6 as 3D models that we can then use the integrated capabilities of NX6 to generate tool paths and code to machine the fixture. I think they might even let me help machine one of these work pieces eventually. Michael has also given me a second workpiece to look at with the assignment to take an NX6 model of the casting for that part, modify it to final specifications in NX6, generate tool paths for that machining and then to create a fixture to hold that piece. I'm excited that I'm getting exposure to this sort of work, but it is a bit daunting to be handed two projects at the same time. And I'm still having trouble with the tool path generation because the method I use to create them in UG generates paths that Michael doesn't like, so tweaking UG has been frustrating/useless. I wish I had a UG manual to walk me through this, but I don't. Oh well, no one said working in a foreign country would be easy.
On the homefront, I needed to get a power converter to charge my electric toothbrush (yes, I'm spoiled). I tried to convey the sense of an voltage converter to Michael, but he didn't seem to get it (perhaps they don't teach breadth in Chinese engineering, but I was glad to have E40 under my belt), but he understood it when I told him I needed it to charge my camera (a little white lie, but I didn't want to convey myself as terribly spoiled). So, we went to the Xiasha Trade Center (XTC, an acronym too awesome to pass up) to see his friend who runs an electronics dealer, along with about 100 other dealers, in a mega-mall with hundreds, if not thousands, of stores. Actually, stores is an overstatement, the shops there are more like 3-sided rooms stacked to the ceiling with merchandise, open to a common hallway. It is an assault on the senses. Luckily there is some semblance of organization and the electronics dealers and separated from the clothing dealers. The electronics dealers are an odd bunch, they sell all sorts of things, but mostly small computers and things like cell phones. But what I think is really strange is that almost everyone there smokes like a chimney, which surely can't be good for the electronics (or their health). Anyway, getting to the point, we find Michael's friend, who doesn't have the low wattage power converter I need, but he can order one and have it for us tomorrow. So I'm feeling a little dejected, Michael tells me that we should try upstairs, and I figure "Hey, let's give this a shot."
But it turns out the upstairs is not more electronics dealers, but instead is an arcade. For about 3 dollars we play video games for over an hour, mostly the little basketball shooting game. I have quite an advantage at this because I'm taller than the average Chinese person, who the game appears to be designed for. My personal best was 696; however, that was assisted by 5 60 second rounds and a rather touchy sensor that would trigger whenever the rim was hit, regardless of whether the ball went in. Overall, it was quite the fun night, although I was a little sad to not get a chance to go for a run like I was hoping to.
July 2
Work was pretty uneventful, spent all day on the first fixture trying to make the tool paths work, but was ultimately unsuccessful. I got frustrated with the path generation in Unigraphics. After work, we needed to return to XTC to pick up the converter, but given the fact that it was Friday, finding a cab would be difficult, so Michael borrowed his friend's moped (or as he called it "eBike," short for electric bike). I was less than enthused about the idea of the two of us riding a moped all the way to XTC, but I've seen thousands of people riding these everywhere, everyday, so I thought we would probably be fine. Besides, riding on the back seat of an eBike would be a definitively Chinese experience, so I went for it. Riding an eBike is very much like riding in a golf cart, except you have to balance on two wheels, rather than having four to take care of that for you, and there are dozens of people on the street driving the exact same thing, weaving in an out of traffic, flaunting every notion of road safety I have. Lucky for me, Michael is not one of these crazy drivers and we make it to XTC and back in one piece. The only hiccup was when a bug smacked my cheek, but there were no repercussions from that.
July 3
Still working on UG models; however I've moved on to the second piece that Michael gave me. This one's been going pretty smooth, except for the hour or so of work I lost when my computer crashed and I had to reset the CMOS of my computer. That was fun.
During work today I came to the realization that ringtones suck in China. There are a ton of people who use the default ringtones for their cellphones, which is rather boring. But even more numerous are the people who have these terrible MIDI songs that drive me crazy when they ring. And they all have it set on maximum loudness, which is much louder than the maximum volume on American cellphones. I've taken to listening to my iPod during work to drown out these ringtones. It's actually had the strange effect of concentrating me on my work. Whodathunkit?
July 4
Wooooooo America! In the interest of being as American as possible, I went to Hangzhou to have a hamburger and a beer (preferably American). As I step off the bus in Hangzhou city for the second time, the cacophony of the city hits me again and I realize that that is one of the defining characteristics of China for me (along with the heat, the sheer number of people and the huge scale of everything). After a walk around the northern part of the West Lake, I make my way back to the southeastern part to a restaurant called Eudora that has been heavily discussed on the Hangzhou Expat forums (both positive and negative reviews).
I get to Eudora and I'm glad to see that it has a sports bar feel and look, which is exactly what I wanted (especially considering that I was dripping wet, as if I had been swimming, from sweat after the long walk there). I sat down and was offered a food menu and a drink menu. I asked the waitress for a cheeseburger and a Budweiser (they even had it on tap). She said okay and then went to put the order in. About 5 minutes later, a different waiter comes over and tells me that I have to order the Brunch Special because it was Sunday around noon. I had a feeling that they were price gouging me, but I was not in a mood to argue, besides, the Brunch Special included a buffet in addition to an entree (they let me still have a cheeseburger). However, they wouldn't let me have a beer, I had to have a mimosa or a bloody mary. As someone who is virulently anti-tomato juice, I opted for the mimosa. I'm not sure who taught them to make a mimosa, but I'm pretty sure they aren't supposed to be purple. It was strange because they had orange juice at the buffet, but not at the bar it appears. My cheeseburger came and, to my surprise, it looked like a cheeseburger, with fries even. The taste, however, was less than ideal. Apparently medium means rare and burgers aren't made from ground beef in China, but rather some ground-pulled beef combination. Needless to say, I'm not sure I would go back there, but it got me a cheeseburger, which was the goal.
One of the other interns, Phil, joined me at the restaurant, but opted to not eat there because 1) I was finished eating by the time he got there, 2) He didn't feel like being price-gouged. So, we opted to go for a walk while Phil looked for somewhere to get a more reasonably priced lunch. We actually found that place right next door in a surprisingly accurate French bakery reproduction. I wanted to buy something, but I was gorged on the buffet (they tried to price gouge me, so I buffet gorged them), so I passed. As we continued our walk, it started to rain, and oh boy did it rain. Monsoon season is serious business, the only comparable rain I've experienced was Philmont 2007 when it absolutely poured. I rather dislike the weather, but I have to deal with it.
The trip back to my apartment from the city was somewhat interesting. The lady sitting across the aisle from me on the bus was carrying a guitar and a large (18" diameter) dreamcatcher with a sad looking man on the front. And yes, the woman was Chinese. When I got off in Xiasha (again, I took the wrong bus and ended up on the wrong side of the mini-city) I hailed a cab and spent a while conveying where I wanted to go to the cabbie. No more than 3 minutes later, the cabbie picks up another fare, a family of three, who are apparently also going my way. When the family gets in, the cabbie starts making fun of me to the father for trying to show him where I wanted to go with an English-language map. Perhaps I'm wrong to expect cabbies to recognize the shape of the streets in this rather small settlement, but I found that incredibly frustrating. In the interest of getting home and not causing a scene, I bit my tongue and didn't call out the cabbie, and I got home safe and sound.
 |  |
| From the park that surrounds the West Lake. I can see why people call it the most beautiful place in China, these parts are awfully pretty up close. | |
 |  |
| Shots from the lake itself. On the left is Hangzhou city seen from across the Lake. On the right is a "pleasure boat" and the spire of a pagoda across the lake. When you see the lake in the open like this, the pollution of Hangzhou becomes much more noticeable and the beauty of the area decreases. The haze is much less pronounced on the small scale (as the row above) | |
 |  |
| The delicious smelling French bakery. I think I will have to return here later for a pastry | I finally found a McDonalds in Hangzhou, unfortunately they didn't have an apple pie, so I couldn't do a complete repeat of Vienna. They had taro and banana pies, but those would have missed the point. |
No comments:
Post a Comment