Beijing, China
Hey everyone! I’m sitting in the Beijing airport waiting for my flight to Shanghai. What the heck am I doing in Beijing? Tagging along with President Obama of course! Actually, I’m here visiting NI-China’s distributor as well as the Beijing office. I arrived yesterday evening around nine, worked this morning and am now heading back. Obama is the talk of the town. Yesterday he visited the Forbidden City and today is supposed to be at the Great Wall. It’s funny to listen to people speak in Chinese about it:
Zhou kua suo fa shang wei chang xia lei haibo hai guan ling Obama!
He was supposed to tie up traffic on my way to the airport today but apparently he’s not leaving until tonight so we (Apple and I) arrived in half an hour with plenty of time for my flight back to Shanghai.
Before I get into the particulars of the past few days, let’s chat about China. First of all, I think by only visiting Shanghai and Beijing, it would be like visiting only New York City and Washington, DC to get an idea of what all of the US is like so view everything I’m writing with that in mind. Anyway, the first impression that I got of the joint is that it is the country most like the US that I have visited. This sounds paradoxical with the whole Communism thing but I’m serious. There are Fords and Dodge cars on the road (no trucks but still). There are huge advertisements everywhere. There are big huge well-maintained freeways that get you around pretty well. Tons of multinational companies we all know and love are here in force: McDonald’s, Starbucks, KFC (yes, KFC), Papa John’s (pronounced ‘Papa Jones’, eh) and many others. The clothes people wear wouldn’t really look out of place in the US. Heck, I even saw an advertisement for the NBA in the Shanghai subway and it didn’t feature Yao Ming. It just feels the closest to home I’ve ever been, except for a few things:
1. Everybody speaks Chinese. It’s a strange language to hear and see. How the heck do they memorize so many characters? How do they know exactly how to say certain words? You have to say them just right. It’s tough. I had to have William show me how you text in Chinese because I was so fascinated by the concept. It’s not unlike the word help function on US phones where you type ‘he’ and it might suggest ‘hello’. You type in something like ‘xie’ and the phone will suggest Chinese characters to use. It seems like a pain to me but they obviously think it’s great. I tried to understand how they got by in the age of the typewriter but I’m been jet-lagged and had a lot of information to process so I’m still not sure.
Here is the list of useful phrases I picked up while I was here:
Yes – xie (shee-ah)
No – puh xie
Thank you – xie xie
Good Morning – zhao shang hao
Hello – ni hao
Enjoy your meal – zhu ni wei kou hao (literally, bless your stomach)
Excellent! – fei chang hao
Whatever – wu suo wei
And actually the words can have multiple different characters in written Chinese (i.e. it’s not that simple.
2. The food is different. Duh. I mean, way different. Take your favorite Chinese restaurant and amp it up about thirty times. The NI folks here have made it their mission for me to try as many Chinese dishes as possible so I’ve had the following so far: sea slug, roast duck, sweet and sour pork, sweet rice, not sweet rice, all manner of pork, alll manner of shrimp, salad, fried meatballs, egg noodles, and gosh knows how much else. Actually, looking back on that list it doesn’t seem too outlandish but seriously it’s been mind-blowing. Eating a variety of food has been easier due to everybody eating family style and ordering way more food than we can eat. I’m not too bad with chopsticks (though my skill has sadly not improved since my arrival) and that can make eating a challenge. I try my best not to have to be reduced to a knife and fork. With famiy style you just reach into whatever bowl with your chopsticks you want. Sometimes you have a second set of chopsticks to reach in with and a second set to eat with (i.e. put your lips on) but not always (I forget to use the ‘clean’ chopsticks a lot). I think the most outlandish food was the sea slug (which was quite possibly the greasiest thing I’ve ever attempted to eat).
3. The taxi drivers, at least in Shanghai, are insane. Well, they wouldn’t seem insane if everybody drove like crazy like in India. But it seems that most people drive somewhat normally, meaning the taxi drivers stand out. Here are some examples: imagine you’re on a two-lane road needing to make a left hand turn but there’s no room due to all the oncoming traffic. No problem, just stick your nose right in and go. Need to make a u-turn where there’s no room? Stick your nose in. Need to cut somebody off? Go for it. My favorite is when they sit behind someone who is only going moderately fast, tailgate them and flash their lights at them until the poor guy moves over. They drive twice as fast as everyone else it seems and, get this, there are no seatbelts. None. Not only should there be seatbelts, there should be shoulder straps. Even the NI designated drivers who ferry NI employees around in minivans exhibit these tendencies except in a way they’re funny because you’re in a minivan that resembles a Plymouth Voyager while these things are happening.
4. Speaking of hogging the road, the interplay between all of the users of roads is quite interesting. The users are taxis, normal cars, electric bicyclists, normal bicyclists and pedestrians. You know how when you go hiking on a mountain bike trail hikers are supposed to yield to mountain bikers? Well, in China everyone yields to everyone. It’s weird. Like when you need to cross the street, quite often you just go and make the cars that are coming weave around you a bit or come to a complete stop. Our taxi in Beijing today stopped on the freeway, in the rightmost lane, so I could take a photo of the Bird’s Nest, despite my protestations of ‘puh xie’ (NO!). People just manuevered around us. Electric bicyclists ignore traffic signals and go wherever the heck they want, sometimes yielding to others on the road and sometimes not. I saw a bus just stick its nose out into traffic, making the traffic come to a dead stop. I explained how strange this was to me to Apple. Her response was that well, if you don’t stick your nose out, you’ll be waiting forever. Whatever works. The important thing is that people expect to be cut off and not yielded for. At least there were no motorcycles on the sidewalk (a feature of Seoul).
Doh, flight’s been delayed for a couple of hours due to the plane being delayed at whatever airport it’s coming from. Joy.
Um, so let’s get back to our timeline. I had a Sunday morning breakfast in one of the two restaurants in the building complex that the hotel is part of. Usually breakfast buffets for business travelers are all the same one but this one had a decidedly Chinese flavor to it. The offerings were semi-fried rice (with peas and bits of egg), egg rolls, boiled circular eggs, omelettes, soggy hash browns, noodles, several other Chinese dishes along with the old mainstays of fresh fruit, white bread and cereal. I usually have had the rice, potato item (either hash browns, french fries or chopped potatoes) and some canteloupe.
So William (Zhinhua) and Bruce (Xi) from the office picked me up in the lobby around 9am. Why are they called William and Bruce? Well, do you know how to pronounce ‘Zhinhua’ and ‘Xi’? Me neither and even if I tried Chinese is too precise for English-speakers to get the pronunciation exactly right. In essence, the Chinese have given up teaching us and thus choose American names. The fun part is that the sky’s the limit for them. Here are some of the names I’ve seen that I haven’t mentioned before:
- Nancy
- Christina
- Keith
- Nick Wu (a 50-something bellhop in the Beijing hotel)
- Show
- ZX (because his name is Zhixiang which no one in the US can pronounce)
- Leon
- Denver
- Ferrari
Apple picked her name because it’s the name she uses as an online alias. She had to do it on the first day she had joined at NI. One of my favorites is Ye Yan whose ‘English’ name is Yuki which I think is actually Japanese. For the longest time we in Trade Compliance didn’t know if Ye and Yuki were the same person and, if they were, what her real name was. Actually, we didn’t even know Yuki/Ye was a she until Barry and Doug visited last December. Anyway, I think the process should also work in reverse and I get to pick a Chinese name. Hao Beck has a nice ring to it.
As an aside, we in Austin routinely mangle the names of the Hungarians as well though we’re not as far off. For example, Balázs is pretty much pronounced ‘bol-ahj’ but we say ‘bah-laj’ or ‘bal-ahsh’. The Taiwanese are the only other ones I’m aware of who use alternate names but surprisingly the Japanese and Koreans don’t. However, Japanese names like Masahiro, Masanobu, Eiko, Shokichi, Hatsue and Yoko and Korean ones like Jun, Chu, Wonjun and Kyunghee are easier for us to pronounce.
Saturday, November 21
Austin, Texas, USA
Oops, the laptop ran out of power in the Beijing airport and this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to continue the dialogue.
Anyway, so William and Bruce snagged a taxi and we drove from the outskirts of the city where the branch office is located and headed into town. Shanghai is a big city. The metropolitan area has around 16 million people. Though to be fair, New York City’s metro area has almost 20 million. The list is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_population
The ride in the taxi was fairly uneventful though I was surprised by how poor a condition some of the roads we had to travel on were due to construction. It was like the construction crews decided to shut down the whole highway without making much in the way of provisions for where the cars would actually go. If I had been driving, I wouldn’t have known what the heck to do without following everybody else through potholes, unseen dips and without lane markers. Guess that’s why I was taking a cab, eh!
Our first stop was Yuyuan Garden, an old luxurious garden complex from the 1500s I think smack in the middle of Shanghai. Bruce and William gave me some background on it as we wound our way through the old buildings. You’ll have to see the photos; it was pretty neat. The interesting part was that it was supposed to be a tranquil place to get away from the city and indeed, you couldn’t hear or really see the city from inside. But it was packed with tourists, both from China and from abroad. This was where I first encountered the ‘tour group’. Unlike tour groups in say, Washington, D.C., where everyone has to wear the same shirt, you can distinguish them by the people following the person holding up a little flag on a little pole and sometimes speaking with a microphone and portable speaker. It was kind of fun to guess what nationality the people were and then wait for someone in the group to start talking in order to let me know if I was right.
There was also an exhibit of old paintings made in the simple style with apparently pencil or something like it and few colors. I’m more appreciative of sculpture and really detailed paintings of landscapes but some of these paintings were also of the caliber that made me stop and take them in for more than a few seconds. There were also a lot of large examples of calligraphy, usually a 2’ x 5’ piece of paper with maybe four Chinese characters on it. Bruce and William explained how people competed to make their characters look the best. Unfortunately, I wasn’t really able to tell how they were better so I took their word for it, eh.
After finding our way through the maze-like gardens and out, we wandered through a shopping area and stopped to see a little exhibition. It was actually a little stage like you might see at a puppet show except that four people at a time could sit right in front of it and look through peepholes. The MC would announce what was going on in the pictures that flashed in front of you. Of course, he was speaking Chinese so I was forced to surmise what the heck was going on. Part of the content was a bit obscene but I have to assume it was quite humorous.
Bruce and William asked if I wanted a coffee. Still going on perhaps 24 hours with no sleep, I was game. Still being jet-lagged, it took me a second to realize we were walking into a Starbucks. I feel uncomfortable walking into Starbucks in the US since, as a non-coffee drinker (except for meetings where I’m worried I might fall asleep), I feel like everyone in there can tell and is secretly mad at me for invading their space. Walking into a Chinese Starbucks felt exactly the same way since it looked and felt almost exactly the same except for the fact that the menu was in both English and Chinese (too bad I didn’t get the Chinese word for ‘vente’, eh!).
What also made it strange though was the fact that the store was set up like it was Christmastime already even though it was only November 15. Christmas music was playing, there were Christmas signs all over and I think my raspberry-flavored mocha has something holidayish about it but I don’t remember what it was. I commented about the fact that Christmas was still a ways away and William replied, “Well, we like Christmas.” Thinking on it now, they don’t have Thanksgiving to act as a kind of speed bump on the way to Christmas so full-speed ahead. Still, I wouldn’t want Fox News host Bill O’Reilly to have walked in at that point with all of his concern over Christmas turning into a totally non-religious holiday. Don’t visit China Bill!
There were other run-ins with Christmas on the trip but by far the strangest was when China Airlines decided to play Christmas music (I think it was ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland’) while we were deplaning in Beijing.
The next stop was lunch. We took a cab over to another shopping area in the center of the city and ate at a very nice little lunch spot. This was my first experience with eating Chinese-style or at least what happened for every meal on the trip that I ate with Chinese people. Bruce and William ordered everything (I don’t remember if they asked me what I wanted; they probably did and regardless I would have told them anything they chose was fine) and soon the plates and bowls of food started showing up. Lots of plates and bowls. I would eat something off of one and another would show up. It didn’t take long to run out of room so that the waitstaff would take away one plate with food still on it and bring the same food back but on a smaller plate. Due to the jet lag unfortunately my appetite was not what it should have been and so there was a lot left over. At later meals I found out that even when my appetite was ravenous there was still leftover food so now I don’t feel so bad. The only thing I can feel bad about was having a tough time eating the first course, some Sichuan shrimp that were pretty hot (though with some well-timed gulps of Coke I was ok); I think I may have scared them that the American they were entrusted with was going to hate Chinese food because of its spiciness. I don’t think I had anything else that was remotely hot the rest of the trip.
I struggled to stay awake during lunch, at least after the Sichuan shrimp, but held on. That reminds me; in China they aren’t as liberal with heaters as we Americans are. In many of the restaurants and the entire first floor of my hotel in Shanghai, it was cold enough that you needed a jacket. In the hotel restaurant, my table was next to a door to the outside that was partially open, allowing the wind to come whistling in. It wasn’t cold enough to be uncomfortable most of the time but a jacket was still necessary so, at least in that regard, the Chinese are better at saving energy than we are, eh! And there were definitely no Chile-style examples of freezing your tail off indoors (for those who remember Jennifer and my trip to Chile in winter where our only heat, when available, was a small wood-burning stove).
The next stop was the location of the first meeting of the Communist Party or, as it’s officially called, the Site of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China. It is a small two-story building and, from what I can tell, the meeting was probably done in secret. There were a lot of historical signs in the building but I didn’t feel like there was much to describe the actual meeting, what they were talking about, etc. There were also a lot of guards walking around in military uniforms so it was actually a little strange to get into a conversation about politics with Bruce and William. We discussed the fact that China is now pretty much a capitalist country economically but politically still communist or at least communist in theory. We would stop the conversation whenever we got near a guard which was weird weird weird. That was when they confirmed for me that the reason I couldn’t access Facebook.com was because the Chinese government blocks it. Two other sites Chinese people can’t access are YouTube and Blogspot where Jennifer and I have our travel blog. Weird weird weird. Actually, it was a little creepy.
The big highlight of the building was a representation of the meeting with wax figures. I didn’t recognize Mao Zedong at first because he had a full head of hair back then (the meeting was held in 1921). I suppose it was the Chinese equivalent of the Constitutional Convention or the Continental Congress although there weren’t any advisors from the Soviet Union at either of those. Next door we also saw a room of some sort where for whatever reason I wasn’t allowed to take a photo (the guard was very nice about it though); I should remember what was special about it but time and jet lag prevent me.
Going back to creepy, here’s what Travel China Guide says about the wax figures:
“In addition, a waxworks hall inside vividly reproduces the scene of this significant meeting. The other twelve members listen and smile as Mao Zedong, founder of the PRC, makes his speech. Lifelike, the wax figures seem to make time stand still, bringing people back to that exciting moment.”
Moving on, we cut through a small park with a cute pond. In front of the pond was a wedding party with the bride, groom and attendants getting photos taken. I absolutely love seeing weddings in other countries because it is truly an event that regardless of culture everyone can feel connected to. The bride was wearing a big white dress just like any American bride would be and the men were wearing tuxes. Even though I had never met them I felt that just by seeing them I was sharing in their happiness. Bruce, William and I stood there for about thirty seconds just to watch.
It had been hazy all day but around that point it started to drizzle. None of us had brought umbrellas. Oh well. We caught a cab and headed to the Huangpu River, an enormous river that cuts through the center of town. To my excitement, we were going to take a pedestrian ferry across the river. We ditched the cab and waited for the boat. Waiting with us were tons of pedestrians as well as a handful of people on electric bicycles, actual bicycles and motorcycles. Everybody crowded together but not too closely and I was wondering whether I needed to worry about getting out of the way of the motorcyclists. Turns out I didn’t but it was weird as we were getting off the ferry that they were weaving in and out of us pedestrians.
Our next stop was the Shanghai World Financial Center, a 100 story building with apparently the highest observation deck in the world. We were going to the top, baby. I wasn’t enthused as there aren’t really any 95th, 96th, 97th, 98th or 99th floors, just a big open space that makes the building look kind of like a key stuck in the ground. I’m not a big fan of heights and I know how much buildings sway. We took an elevator to the 94th floor, needing to take an escalator and then another elevator to the 100th. I told Bruce and William that I would stay on the 94th floor and wait for them to come back down. They convinced me to go up by pointing out that most likely they would go down via a different elevator and I would have to meet them on the ground floor. Faced with the choice of either standing on the top floor of the building or temporarily losing contact with the people who were helping me around Shanghai, I laughingly decided I’d go with the former. We hit the elevator for the 100th floor.
When we reached the 100th floor, I actually felt ok. It was an enclosed hallway with a ton of people in it. The walls were glass but the floor was mostly solid with a bunch of glass panels in the middle for those who wanted to stand on them (I eventually did). The view was pretty good as you could see for at least several miles. Due to the haze, however, we couldn’t see too far but still the view we had was quite good. It was at that point I also realized that the worst part of going up had been the elevator ride from the 1st to 94th floor (it took about a minute I think while the elevator made a Star Trek-type noise every time you passed a floor).
After hanging out up there for maybe ten minutes, we headed back down to the 93rd floor which featured another observation deck as well as a gift kiosk. Actually, the overwhelming part of the room was the big screen featuring Haibao, the mascot for the Shanghai World Expo 2010. You can google the expo if you want but Haibao is now my new favorite buddy. Strange mascots for worldly events like the Olympics and World Cup are always fascinating.
Gotta love Wikipedia. Here are some good lists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup_mascot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_mascot
After that, we headed down to the first floor again where I was finally, finally able to find some dental floss in a convenience store. Then we caught a taxi and went to a mall overlooking the river to eat dinner with Apple from NI-Shanghai also. The mall was where I learned about personal space in China. We had to wait like five minutes for an elevator and when one finally came everyone just crammed in. I mean crammed in. Like your hands were touching other people crammed. As Apple explained later though “If you don’t cram in not everyone will be able to get on.” Personally, I think the country needs more elevators.
The dinner was fantastic with a great view of the river and a ton of food. I kept myself awake by regaling the three of them with long travel stories which they got a kick out of. Having a coke also helped. I was unable to eat at my normal level again unfortunately but I was able to try everything, including the sea slug.
On the way back, we took the subway. I love taking the subway because that’s how you really see who the people are in a city. In the Shanghai subway, I got to see everybody alright. On a really personal level. Like my hand was forced to touch someone’s butt for two legs of the trip. But again, if you don’t do that not everyone will make it to the next station. At least there were no subway workers running around pushing people into the train to make them fit like I’ve been told are in Japan. Apple got off at the second to last stop while Bruce, William and I rode it to the end of the line, caught a cab and went to my hotel where I was dropped off. Time for some shuteye.
I woke up at 5:30am, two hours early, but 6.5 hours of sleep is better than no sleep. I walked the half mile to work, had a full day and then was taken by taxi to dinner at a Papa John’s restaurant (complete with tables and waitresses) to have dinner with Apple. The NI-Shanghai folks realized that although I was game to eat Chinese food, I’d also been on the road a while and wouldn’t mind some comfort food. They knew I’d eaten pizza on my first night so thought that Papa John’s would be a good idea. And it was. The tomato and pepperoni pizza was pretty good as well as the garden salad and buffalo wings (I was able to plow through all but two pieces of the pizza which I ate for a midmorning snack the next day). Papa John’s was in the Christmas mood too but that didn’t detract from the food at all.
One other note about eating in China: the waitstaff would keep your order at the table, either on top of it or on a little shelf underneath. Then, whenever they bring some food item out, they pull out the order, check it off the list and put it back where it was. Makes it easier to keep track of stuff I guess.
Apple and I caught a taxi which then dropped her off first. It was then just me and the taxi driver. I knew what general direction my hotel was in, figured I’d recognize it and besides we’d given the driver the address. Therefore it was to my surprise when the driver asked me, as we were getting close and using hand gestures, whether he should turn right or not. How should I know? Ugh. I took a good guess and said no, then yes at the next street. Turned out I was right. If I had been wrong, well, that’s why NI-Shanghai loaned me a Chinese cell phone for the week to call someone if things go awry. I was a little proud of myself though.
Slept maybe seven hours that night, packed up my stuff the next morning and went into the office for a ¾ day of work. Apple and I were heading to Beijing that evening for a meeting with the distributor so we left the office around 4 (two hours early as the branch works from 9-6). We took a company van to the subway station, then the subway to the end of the line and then a taxi. During rush hour the subway is the quickest way to get across town and thankfully it wasn’t very crowded.
We actually went to a different airport than the one I had arrived in. Pudong is for international flights and Hongqiao is for domestic ones so we were at Hongqiao. The flight to Beijing was full and was on I think a 777 (two seats at the windows and five across the middle); anyway it was a big honkin’ plane. We were in something like row 60 so almost at the back which was bad because the turbulence was pretty bad. I was especially irked that the flight attendants didn’t take their seats but continued to serve food. You’d think this would have a calming effect on me but instead it has the opposite; I have no idea why. I got through it by sharing headphones with Apple on my iPod, playing her a selection of English songs I thought she might enjoy.
We arrived in Beijing around 9 at night and took a cab down deserted highways across the city. We exited at the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium but unfortunately the lights were off. The aquatic center that looks like water on the outside was also closed but we still drove by. After that, we headed for the hotel where I participated in a conference call involving Austin and Hungary from midnight to 1:15. Bleh.
The next morning we visited the distributor and the branch office where I conducted a training session. We then had yet another monster meal with six other NI and distributor folks before Apple and I headed back to the airport via taxi. This was the taxi driver who decided to come to a dead-stop in the right-most lane so I could take a photo of the Bird’s Nest even though I had Apple explain that I was content to take photos from the moving car. Thankfully we made it to the airport without causing any wrecks.
Apple was actually staying in Beijing for an audit of the distributor so she made sure I had my ticket and was getting to security before she and I said goodbye and separated. Again, the hospitality from NI-Shanghai was great and I felt like no one wanted to be responsible for me having problems getting around, eh. I didn’t mind the attention but I had to continually remind them sometimes that I was used to traveling by myself in foreign locations. Oh well.
I arrived at my gate around 2 to wait for my 3:30 flight. At about 2:30, there was an announcement that our flight was going to be delayed for some unintelligible reason that I later figured out was because our plane was going to be arriving late to Beijing. It looked like the departure time had been moved back to 5:25. This was bad because I was supposed to meet Tracy and Yuki from NI-Shanghai for dinner so we might not be able to do it. After speaking with Tracy, we decided to play it by ear depending upon when I left.
Around 4 I looked out across the tarmac and, to my surprise, saw Air Force One sitting out there. Having never seen it in person and seeing it in a foreign country made me feel a bit patriotic like ‘yeah, that’s my President’s plane that’s sitting over there’. While reading my book, I glanced up every two minutes to see if the motorcade was pulling up.
About 5 the motorcade, with all of its black vehicles with flashing lights on top, did pull up. The plane was between me and the vehicles so I couldn’t see any people but I still felt even more lucky to have seen that. I’d seen Marine One (the helicopter that flies Obama to Andrews Air Force Base in DC) before while walking around Washington, D.C., but this was totally different. I was hoping to see the plane take off before my flight boarded.
The ticket agents started boarding us maybe ten minutes later. I usually try to get on planes towards the end anyway as a) I don’t want to be on the plane any longer than I have to and b) having only a backpack that can fit under the seat I’m not competing for space in the overhead bins so I stood around a while watching Air Force One. It didn’t move. Finally, I felt I couldn’t wait any longer and went to stand in line. As I did, I saw the plane start to move. Cool. The gangway was enclosed by glass so I had my ticket scanned, then stood in the gangway waiting to see which way the plane would take off. I heard the engine rev up and looked left then right. To the right I saw it cruising down the runway. And then it took off. I felt a sense of kinship to the President and his entourage not just because we were all Americans but because we were also taking flights leaving the Shanghai airport (I wonder if he even notices turbulence, eh). With a sigh of contentment, I boarded my flight.
The flight back was also quite turbulent but this time I was sitting in the middle of the plane so it was a bit better (i.e. I didn’t get the side to side motion quite as much as the rear). After landing in Shanghai, I was the first person to get out of the terminal and was immediately met by the NI driver who had arrived late on Saturday to pick me up. We headed past the insanely long but moving quite rapidly line of people waiting for taxis, got into the NI minivan and got on the freeway. At this point the driver received a call from Yuki who was trying to get in touch with me (I never could figure out how to set my China cell phone to vibrate so I kept missing calls) to inform me that Tracy was interviewing nannies and couldn’t make dinner. I told her that holy moly it was 8:15 and that thank you for offering to take me out to dinner but it would be best if I just headed straight for the hotel, had a quick bite to eat and went to bed. I hope I wasn’t rude but the logistics of getting us together were going to be crazy. And I did see her and chat the next day.
After a 45 minute drive we arrived back at my hotel where I rechecked in and retrieved the garment bag which I’d left so as to avoid checking a bag on the trip to Beijing. I had a small dinner in the hotel restaurant (which really just had the kitchen open as I had to eat in the waiting area of the restaurant). I was disappointed that the pizza joint was already closed but at least the restaurant served some garlic bread that tasted pretty decent (as well as some rice and fried pork).
I think I slept eight hours that night but I still didn’t feel that my body was 100% on China time. I repacked my stuff, checked out of the hotel and walked towards the office carrying my garment bag and backpack. To get to the office required walking in a roundabout way which to that point I’d had no problem doing. But with a 35 lb bag your thinking changes a little bit. There was a guy walking behind me as I passed the hedges that prevented me from taking a shortcut. I then heard some rustling of the bushes and then no more footsteps from the guy behind me. I turned around to see him cutting across the grass towards the NI building. I headed back to see where he’d crossed. After making one pass, I saw a very narrow opening in the hedge, plowed through it, probably breaking a few branches in the process and made it to the building saving myself maybe 1/3 of a mile of walking and at least seven minutes of walking time. Of course, most people would’ve had a cab take them to the office but, well, I’ll wait until I’m older to call a cab.
I worked at the office until 12:30 then took the NI minivan with Tracy to the airport. I had a flight with China Eastern to Los Angeles (LAX) and then with American to Austin. Taking off out of Shanghai was weird because due to the haze you couldn’t see too far. The iconic image though was the top of the Shanghai World Financial Center sticking up above the haze like the Eye of Barad-Dur from Lord of the Rings. Not long after that we ascended into the clouds and then above them which is always a bit thrilling. I slept for only 3.5 hours on the flight (I stayed awake so long at the beginning of the flight I thought the Ambien hadn’t worked) but that was ok because it gave me time to watch Cross of Iron and part of Porco Rosso (until the power on the laptop ran out).
LAX wasn’t too crazy though I had to get my bags and recheck them which is actually normal for coming back into the US. I have a beef with LAX though because unlike most airports where you can use power outlets on the walls to recharge your laptop they had instead specified power stations sponsored by an electronics company which shall remain nameless so I don’t tarnish their image. WHY THE HECK DO I NEED A SPECIFIC SPONSORED POWER STATION?!!! They had little seating near them and almost no room to just use the laptop while it was charging. What I ended up doing was leaving the laptop there and taking a seat across the hall but with a view of the laptop and just people-watched and kept my eye on it for like a half hour. At least it’s better than some airports like DFW which don’t have public power outlets at all. See, these are the things you think about when you travel over long distances as a business traveler. I even checked and responded to some e-mails after a while, sitting on the tile floor so I wouldn’t lose my precious charging spot (all sixteen outlets in the terminal were in use almost the whole time). Of course, if I had a Blackberry I probably would’ve been responding to e-mails before the plane taxied to the gate. Ironically, I talked with my seatmate, a lawyer for Motorola in San Diego, for the whole three hour flight to Austin so that I didn’t use the laptop at all. I arrived in Austin, took a $60 cab ride home (I didn’t feel I should be punished by having to wait an hour for SuperShuttle in order to save $30) and was greeted in the yard by Jennifer and the happiest little 14 lb pooch in Austin.
Hopefully I’ll be home for a while but with the job being how it is now I never know. I think my next scheduled foreign trip out would be in April or May to Hungary but I’ll need to see how budget shakes out. The next domestic one should be a trip to Orlando in March to speak at a conference (my first non-Austin speaking engagement so I can’t miss it).
Anyway, thanks for sharing this window into this part of my life. I’ll keep you posted on other trips as they come around. Hopefully you’ll be getting news from me about a certain new Beck entering the world before you get any trip e-mails. Hope all is well with you all.
Matt
