China - Day 7 - Crisis Averted

June 25
Today's been pretty slow at work. I spent the first half of the day reading a technical manual about a measurement probe and it's application in a number of different CNC mills. Now I'm going to review some parts that were machined out of spec and have been rejected by the customer. Wooooooo . After lunch, Michael brought me my company shoes that I need to wear whenever I go out on the workshop floor (they tried to give me a pair on my first day, but those were 3 sizes too small). These shoes are huge, they feel like boats on my feet. Actually, I'm pretty sure they are steel-toed, which is kinda cool. And now I have dedicated work shoes from now until when these things fall apart (which will probably be judgement day, based on how they are built)

Things are looking better on the home front. I just got handed a key to my new apartment, which will be in the same building, just one floor lower and at the other end of the hall (so it won't be the one directly below mine, which I assume is equally water logged). I also straightened things out about my internet situation. The company is apparently purchasing a wireless card from China Mobile that they are going to give to me so that I can access the internet wirelessly. I really hope it is a 3G card (actually, I don't know if Xiasha has 3G service). However, this means I won't have wireless in the new apartment until after they get the card to me. Hopefully it will be today or tomorrow (which definitely gives me an incentive to come to work on Saturday, as is apparently the norm for Allied). More info to come after I see the new apartment.

China - Day 3 - Welcome to Hangzhou, no wait, Xiasha

June 20
The next night after touching down in Shanghai, we got up for orientation which primarily consisted of a luncheon with alumni. The food served was Shanghaiese (aka Shanghai specialties), including a fantastic pork belly dish (no idea what it was called), jellyfish, eel and a number of less interesting dishes. I figured "When in Rome..." and tried the jellyfish and eel. The eel was quite tasty, but heavily masked with spices. The jellyfish was something else all together. It was a lot crunchier than I expected jellyfish to taste, kinda like hard jello. After the luncheon, we returned to our hotel to get our bags and head to the train station for the train to Hangzhou. This was the second time I seriously regretted bringing so much stuff. We got to the train station (Shanghai South) and it was a mess. There must have been easily five thousand people. After a number of false starts, we got to the right gate where we waited with 500 hundred of our newest friends for the train. While we waited, I went to find a water fountain because I was quite parched after running all over the train station for the past half hour. However, I didn't find a drinking fountain like I expected. Instead I found a hot water dispenser. Over the next couple of days it finally dawned on me that cold drinks are not really normal in China. It seems that the Chinese prefer their drinks warm, or at coolest, room temperature.

Jellyfish on the left, eel on the right