Molly Nolan's Wedding

As I stated in my last post I was in Chicago last week and the main reason was to attend my cousin's wedding.  The vast majority of the family was there including most who I don't get to see on my trips home so this was a great time to catch up with family, no matter how limited the time was or how busy we all were.

The wedding took place in the city followed by a reception at The University Club of Chicago, which was a stunning location.  Check out the view from the window that evening...makes me miss Chicago very much!

Inside the ballroom got rocking before any of the food was served.  The live band was keeping the crowd on its feet the entire time.  The best was some young (probably recent college grad) woman grabbing a number of the older men and dragging them onto the dance floor and making them take off their jackets and dance!  Was quite a sight to see.  Unfortunately none of those pictures came through too well, but here you see a view of the dance floor.  Quite spectacular.

I did get one shot that turned out well of my Aunt Jane and Uncle Ray and the raucous behind them.  Mind you this is all before dinner!

Unfortunately no photos of the bride and groom as they were busy entertaining everyone and having a grand time before leaving the next day on their honeymoon.

Jet Lag

As some of you know I went back to the US last week for some work and a family wedding, more on all that in the next post.  The real reason for this post is to rant a bit on jet lag and how bizarre it is.

My trip to the US was a direct flight from Shanghai to Newark on United/Continental.  Sitting in coach for 14.5 hours isn't the most conducive for getting sleep of course.  Then it didn't help that I had what I would guess is an 80 year old Chinese couple next to me who kept trying to speak to me and had to get up many times (completely understandable).  However on that 14.5 hour flight I slept less than one.

Upon arriving in NY and for the next 3-4 days I was lucky if I got 3-4 hours of sleep.  Usually until no later than 2AM depending on when I went to sleep.  And this is also with taking Ambien.

Then for the return to Shanghai, I arrived Monday afternoon.  Took a nap which should have been 2 hours and ended up 5.  Whoops!  I awoke at 9PM thinking there was no way I could fall asleep.  Well 11PM comes, I take an Ambien and sleep through the night awaking at 6AM.  Tuesday was probably 9PM until 6AM.  Now Wednesday night was a little less but I have a ton on my mind and a ton to do so maybe that is it.

But if anyone can truly explain why jet lag is so different from one trip to the next I would love to know.  It's always been easier coming to China than heading back to the US, I get that.  But still the variances are amazing from trip to trip.

In any event back to China for a few days before off on a trip of a lifetime...more on that later.

George Foreman!

Yippee!  The George Foreman is in the house!  Take a look, even Chinese characters on the top of the writing...yet the instructions come in both English and Chinese!

I gave it a shot this evening and it worked well.  I'll need a little more fine tuning as it looks like I didn't buy the deluxe version that has a timer, thermometer, etc so going by blind luck.  Still it doesn't matter, this is awesome!

A Worldwide Remembrance

This weekend was Mid Autumn Festival...also know as Moon Cake Festival.  Basically it means that in the weeks leading up to the holiday we get and give lots of moon cake's as gifts (they don't taste good either!).  But it also means a 3 day weekend.  Given that I haven't had a beach holiday or break this year I went to Thailand for some R&R and with the hopes of getting rid of the burned in tan lines from my race in Korea.  Well it rained 2 out of the 3 days so the tan lines are still there.  But just getting out of China for a couple of days was well worth it.  Good Thai food, lots of rest, and a bit of sun, not bad for three days.  Now time for the redeye flight back to Shanghai and work on Tuesday morning.

As everyone was aware this was also the 10th anniversary of 9/11.  It was cool to see how the world reacted.  In the month of September there has been a bunch of coverage in newspapers in China, on CNN (Hong Kong edition), etc.  It was magnified mightily this weekend with coverage in all the magazines, on TV, the internet and in newspapers.  Some had a local twist to the articles be it from Malaysia, Thailand or Japan.  It was sad in some ways to remember but in other ways it is great that we have not forgotten!

2011 Company Trip - Qiandaohu

Every year in Chinese companies it is customary to take a company trip (wish that happened in the US too).  Now getting an office of 60 people to be happy and excited about a free weekend is tougher than it should be.  They all figure we have unlimited money and resources, which obviously we don't.  To try and help ease the challenge, this year we had a committee of 5 organize and plan.  This way there are others to blame than me!  

Everything was planned for Labor Day weekend, knowing our NY office would be closed on Monday as well.  We were off to Qiandaohu also known as "Thousand Island Lake."  The plan was some rafting, a boat ride, hikes through some of the islands, and then to an oxygen forest.  But first we had to get there...and for that we had to take the bus about 4-5 hours from Shanghai.  I brought along an afro-wig for some laughs.  Below is our GM, Paul and his massive head of hair.  Hard to believe under there he is bald as an eagle!

Unfortunately I have no photos of the rafting but it was a blast!  I wasn't sure it was a good idea given that most Chinese in my office can't swim!  But everyone had to wear a helmet and life jacket.  Below is a photo from a bridge on Qiandaohu.  

Here is a different view of the bridge.  It's actually more like wooden planks that move all over the place, making walking across the bridge an adventure.  Especially when folks start to have fun and shake it!  Below is one of our drivers (Mao) and the woman in purple helps run our testing lab.

Some people also did some sort of reverse bungee jump.  The smaller the person obviously the higher they went and the more they flipped.  Most everyone enjoyed but there were a few who did not.

My goal on this trip was to make it super enjoyable so that next year everyone would want to go.  Because a few people backed out on this trip we had more room in the budget.  So we switched plans about 4 days before it started.  For our second night out we moved to a Sheraton hotel right on the water with unbelievable views and accommodations!  Most of the team had never stayed in a western hotel so this was a big treat.  Even better was that the weather cooperated.  We took advantage of the pool, taught some of the Chinese to swim even and all in all had a great time.

I've tried to include nothing but the good fun photos.  There are others of course.  Like some of the god awful food we ate, especially at lunches.  You know it is bad when the Chinese tell you the food is terrible even the rice!  Plus we had challenges with buses breaking down, running out of air conditioning, etc.  But we had an amazing time.  One final photo of the sunset view from the hotel...

Fake Apple Stores

Everyone knows by now that China is pretty good at replicating things...ok copying is more like it.  Well one of the most bizarre is a city called Kunming, China was found to have two fake Apple stores.  Completely set up to look real down to the employee uniforms.  After lots of searching it has turned out that there are actually not two knock off stores but actually 22!  All in one city.

In reality I think there are only 3-4 authorized and real Apple stores in all of China.  Two here in Shanghai and either one or two in Beijing.  They have aggressive expansion plans down the road but so far not 22 in the whole country let alone one city.

Check out the story and photos at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14503724

Expensive!

We worked a trade show here in Shanghai this week and kept ourselves busy.  On the last day I spent some time walking around talking to some suppliers.  There was one mill owner who claimed her business was bad so she had more free time.  In fact she had recently gone to the US with her 9 year old daughter.  She commented on how she couldn't believe how cheap it was to shop in NYC!  She said all week they did nothing but shop and barely looked a prices.  Mind you all this is not shopping for cheapy goods, this is name brand luxury goods - Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, etc.

Then this week as I was walking home I happened to see a shirt that looked interesting in a Lacoste store.  So I walked in to see if they had my size.  They handed me a size "6" for whatever it is worth.  It happened to fit.  Then I looked at the price tag - 1,650rmb which means about $257USD for a short sleeved golf shirt!  Really?????

I never would have guessed the time would be here when someone would say NY is cheap compared to China!!!!