Honduras - Turns out, spending a week underwater is exhausting

I spent the last week at Barefoot Cay in Roatan, Honduras relaxing and SCUBA diving, lots of diving.

Getting to the resort was a bit of an adventure as I had to leave the company holiday party early (a decision I regret and wish I'd made better flight decisions), flew on TACA (a Central American airline, better than China Eastern, but still not very good) through San Salvador (not exactly a bustling airport hub) and got to Roatan on a puddle-jumper airplane.

Once we got to Roatan, the island had an interesting dichotomy of natural beauty and human poverty that seemed endemic for the locals, in direct contrast to the luxury of the tourist resorts. I couldn't shake that contrast, which sort of detracted from the vacation for me, forcing feelings of guilt. The resort was very well maintained and appointed, it felt very much like Hawaii, although there was almost nothing to do outside of the resort. Most of my time not spent diving was spent reading as I picked up the A Song of Fire and Ice series and made significant headway.

As for the diving, the best location was Mary's Place, a collection of cracks that happened to be right outside the shore break from our resort. It felt like underwater spelunking and at times reminded me of the X-wing trench run scene in A New Hope. Other diving highlights included a field of garden eels, a very bold and determined sea turtle and increasing my total bottom time past 12 hours (and not getting decompression sickness). The sea life was less vibrant than I expected it to be, however that assessment could have been a result of my exasperation of seeing the same things day in and day out for 10 dives. I also developed a new diving move called Top Gunning (you turn upside down and swim face to face with another diver without warning them first).

Omaha - I think Warren Buffet's stalking me

Instead of spending the week before Big Game near Stanford, like I should have, I spent it in Omaha putting on a conference for work (I only get the most glamorous assignments, no?). We stayed in the hotel across the street from the convention center, which is about half a mile from literally everything else in Omaha, which was less than fun given the temperature. However, I still enjoyed walking down to the Old Market district, the "hip" part of Omaha, and eating at a place called The Twisted Fork. After that we walked across the bridge behind the conference center to Iowa, which was across the river. It only took us about half an hour to walk around the conference center and get to Iowa (not an exaggeration, that place is huge). The first setup day of the conference we were eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which was fairly empty and who happened to be sitting 20 feet away? Warren Buffet, the Oracle of Omaha. And then we passed him in the crosswalk after lunch that day. Later in the week we ate at a restaurant called The Boiler Room, which I'm convinced is the best restaurant in Omaha.

San Antonio - Riverwalk? Meh.

I spent 6 days working in San Antonio at a conference at the Marriott Riverwalk, which meant I had a lot of time to meander the Riverwalk which, honestly, didn't impress me. It struck me as a tourist trap, much like Pier 39 in San Francisco, but with less interesting food. The best place we ate in San Antonio was at Rosario's, a little Mexican joint about a mile from the Riverwalk, but lightyears ahead in terms of food quality. The only really touristy thing I did was visit the Alamo, which was quite disappointing. I don't see why it's a point of pride for Texans.

Spain - Beautiful Barcelona

March 28
I had a bit of a struggle with an unactivated Eurail Pass at Atocha as my pass was apparently not "activated" at Algeciras, but a nice grandfatherly Renfe employee helped me out and I didn't miss my train to Barcelona. When I got out of the metro in Barcelona looking for my hostel I got a bit lost. I got to the rather spacious hostel and got acquainted with the more diverse crown (LA, Chicago, Denmark, UK, NZ, Germany). During the afternoon I visited Montjuic and the Olympic Park, which was gorgeous and had a fantastic view of the city. I wandered through the Barri Gotic which had a fantastic Old World-feel, similar to Tangier, but less suspect. Barcelona reminded me a lot of San Francisco the more I thought about it.

March 29
I missed my scheduled bike tour due to my failure at map reading (a very uncommon occurrence), so I wandered through the Parc Guell and visited La Sagrada Familia (I must have walked halfway across the city of Barcelona and back). I checked out the Camp Nou, where FC Barcelona plays, and I was a bit surprised to find that it had gone fully Nike commercialized, although I probably shouldn't have been. I bought lunch in La Boqueteria, an exceptionally large farmer's market. While wandering the city I happened upon dozens of beautiful plazas and buildings randomly hidden throughout the city. That night I went out on a date with Stefanie, the German girl, to get Tapas and wander the city at night.

March 30
I made it to the bike tour today and that was rather fun as I spent most of the time talking to the guide and the guide in training. I found out that the guide in training thought I was also training to be a guide, so score one more for my attempts to not appear outwardly touristy. We saw a large portion of the city I visited the previous day, but this time I actually learned the history behind it. I spent more time with Stefanie today seeing the Museum of Barcelona history and lounging about a park. It was a nice vacation romance, but it wasn't meant to be.

March 31
Don't book 6 am flights, because that means you have to be at the airport at 4 am, which is stupid. I'm pretty sure I was the first person at the Barcelona airport that day. I had to connect in Amsterdam to make it back to SFO and I had the tightest connection of my life, making it by about 5 minutes after getting stuck behind a family with small children at Schengen Zone customs in Schiphol. I flew KLM, which was pretty nice, except for the huge group of Italian tourists who were going to San Francisco on what must have been their first vacation ever.

Spain - The Revenge of Madrid

March 25

I left Algeciras in the morning after stopping at a rather nice farmer's market I stumbled upon the day before. I read 100 Years of Solitude on the trip, which I think has made me more introspective than I otherwise would have been. I realized that I really do appreciate making a deep connection with other people. The train ride was rather uneventful, except when I realized the guy sitting in front of me was the same guy who took my picture on top of the Rock of Gibraltar two days before. I took a stroll around the university district and I was kind of surprised at how industrial and "downtown" the buildings appeared. The students, however, were impeccably dressed, much better than American college students. I got to my hostel in Madrid (right off the Plaza del Sol, it was actually a fantastic location) and found it full of other American college students (surprise?). I went out for vegetarian tapas and a museum visit with the girl from Berkeley. We visited the Reina Sofia and I spent a long time contemplating Guernika. I was also rather interested in the Spanish Civil War Royalist propaganda which stimulated my design/history/Spanish interests. After dinner we met up with the other students from the hostel and went out clubbing at a huge place called Kaptial in Atocha, that is apparently famous/notorious. Went home at 4, which was apparently early. Oh well.

March 26

I left the hostel fairly early, after having a surprisingly good conversation in Spanish with girls from Argentina and Spain in the hostel "kitchen," and spent a while at el Museo del Prado. Glossing over my impressions of particular paintings, I did take a much closer look at the painting than I did the last time I was here, almost a decade ago. When I visited the Parque del Retiro it was pretty much exactly as I remember it being. I visited a food market near the Plaza Mayor that had dozens of delicious things to eat that I wish I could have taken home. I even decided to take a siesta today. When I woke up from my siesta I found out that I was sharing the 8-person hostel room with 7 girls in a group from Memorial University in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada. 

March 27

I spent the morning perusing El Rastro (giant flea market) with the Newfies. The only thing I found that I liked was a print, however, when I tried to haggle the owner said "No, this is art." There were a lot of get to know you questions, but the girls started to warm up to me. We parted ways for dinner while I went to meet my friend Walter at a sherry bar near Plaza del Sol called La Venecia, which was a little run down place, but fantastic Sherry. Afterwards, Walter and the Newfies and I went to El Tigre in Chueca, which was a phenomenally fun and cheap bar. They served huge plates of tapas with every (huge) drink and we had well more than we could eat. We hit another bar after that with a group of American college students doing a trip abroad, but that was much less interesting. Hanging out with the Newfies made me feel like an experience traveler, an old hand.

Spain/Gibraltar/Morocco - Finally Made it to Africa

March 22
I decided to take a trip to Spain for Spring Break before starting my new job and to take my first entirely self-financed trip. First stop: the southern tip of Spain and Morocco. I got their flying Air France through CDG in Paris, which was an interesting experience. I definitely felt that AF took better care of me than US carriers do. CDG is an interesting airport. I love the train station in the middle of the airport, however, it is a HUGE airport and my flights were, of course, on opposite ends of the airport, but I still made my connection. I even had time to hunt down a (well-hidden) ATM to have some cash before I got to Spain. I landed in Malaga and I was a bit concerned about making it to Algeciras as I was planning to hop a metro train and then bus in a place I'd never been before, but it all actually worked out fine. When I got to Algeciras, it kind of reminded me of El Paso, which was odd.

March 23
Gibraltar is an interesting place, lots of Spanish being spoken everywhere and people tell me that its primary purpose it to indulge Spanish vices (smoking, gambling and boozing). The cable car to the top of the Rock was fantastic and the view was great, even if it was a bit overcast. The monkeys were literally everywhere and they were quite ambivalent to my presence. I rather like the small walking streets, it gives off the best of small town and big city feel. I walked all the way out to Europa Point, which apparently is something not a lot of people do as it is not that easy. I spent a lot of time walking on roads I probably shouldn't have walked on, but it turned out fine. And when I got to the point, there was a rather ornate mosque that was a gift of the Saudi royal family (I think).

March 24
Today was an eventful and excruciating day. Excessive winds caused a change in my transportation from landing at City of Tangier to landing at Tangier Mediterranean, which is 50 miles away. I ended up in Morocco about 4 hours late (The misery of waiting in airports is nothing compared to the misery of waiting in Ferry terminals). When I finally met my tour guide Aziz we had to rush through the tour, although Aziz was less talkative than I expected. I did get a chance to see where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic and I got to ride a camel and visit the Pillars of Hercules. When we got back to the Kasbah, Aziz pawned me off on his assistant, who was a little bit suspicious. He took me wandering through the Kasbah until we got deep into it, far away from others and I got spooked and led us back to a more populated area. Out there, the assistant met a "friend" who talked off on the side while looking at me. I stand by my suspicions. Eventually the assistant dropped me off back at the Ferry Terminal with 2 hours to wait for my ferry back to Spain. This time we had to land at Tarifa instead of Algeciras, so I didn't end up getting back until 1am. Ugh.

Hawaii - SCUBA Certification

I spent the week with my family on the Kona side of Hawaii getting SCUBA certified at Jack's Dive Locker in Kailua. It was a pretty good trip, although diving isn't the easiest thing to pick up initially, especially breath control, but I passed and got my Open Water Diver certification. Diving in the tropics is pretty nice as you don't need to wear nearly as thick a wet suit and the fish life is much more vibrant.

(This post was written well after the fact. I got my Advanced Open Water certification in August 2011 in Monterey, CA. The water was significantly colder, but not as cold as I expected. And I rather enjoyed diving in the kelp forests. I think cold water diving has much more interesting plant life whereas warm water diving has much more interesting fish life)

China - Day 88 - China Retrospective

Wow, I made it. There were times that I seriously doubted whether I would last here, but I did. I don't know how I could write something cohesive about my experiences in China, so I'm going to resort to bullet points:

Things I'm going to miss:

• Being able to find milk tea everywhere
• Food being inexpensive and tasty
• The very impressive workshop at Allied
• Being good at basketball
• Exploring the city with my friends as an isolated group in a huge city
• The Shanghai Metro System and high-speed rail to Hangzhou
• Baozi and jiaozi. It's going to be hard to go back to eating Ling Ling
• Very kind and generous personal interactions

Things I'm not going to miss:

• Being stared at all the time everywhere I go
• Having to debone meat as I eat it
• Everyone smoking everywhere all the time
• Littering, spitting, people urinating everywhere
• The lack of personal space
• Monsoon weather
• Only having instant or overpriced coffee to drink
• Chinese "Beer" - an insult to beer
• Being functionally illiterate
• Not being able to drink tap water
• Everyone's lack of concern for safety
• Everyone's general disdain for strangers
• Getting the run around from my company when it's time to get paid
• Not being able to get a straight answer out of anyone
• Feeling like I'm risking my life every time I cross the street

Things I might miss or might not:

• People pushing/cutting in line - It's incredibly rude, but I'm good at it
• Never having to pay for a meal - Never being allowed to pay for yourself does get a bit insulting after a while
• Grocery Stores - They have some delicious surprises and some of the most foul "food" I've ever seen
• People watching - People act very differently in public than they do back home
• Chinese fashion - everyone tries to stand out and ends up looking silly
• Chinese ambition - People seem much more ambitious, but less creative here
• Strangers telling me I'm handsome - On one hand, it's very flattering. On the other, it's a very creepy way to start a conversation on the bus (which happened to me twice).

China - Day 87 - Going going back back to Cali Cali

Of course, the travel gods of China would make it difficult for me to leave. After Dr. Sun generously offered one of the company cars to drive me to my hotel in Shanghai, it was an hour and a half late. Why, you may ask? Because the street outside my apartment had flooded. After we finally hit the road, about an hour into the drive, we hear some knocking and have to pull off the road to check it out. I was worried that I wasn't going to make it to Shanghai, but the problem turned out to just be the under-engine plate guard, not a major problem. We fixed it with some rope and continued on to the hotel.

The flooding in front of my apartment building. I wasn't kidding.	While we were getting the car checked out I played with the mechanic's dog. Playing with dogs is the same in any language

The hotel turned out to be in the boonies, nothing like the area around airports in the states. I think it qualified as the Chinese suburbs. Either way, I was kinda disappointed. I checked into the hotel and I actually had a pretty nice room (free internet even). However, I didn't see any other guests there, which was a bit disconcerting (I later heard them having an argument later that night). I wandered around the area looking for dinner (eschewing hotel restaurants, which was a good idea in hindsight), but the pickings were slim. I grabbed some modest street food and retired to my room to watch far much more TV than is probably healthy for me.

My glorious 11 kuai (about $1.50) dinner.

China - Day 85 - Goodbye Xiasha

I wish I could say it was a tearful goodbye, but frankly, I'm glad to get out of here. My last day at work was a pretty good encapsulation of my summer and my experience in China. I spent most of the morning watching the Canadian contractors working on a test workpiece and chatting with them as the machines worked. When it came time to change fixtures we learned that the pallet changing vehicle had been fooled with, rendering it inoperable, so the rest of the day was shot. Later, I went to collect my final salary and was met with a number that was significantly lower than what I expected to be paid. The company had included a number of charges on my salary that shouldn't have been based on my contract, but it took a call to Denise, the program coordinator, to get them removed. I had accepted the fact that I wouldn't be making much money this summer, but to be nickeled and dimed like that really left a bad taste in my mouth. In an about face, I had dinner with the president of the company where I had a surprisingly nice steak and a nice conversation. These conflicting treatments by the company are a perfect example of the duality of my experience in China. And the cherry on top of the sundae of today: the power was out in my apartment when I got home (It was turned back on 15 minutes later after an annoyed phone call).

China - Day 83 - When it Rains, it Pours

Miraculously, I'm not talking about the weather, but rather basketball. After waiting 11 weeks for my company to finally play a basketball game, I get two in four days. We finally played the police and they were far and away the best team we played all summer. They were much more physical and organized than anyone else we played (this seemed painfully obvious in hindsight). For once we were actually the smaller team, and we got positively worked. It seemed like I was the only one of our players who could actually hold his own in the key, but I was pretty useless there when 3 guys would collapse on me (due to their very effective 2-3 zone). It did frustrate me that they played dirty (ironic), but I got over it (my bruises are still holding a grudge). We ended up losing, but the loss didn't sting, strangely. Probably due to my surreal "last week in China" feelings.

Work is... strange right now. I've been trying to self-teach about CNC milling in practice and helping to finish the set-up of the 1816 line. I come and go as I please; the autonomy feels strange in this type of internship, but I'm just trying to learn as much useful information as I can while not getting in the way. Actually, not getting in the way is kind of a problem because there are about 10 guys from Allied who watch the Canadian contractors setting up and running the machining, so it gets pretty crowded. Oh well, they'll be here after I'm gone, so I shouldn't feel too bad.

China - Day 80 - Once more around the lake

September 3
Friday, we finally had the company basketball game that I've been looking forward to all summer. The game went pretty well for my team (we won by about 30) and I had a good game; I think I ended up with more steals than points, which was strange, although not that surprising given my ballhawking and the lack of hustle by most of the players. It was a lot of fun to get out there and play for a team again. I think we might have another game on Tuesday, but that's still up in the air.

After the game, as per usual, we went out to dinner as a team. The meal was rather uneventful, but it seemed to drag on for hours as the guys kept drinking and smoking and talking. I could tell that they were occasionally talking about me because they kept using a few of the words I can pick-up in spoken Chinese: "Tang Mu" (my name), "laowai" (foreigner), "meiguo" (American), "ta" (him, accompanied by a nod or a point). After about an hour and half (and two beers, which was enough for me) I told Michael to stop ordering me beer because I was full, which is a sign that he usually understand means I'm ready to go. The drinking and the smoking continued and my mood deteriorated. I didn't want to be rude and cause a scene, so I went along with it, accepting a third (and fourth) beer and going along with all of the toasts and trying to follow the conversation that completely eluded me. I gave every non-verbal signal I could signifying that I was ready to call it a night: bored expression, staring into the distance, pretending to sleep, but nothing worked. I had to repeatedly shoot down offers of a "massage" (offered with a wink and pronounced "mah-sah-gee," which confused me for about a minute). It felt like I was being held hostage. After another hour (2.5 hours into dinner at this point, after all the other customers had left the restaurant and the management had turned off the lights), I firmly told Michael that I wanted to go home. Thirty minutes after that, we finally left. I was angry (in addition to being sore from the basketball game), so I wasn't very talkative. Michael seemed surprised that I was unhappy and was cautiously trying to make me feel better to no avail because the time for that was hours ago.

September 4
I went to work today, but I'm not sure why. When I try to find something to do, I'm told we have to keep waiting for a part to come in or there is nothing to do. Even my desire to teach myself CAD skills has deteriorated due to the amount of self-teaching I've done this summer. It's going to be an (un)interesting last week.

September 5
First things first, Stanford football. Other than my family (and one particularly resilient Volvo), nothing has been in my life longer, which made it especially painful that I was missing my first home game in 5 years. But, thanks to the aforementioned smallness of the planet, I was able to listen to the game on the KZSU website. We won big over Sacramento State, but I still wish I was there. Hearing the train whistle in the background didn't make me any less homesick.

China - Day 77 - Begin the Countdown

Wow, I'm leaving China in 10 days. It's hard to believe I've been here for almost three months, I'm actually starting to get used to it, but at the same time I'm anxious to return home to the life I led for 21 years before these last 3 months. It's going to be nice to go back to a place that I speak the language, but I'm not quite there yet.

Things have been excruciatingly slow at work this week. There are delays on the machining line set-up as we have to keep waiting for control parts. It's frustrating because I understand the problem, but not enough to help fix it, so I'm just waiting for parts to come in.

The good news is that our company basketball game looks like it's actually going to happen. We're scheduled to play tomorrow at 5, so hopefully nothing else goes wrong and I can actually play in the game I've been looking forward to all summer. We apparently have another game scheduled for Tuesday, so I might get two games in. I'm excited

The less good news is that the weather has been absolutely miserable for the last week and there are no indications of it letting up any time soon. There are currently 3 typhoons in the South China Sea that are dumping rain on Eastern China. Apparently they closed middle schools in Shanghai, it's that bad. Even though we're about 100 miles inland, we're still getting rained on. Woo.

China - Day 74 - It's funny how time speeds up

It's a strange feeling, time seems to be passing more quickly as I approach the end of my time in China. Perhaps it's my desire to return to the familiar world back home. Perhaps it's me becoming more accustomed to my surroundings. Perhaps it's just a side effect of aging. At the same time, I'm feeling less and less desire to write updates. Maybe I'm just doing less interesting stuff now or perhaps I've run out of interesting "firsts" to write about, but I find myself without much to say on a day to day basis. Although, I can always complain about the weather. After six weeks of relatively dry, if hot, weather, the rains have returned and they are miserable. The commuting gods have frown upon me, as torrential downpours have coincided with my walk home for the better part of the last week. If I've learned anything from this internship it's that I am never going to allow myself to live somewhere that could be described as a "monsoon zone."

My training with Allied seems to be more or less wrapped up and I've started assisting on the implementation of the new CNC line set-up, which is causing more hassles than I expected. It seems that the problem is that they left a job for IT guys to a couple of machine operators. My experience made me somewhat useful, but I couldn't get the job done, so they're going to fly in someone from Luxembourg (really, I couldn't have come up with this if I'd tried). Right now there are 3 teams working on the CNC line: 1) The team from the machine manufacturer (based out of Shanghai), 2) The team from the contracted customer who are helping to set-up the outsourced work (based out of Toronto), 3) The team from Allied learning to run the line (the team is pretty much just my mentor Michael). With this many people, we have a tendency to step on each other's toes, which leads to a lot of waiting time, which I usually spend talking to the guys from Canada, learning about what they do and telling stories. One of them, Marcin, told me stories of living in Poland during Communist rule when he was about my age, it did not sound like fun.

I took of Friday to go on a tour of Alibaba that was set-up by our program director Denise. I read up a little bit on the company beforehand and expected it to be somewhat like a cross between eBay and Amazon, which was pretty accurate. I was kind of disappointed when they deflected a number of my questions, but they did have good coffee, which surprised me. It was nice to hang out with my Stanford friends again this weekend. We searched out a number places we'd been planning to try in Hangzhou, including a Mexican restaurant (Pancho's). I ordered the Burrito al Pastor, but what I got looked like BBQ Pork fried rice wrapped in a tortilla. I didn't even know where to begin tearing this place down, so I'm not going to. Just two more weeks until I can have real Mexican again. After the debacle that was this Mexican restaurant, we went out for drinks at the other Mexican restaurant in Hangzhou (Maya Bar), which was much better (probably because it's harder to screw up a margarita than a burrito). We learned some fun Chinese drinking games and I have a new goal, find 20 dice and 4 cups in a market. Hopefully it will go better than my last shopping trip, when I attempted 3 times to haggle with a grandmotherly woman who promptly shot me down each time. That kind of killed my shopping mojo for the weekend.

Oh, and other good news. I found out that the basketball game that I've been waiting for all summer is supposed to happen tomorrow or Wednesday, so that should be fun. I'll try to get someone to take pictures for all of your derisive pleasure.

China - Day 66 - An uneventful week

The work weeks was fair uneventful. The one big thing that happened was the arrival of the guys from Husky Canada to teach Allied about the new CNC machines. It's been nice to talk to them to get a different view of industrial production. I'm finding that the manufacturing industry is much easier to understand from their perspective than from Allied's perspective. I guess I'm not doing a very good job of integrating myself into this company/country.

In other news of the week, I went back to running during the week after having played basketball for the better part of the last month. It was difficult, to say the least. I could barely make 5k without stopping for a breather, which is sad because I made it to 7k in July before I stopped running. My joints were incredibly sore this weekend, I'm thinking that the running on the concrete here is not the best thing in the world, I think I'm going to return to playing basketball.

The weekend was fun, I finally went on the shopping spree I'd been planning for the last month (had to wait until I got my second paycheck). As I was getting off the bus at Wulin Square I noticed that the guy sitting across the aisle from me was wearing a Stanford Football shirt. If I had more time or a better understanding of Chinese I would have asked him about his shirt, but I didn't want to miss my stop. Small world, huh. The shopping went well (my reconnaissance trips on previous weekends definitely paid off), but I did notice some strange behavior. As I wandered through the countless malls of downtown Hangzhou I wore my headphones, which I thought was the universal "Leave me alone" signal, but that didn't stop dozens of salesmen from trying to entice me into their stores, strange. While I was standing in line to check out at H&M this Chinese woman would not stop bumping into my back, I think at one point she starting leaning on me. It seems that the concept of personal space is a purely Western construct, but I definitely miss it. After a while she tried to maneuver around me, but I moved my leg quickly and gave her a look that said "What in the hell do you think you're doing?" That stopped her shenanigans.

After I finished my shopping I had a few hours to kill before meeting Michael for dinner, so I decided to take up residence in a Starbucks, where I could get a coffee and continue reading my book. I got my coffee and found an comfortable chair (finding a good chair in a coffee shop is pure luck, no matter where you are) and proceeded to read and people-watch for the next two hours. The coffee I had was burnt, like almost every brewed coffee I've ever had from Starbucks, but it reminded me of home. Burnt, fresh coffee is still a step up from the instant coffee I've been drinking.

Michael and I went to a restaurant that serves traditional Hangzhou dishes along the famous Hefang shopping street. The food was quite good; I even willing ordered Xihu Xia (West Lake Shrimp). Eating with Michael has given me a fair good understanding of Hangzhou food. After dinner we walked around Hefang for a little while and I stopped at a street vendor to buy deep fried ice cream balls that my friend Susan described as "deliciously disgusting," which was incredibly accurate. The taste was a combination about sweet and cold and fried and slimy. It could have totally passed for the state fair. In a little shop I found a fan that I thought would make a good decoration for my room. I reached for my wallet to buy it, but Michael insisted that he pay for it, as a gift to me. Combining this with the numerous dinners he's bought me (including this one), I'm starting to feel guilty for all of the hospitality that I've been receiving in China. I'm used to the expectation that I'll be allowed to pay once and a while, even as the guest. I suppose I should be enjoying it while I can. It's strange how hospitable people in China are when they get to know you, because it seems that the Chinese have a general antipathy towards strangers, as evidenced by the lack of personal space and rampant littering/spitting/smoking. I think I need to get over my reservations and just enjoy Michael's hospitality.

I went shopping during the week and bought these Blueberry flavored potato chips. They are supposed to be "Cool and Refreshing," and they actually are, kind of.	A startlingly accurate description of fashion in China. There are a lot of stores selling genuine luxury goods, but many, many more selling fakes.
They're still selling Lebron Cavaliers jerseys in Hangzhou. I guess they didn't hear about The Decision	Rather than a public thermometer, they have a public decibel meter. Yep, China is loud.

China - Day 59 - The Expo and my best weekend yet

This was a positively fantastic weekend, the most fun and most entertaining weekend I've had in China. This weekend perfectly encapsulated the travelling/expat experience I wanted to have this summer; I'm very happy that I got to and very thankful to those that helped make it happen. Now, on to a more detailed recap.

August 13
Picking up from my last post, I got into Shanghai fairly late by my standards (around 10:30PM. The difference between my standards of time and Shanghai's standard of time would be a recurring theme of my time here), but thankfully the metro was still working. As much as I love the Shanghai Metro system (I think it might be my favorite in the world), the one thing that I absolutely can't stand about it is that it shuts down so early; external lines start closing around 9PM, central lines stay open until 10:30-11PM. This means that anyone trying to have any semblance of a nightlife has to take cabs everywhere (not that it's an issue to find cabs, but I'm a huge believer in the use of subways and subways are much easier to use when you don't really speak the language). While I was on the train I spoke to my friends Alex and Chris about our accommodations for the weekend; apparently their friends Rachel and Cindy were staying in a huge apartment in Shanghai and Alex and Chris suggested that we cancel our hostel reservation to stay with the girls. When I got to the apartment (an adventure in and of itself, as no cabbie had apparently ever heard of the street it's located on) we realized that "huge" was a relative term and that it was time for us to grovel our way back into the hostel (which we did, thankfully). As much as I appreciated Rachel and Cindy's hospitality, one of us would have had to sleep on the dining room table and another in the bathtub, which was just not happening.

After getting settled at the hostel, we headed out to begin our nightlife at 12:15AM. I'm used to seeing things begin to wind down around this time, but the energy of the group was infectious and I just went with it. After a few false starts (at clubs that were rejected for one reason or another) and one very tense argument with a cabbie, we ended up at a club called Muse where we proceeded to party and dance until 3:30, which is when things apparently begin to wind down in Shanghai. Either way, I was just thankful for sleep at that point.

The beds in our hostel room. It's a good thing none of us suffer from night terrors because I very well could have punched Chris in the face as we slept.	The bathroom in our room. While it was a very efficient use of space it was a complete and utter design disaster. I ended up locking myself in there by placing my backpack in the wrong place and blocking the sliding glass door.

China - Day 57 - Beginning the Home Stretch

Huh, I've been in China for 8 weeks now and I will be here for 30 more days. It's strange how time flies once you get over the initial shock of adapting to a new location.

This week at work has actually been the most engaging week I've had. Michael gave me a project to take a 2D CAD diagram and to recreate it as a 3D CAD model, in both casted and finished forms and to then simulate the machining on the 3D model. This has been the most independent work I've done here and probably the most fulfilling. This week I also met the president's son who is visiting from America and is going to be applying to college next year. It's funny, even though his parents are Chinese, he was raised in America and his reaction to China was very much like my initial reaction; I guess that gives some credence to nurture over nature. He's considering Stanford and I gave him the sales pitch, but he wants to study business, which could be a problem. Only time (and the admissions office) will tell.

I'm excited for today because 1) it's payday and 2) I'm going to Shanghai today. I'm getting paid for the second time, which is good because I've spent all the cash from my first paycheck. This money will be quite useful for the shopping trip I did reconnaissance for last week and for my trip to Shanghai. I'm leaving Hangzhou tonight to meet some friends in Shanghai where we'll stay in a hostel and go visit the Expo. I'm excited to finally do this because it was one of the things that I thought I really couldn't miss while I was in China. I hope it lives up to my (hopefully not too lofty) expectations

Update: The power went out at the factory, so I got sent home early. I'm currently sitting at home killing 5 hours until I head over to the train station, where I will still need to kill an hour. It's strange, the only other time the power went out at work was the last time I went to Shanghai. I'm starting to sense a pattern here...

China - Day 53 - Window shopping is the same in any language

August 8
One can only walk around the West Lake so many times before it starts to lose its glimmer, so I spent this Sunday doing some window shopping (and I ended up doing some actual shopping too) at Hangzhou's many, many, many stores. I must have checked at least three dozen stores, but I ended up only liking three: one Spanish, one British and one Chinese retailer. My original plan was to do reconnaissance for a shopping trip after I get my next paycheck, but I ended up buying a jacket at Zara (the Spanish store) because I was worried it would be cycled out before I returned (a concern legitimized by the changes in their store since I had visited the previous week). I was a little disappointed that there was so few clothes I enjoyed at Chinese stores; the only one I intend to buy is a pair of jeans at Jasonwood. The issue I had with Chinese styles were that they were so garish that I could never see myself actually wearing the clothing. It seemed that Chinese retailers didn't see any t-shirt that didn't have a huge graphic (usually of a Transformer or cartoon character) or any button up shirt that was made entirely from the same fabric (most shirts were a combination of solids, stripes and plaids). I talked to my friend Ricardo about it and we came to the belief that these were fashionable because they provided a way for Chinese people to stand out within the huge sea of people that is China. I'm starting to notice that a lot of my theories about China go back to the concept of Chinese people trying to differentiate themselves in such a large country.

These tri-color jeans were probably the single most ridiculous thing we saw on Sunday. I debated buying them for the sheer joke quality, but gawked at the price they wanted for these crimes against cotton

China - Day 51 - Machismo is Alive and Well

The theme of this week seems to be battle the laowai; I've had Chinese guys trying to show me up all week. The biggest place they've been battling me has been on the basketball court. I've started playing pick-up games 3 or 4 times a week (it's a lot more fun than running) at my apartment complex and the games are very much the same as they are in America; however, there always seem to be match-up issues, despite the fact that most of the guys here are around the same size. It seems to always end up with me guarding the other team's best player (because he will inevitably guard me, because I'm an American I must be good), which usually ends up with me (a natural 5, but I can play a 4) guarding a 2/3 and being blown past on the dribble with some frequency. Unfortunately, this match-up continues to be frustrating on offense because they abuse me inside and I usually draw a double team. I'm pretty dominant inside, especially on the boards, but battling inside gets tiring and unfortunately I can't rely on the outside shooting of my teammates. Such is the reality of pick-up games.

Elsewhere on the machismo front, drinking is treated very differently in China. My experience so far has been "Let's get the laowai drunk" every time I'm within 10 feet of a beer. The first time I experienced this, after my company's basketball practice a few weeks ago, I went with it because I wanted to give a good first impression and I ended up drinking 6 beers (600mL, 3%ABV). After that performance (and a misinterpreted claim that I could drink 12 beers over the course of an evening, which they thought I said I could drink in one sitting), Chinese guys try to force me to drink 12 bottles every time I eat with them. They don't seem to grasp the notion of drinking in moderation, despite my protests. I think they are trying to haze me, to prove that they are the drinkers that they think they are, but I am not going to play that game. Last night it got so bad that I just left the table when they wouldn't stop (I had drunk about 2L of beer and eaten 3 medium sized dishes at dinner, I felt like I was about to explode). I understand the concept of not causing them to lose face, but I'm not going to force this upon myself to save their egos.

Work has been somewhat slow lately. I've been trying to learn AutoCAD, but the program is in Chinese and I can't get it set to English, which is making it exceedingly difficult as I have to rely solely on the toolbar icons. I'm sort of getting the hang of it, but I still think I prefer Unigraphics and Pro/E. It is nice to have learned to use 3 CAD programs; however, I'm a little disappointed that I only really learned to use 1 of them in depth. Right now, Michael has me working on a project to assemble an Excel spreadsheet/database of tools used in various machining programs and the spindle speed/feedrate used for each one in each program instance. It requires a lot of data mining from machine code, which is tedious but not terribly difficult. I have conflicting opinions about this project because it's a rather basic task, but probably the most useful project I've worked on so far. I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks when the engineers from Husky come to Allied from America/Canada to teach the company how to use the new automated machining line.

China - Day 46 - A (tourism) star is born

July 31
When my boss's boss asked me to give a speech about American college, I said sure, figuring that it would be more like a conversation with some Chinese college students, like the conversation I had with ZheDa students a month ago. Well, I was kinda wrong. I realized it wasn't exactly what I expected when I saw the note posted on the company billboard advertising it to the entire company. After a few powerpoint missteps (it's funny to see that those presentation issues are universal), I got started with the speech, but things got tripped up pretty quickly when I realized that most of the audience didn't speak English and I had to pause for my boss to translate the speech. There were about 25 assorted people from the company there and I'm not sure how much of the speech translated, but they did laugh occasionally, so I think it went fine. When we got to the Q and A session, I was expecting questions about American colleges, but I ended up getting many more personal questions. Apparently everyone has to ask for themselves if I have a girlfriend. Following the speech, we went to a hotel restaurant in Xiasha that I'm sure was the classiest restaurant in Xiasha (which isn't saying much). The food was fine, although it was buffet, so it was rather tepid. Overall, a strange but somewhat fulfilling day.