Thanksgiving in my apartment, without me!

While I was in the US, my apartment in Shanghai hosted Thanksgiving.  Yup you read that correctly.  I allowed a co-worker to use my place to entertain and friends, cook them a massive Thanksgiving dinner (a first for many of them) and all in all have a good time.

I'm impressed they figured out my oven!

Not sure if this was taken early in the night, before dinner or after.  However what I do know is that a few of them were hurting the next day.  But as important, they left me a bunch of liquor, soda and other stuff for down the road.  Now that is nice, given they could have robbed me blind!

3 years!

Now that we are into December, I've hit another milestone.  It's officially 3 years since I started with this company here in Shanghai.  At times it feels like it has only been months and other times it feels like decades.  All in all I can't complain!

My trip home starting at Thanksgiving was good and hectic.  A great and relaxing visit to Florida with my dad, stepmom and brothers was followed by a jam packed schedule in Chicago.  Chicago featured doctors, dentists, haircut, shopping for clothes, shoes and toiletries all of which I really can't find here plus more family and friends time.  One night all my Chicago area cousins got together for some dinner and drinks.  It was awesome to get us all together at one time.

Another memorable night was out with some local friends that I've known for years.  We were waiting for our table at a restaurant in Little Italy that was packed when a pizza delivery guy from Papa John's came in to try and deliver a couple of pizza's!  Needless to say the hostess made sure he left without delivering any!

Then on to North Carolina where things were a bit more stable in terms of time.  Nothing but work, drinks and dinners at the show.  Same old, same old.

Now back to Shanghai where the weather has quickly turned downright cold!  Yes it does get cold here.  With high levels of humidity the air just bites through you down to the bones!.

Here's to year #4.

Company Trip - Amusement Park

So in addition to the paintball outing we also hit the amusement park.  I wasn't sure if they would enjoy this part but they did.  Everyone loved it.  Me?  Not so much.  It's not that I didn't feel safe on the rides, as the whole park was developed and built by a German company so I'm sure it was safe.  But those rides that spin, loop, etc give me one heck of a headache!  I'd rather have a headache from drinking too much than getting jostled around...


Here's the group getting ready to go in the park first thing in the AM...

Now all that said about the loops, spinning and jostling...well I did this ride first!  I thought it was just going to spin in circles, making you think you would crash into the other cars.  Wrong!  It went sideways and eventually upside down, spinning like crazy the whole time.  At one point my entire left side of my face was numb, felt like I had a stroke and lost all feeling there!  Never again I tell ya...

Now this ride I didn't dare do...it had a massive drop as seen in the photo.  But what you can't see is that before it dropped it hung you up there looking straight down for 2-3 seconds and then just unleashed it's furry to the bottom.  No thanks!

Paintball

It's sometimes tough to post on here as often as I would like.  Why?  Well I could use the excuse that I'm so very busy with work, triathlons, drinking or some such other lame excuse but that wouldn't be totally fair.  Reality is worse.  Thanks to China's "Great Firewall" it's a challenge in fact to post.  I have to access this site in other ways which are slow or sometimes don't work.  Plus sometimes it simply doesn't work to upload photos (which is the best part).  So that being said, I think I forgot to post this one before.  If I did it already then...read it again!

So for our company trip this year we stayed just outside of Shanghai.  Did some hiking, hit an amusement park and also played paintball.  The idea of paintball was team building.  Yet I think it turned mostly into a "kill the boss" game!  Here is one of the teams we had...

Sums up life in China...

I'm not a big fan of these e-cards but this one pretty much sums up life in China in so many ways.  The amount of times I say the line "I couldn't make this shit up" is truly countless!

Thanksgiving back in the USA

Last Wednesday afternoon I began the trek back to the US for Thanksgiving.  From Shanghai to Newark, then a connection to Tampa where I stayed at an airport hotel.  Then on Thanksgiving morning I made the final couple hour drive down to the Fort Myers area to be with my dad/stepmom and brothers for some home cooked turkey and football watching!

It's not often that us three brothers get together and this visit was short as Taylor headed back to Chicago on Friday.  However I'll see him again next week as I go to Chicago.  Regardless it is always nice to get together.

On Friday my dad, step-mom, Alex and myself took a boat ride and then went to the beach to check out the sunset.

 It was a perfect evening to see a wonderful sunset in Florida!

After watching the sunset we went inside to have dinner and actually celebrate my Dad and Step-mom's 22nd wedding anniversary.  I can't say it is exactly the place they had in mind to celebrate as it was bar food, plastic plate and cups and even styrofoam glasses for the water!  But we all had a good laugh and a good time.

Middle School

I came across this middle school in Shanghai not far from my old apartment.  What a great name...

According to the dictionary "Bile" is:
1.  A bitter greenish-brown alkaline fluid that aids digestion and is secreted by the liver and stored in the gallbladder.
2.  Anger; irritability

Gotta love it!

Shanghai Daily

I used to subscribe to a daily newspaper here, either China Daily or Shanghai Daily.  I finally stopped when I realized I could get most of the news free on their iPad app's.  However they sometimes don't put everything on-line and often what gets cut out is what I think is amazing, one way or another.

Take this article from earlier this week.  Apparently someone in the city of Wuhan thought it made sense to have a 5 year old girl wear a bikini and a wig while kissing and caressing a car at an auto show.  This is soooo wrong!  Thankfully in this instance the article was done showing that people were highly upset by it.  Honestly it takes more and more to shock me over here yet this comes pretty close.

A great auto-reply

One of my local colleagues set up an auto-reply that kicked in today.  I've never seen one like this but thought it was pretty unique...

"I will out of the office from Nov.19 to Dec.3 for waiting my baby coming. If you need immediate assistance please contact Jackyding."




That's a nice break waiting for baby coming!

End of an era

Well today, Nov 15, 2012 marked a milestone and end of an era for me here in China.   I had to say goodbye to my driver, Cash, who has been with me the past three years.  Unfortunately we had to not renew his contract as we had someone move back to the US which put us in the situation that we didn't need the extra van.  So I will still have a driver, in fact one that is probably a better driver, faster and also speaks English, yet it won't be the same.  Cash is loved by one and all and has become like a father figure especially to some of the younger employees.  It was truly a business decision and thankfully he totally understood.  I gave him a couple of nice bottles of Chinese whiskey this morning and he was very appreciative of it.

As an FYI I probably told the story before but his name, "Cash", has a humorous story.  In Chinese his name sounds like "Mr. Jew."  Well my company is a Jewish family owned company and I simply didn't think that was right to call him that.  So I asked what his name meant, translated to English.  Unfortunately it was "Mr Pig."  Again didn't think that was proper name.  Another colleague of mine said "that new driver looks like a Chinese version of Johnny Cash."  And right there folks is how his name came about.  I'm sure he also equated Cash with money so all in all it was good.

He will be missed but hopefully we will see him for a dinner or something down the road.

Taiwan 70.3 - last race of the season!

Well this past weekend was my 3rd and final 70.3 distance race of 2012 and 4th overall race of the year.  This race taking place in Kenting, Taiwan basically at the far southern tip of Taiwan.  I knew heading to the race that it wasn't going to be a great one for a few reasons.  First and foremost since the early August race in the Philippines I had really not trained much other than continuing to get a good number of bike rides in.  Secondly I had tons of visitors, colleagues, customers in the 3 weeks prior to the race which further limited training and probably had me eating and drinking too much.  Lastly the weekend before the race I was down for the count sick.  Probably had to do with all the entertaining the past few weeks in fact.

In any event about 35 folks from Shanghai attended this race and all flew on the same flight.  20 of us had rented a bus to take us and our bikes to the hotel about 2 hours away.  Well it became a 3 hour drive as our driver was nice and slow.  Upon arrival Thursday night the group at my hotel decided to go find dinner.  There was about 12 of us in my group plus maybe 8-10 others we saw also heading for dinner.  The hotel said walk down the street 5-10 min and you will find lots.  Well we walked 30 minutes and found nothing!!!!  So we came back and literally 20 of us ate take away from 7-11.  So a not so nutritious start to the weekend.

As a side note the next day we found a restaurant called Bossa Nova.  It was a little beach front restaurant that served a variety of Asian and Western dishes.  I fell in love with the bacon pasta!  We ate at this place lunch, then dinner, then dinner the night after finishing the race.  Great little place all in all.

OK so race recap quickly.  Swim (1.9k) I had a TERRIBLE swim.   Not sure of the reasoning but a mass start of 1,600 bodies made it a hectic start, I had a wetsuit on for the first time in a while, no chance to warm up, etc.  All in all I didn't feel good, had to slow my heart rate down early on by hanging on a buoy which I had previously NEVER done in a race.  Bike (90k).  This went much better.  My biking has dramatically improved this season as I've gotten out on a regular basis.  All in all my bike was completed in less than 3 hours so I'm happy.  Run (21k).  I expected problems here going into the race, I just didn't know when to expect them.  One problem everyone had was there was no mileage/km notices until the 14k mark.  That made it tough on folks.  I think my first 8-10k was good.  After that I lost the "motor" in my legs and they turned to jelly.  This was expected with my lack of intense training so no problem.

All in all the race time was a bit better than others this year.  But I know with a bit of training I could have reduced the time drastically.  Well there is always next year!  My season is over now and I'm going to enjoy a social life and some different exercises, like Cross Fit which has opened up here in Shanghai.  And while doing all that, I'll be planning on what races I want to do in 2013.

Sandy

Well it's Halloween here today and I must say I haven't seen anyone out in costume today.  That's not to say they won't be out tonight and weren't out in force last weekend or planning on dressing up this coming weekend.  Halloween is one holiday that seems to pick up steam and get bigger and crazy every year!  What was once mostly a child's holiday has become everyone's.

That being said I'm guessing the festivities are slowed down significantly on the East Coast of the US, thanks to Sandy the monster hurricane.  I know that my mom (among many) still doesn't have power in her home in CT.  My NY office has had two days without power as well.  For me my email and such is housed on our NY server so with their power being out, I have had a few quiet email days.  Can't complain about that but at the same time I admit I'm a bit scared about what happens when the power turns back on!

In any event, thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by the storm.

JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge Shanghai

A couple of weeks back I actually got our office to do two things that I pretty much never thought I could get them to do.  More importantly I got them to do both at the same time!  Those things?  Exercise and Charity.

The JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge took place for a 2nd time here.  This time with over 6,000 people taking part, some companies having multiple hundreds of competitors.  I was happy getting about 29 to sign up out of 50+ in our office and having 25 actually run.  All proceeds raised by this race went to support education of Shanghai's migrant workers. 

http://www.jpmorganchasecc.com/events.php?city_id=25&page=events101812

Call me optimistic but I think most of the team had a lot of fun, even if they aren't athlete's.  Hopefully next year we can get more to participate!

Morning bike rides

I've done a fair amount of early morning bike rides this summer and fall.  Typically leaving my apartment by about 4:45 and meeting a group of friends at 5:30.  From there we head west out of the city.  It's amazing how different Shanghai looks from a bike at that hour.  Recently with the sun rising later and later we get totally different views.

Here's a couple of sunrise photos from a ride the last week or so....

We end up biking through some small villages where we see the locals brushing their teeth, washing their clothes, etc in the streets.  But yet it is so peaceful and quiet out there, not the blaring horns of the city.

Boracay

October National Holiday meant basically a forced vacation!  Gotta love the forced vacations a couple of times a year in China.  This year I had grand aspirations first to go to someplace like Myanmar/Burma, but when I couldn't find others interested I was set on Laos.  I had the whole itinerary planned and was getting psyched.  Well long and short it fell through because I waited too long to pull the real trigger and at that point tickets to get me to Bangkok, from where you take a train to Laos, was over $1,500usd.  Yup onto the next plan which was simple.  Find a ticket ANYWHERE!  Easier said than done when more than 200 million Chinese were expected to also be traveling.  Bottom line I found at ticket to Manila and then separately purchased domestic tickets from Manila to Boracay, Philippines.  Which incidentally is supposed to be one of the top ranked beach destinations in the world.

So a flight to Manila for an overnight stay then on to Kalibo, from there it's about a 90 minute drive towards Boracay.  After that drive you take a 15 minute catamaran boat ride to Boracay, where you are greeted by tons and tons of "tricycle's" (essentially a motorcycle with extra space for people/luggage) for your short trip to the hotel.

 Out the calm side of the water from the catamaran into Boracay...

 

One really cool thing about Boracay is that there is a sand walkway that extends probably about a mile up and down the beach, separating the beach itself from the shops, restaurants and hotels.  No motorized vehicles allowed, meaning if you hung out there your entire trip you could literally not see a car/truck until you left.  

Unfortunately the weather didn't want to cooperate with my visit.  The first day we arrived mid afternoon and it was nice...too bad we didn't know that would essentially be our best day.  Lots and lots of driving rain and wind.  So that left eating and drinking...

Check out that steak knife!  It was small sized but sharp as all get out!

A "Booze Buffet" huh?  All for 598php or $14.50usd!  Thankfully the only enjoyment I got out of this was the photo, I didn't figure I needed all you can drink vacation...

That being said my favorite beer in the Philippines is Red Horse "Extra Strong" seen in the photo above.  It's about 7% alcohol and quite dangerous in the large 500ml bottles.  Gotta love the white napkins that wrap the top.  I thought they were served this way to keep sand out before you started drinking.  Makes sense to me.  However I found rather it was so you could wipe off the rust on the top of the bottle.  Given they are dark bottles you don't visibly see the rust, but it's there in the heat, humidity and salt water environment.  We never had a shortage of Red Horses come evening time.

All in all a place Boracay is a place I must head back to but only if I can have good weather.  Would love to take a boat trip, go scuba diving, rent a scooter to check out the island, etc.  All would have been fun but weren't in the cards with the driving rain 3 out of 4 days.

Heading off the island we took a hotel provided speed boat and said our good byes, on what was the 2nd nicest day weather wise!  Until next time Boracay!

Mid Autumn Festival

Happy Mid Autumn Festival, aka Moon Cake Festival to everyone.  I have a few extra moon cakes if anyone would care for one.  Definitely not my favorite things.  In fact the only ones I have that are any good are filled with ice cream!

This year the festival falls today, Sept 30th, and so we don't have a special holiday for it, they have mixed it in with October National Day, which starts tomorrow, Oct 1st.  One of the best parts of living here is the forced holidays.  There are a couple of 3 day ones but the two biggies obviously are Chinese New Year and October National Day.  What does this mean?  Well basically my office is closed until October 8th.  I'm off to the Boracay, Philippines for some rest, sun and beers as of tomorrow.

Moon cake anyone?

Fabric Show - Hospital

As I mentioned in my last post we had our annual textile show a few weeks back.  It's a multi-purpose show for us as we not only have a large space but we also use the time to look for new suppliers, check out new constructions, etc.

Well this show was a first of sorts as I will explain.  We set up the show one afternoon with few problems and came back to work it the next day.  Towards the middle of the day a few of us started noticing our eyes were dry and itchy.  It only got worse as the day went on.

That night I got a text from my local general manager.  He was heading to the hospital in the morning with what he thought was an allergic reaction.  His face was turning red, eyes really bloodshot and itchy and all in all uncomfortable.  The next day everyone continued to get a bit worse.  The GM called me from the hospital and said that they suspected Formaldehyde poisoning!  I checked with booths near us and nobody else had issues.  So we deduced it must have been something in the construction of our space, be it the carpeting, walls or even furniture.

By end of the 2nd day I was pretty miserable but we only had one day to go.  What I started to notice was that the skin on my forearms, that wasn't covered by a shirt, was prickly almost like little needles.  That next day another woman went to the hospital and got treatment.  However day 3 in itself was much better at least from the environment.  I think the formaldehyde slowly worked its way out and was less of a problem.

All in all not much we could do but pack up our stuff and get out of there!  I won't be using those contractors again next year!

Textile Show - protest

Our company email is down and with me being on our US server and it being the middle of the night, nobody is there to fix it!  So it's given me a chance to catch up on some blog's as it's been nearly a month. 

One of the biggest news items has been the territorial dispute between China and Japan on the Diaoyu Islands.  While the US has officially not taken a stance (that I am aware of yet), the Chinese are reporting of course that the US is supporting Japan.  There has been some heavy backlash of Japanese companies all around China.  Even last week the US Ambassador to China had his car attacked in Beijing, all thanks to this.

We had our fabric show a few weeks ago and I saw this sign posted outside one of the showrooms.  While I guess I understand it a bit, I think it would be better to have been in both English and Japanese instead of English and Chinese!

China Taxes

Ahh well as we near October 15th, it's about time I get my 2011 taxes complete huh?  Thankfully as an expat we are basically granted an automatic extension to June 15th and can easily file another extension to October 15th.

This is simply due to the fact that paperwork, W2's, etc need to be sent internationally and some people aren't stateside at the right times.  So it's a nice benefit.  Plus I'm sure the government does it for their own benefit because in many cases as an expat we get a refund.  So that just means more money staying in Uncle Sam's pocket until the fall.

In addition to the US tax I also pay taxes here in China.  The above photo shows the return I got.  I love the comment "Thank you for your contribution to China's flourishing and prosperity."  Yes you are welcome, like I had any choice in the matter!

Macau (con't)

Well I haven't finished the story on Macau so here goes.  Back when I lived in Shenzhen a group of us always said we wanted to JUMP off that Macau Tower!  It was usually said after a couple (or a lot) of drinks and there was little fear.  A couple of us made a trip one time but it was closed due to weather.  Well now most of that group has moved away from China so the dream or promise was looking bleak.  I reached out to the one other person still around, she lives in Hong Kong, and we agreed to meet up there for a weekend including that jump.

I HATE heights!  Let's be clear on that up front.  But it was a promise I made and wanted to follow through on it.

We got there around opening time (10AM) on Saturday, knowing that we didn't want to wait in line and get even more nervous.

Yet as I sat here all strapped in I was quite nervous.  We went out on the platform when one other guy was ahead of us.  He was bungy jumping (a little different than we did, will explain) and seemed excited.  He was from Brazil and in typical Brazilian manner was singing and almost dancing in the seat, super casual and having fun.  Well then he got up for his jump and it all changed!  It took probably between 6-8 countdowns of 3-2-1-jump before he finally went.  I gotta say watching him get nervous didn't help my nerves at all.

 So instead of a bungy jump that attaches at your feet and then snaps back like a rubber band bouncing you back up we chose to do the Sky Jump.  On line it sounded like a free fall that at the end slows you down until your feet land on the landing pad.  So in some ways it sounded like the more intense option. 

After we signed up we found it described a bit differently.  It's more like the equipment used to film stunts for movies.  So it is a controlled jump the whole way.  Still we were to drop at about 70k an hour, which is quick but nothing like the 200k an hour from the bungy jump!

Regardless of the option we choose it was obviously all systems go and no turning back.  The weather was clear and the view I had while jumping of all of Macau was stunning.  It was kind of cool to be flying down but still able to check out the sights.  Unfortunately this type of jump didn't give you the massive adrenaline rush that you would expect.  It was only scary right up until the point of jump and about a second after that.  Once you got used to it the descent was easy.

Here we are all happy that we survived and honestly debating already should we have done the bungy jump?  I guess I will make another trip at some point and give that a shot.

I've never done a bungy jump, never jumped out of an airplane, etc.  However I would have no worries doing it with the company that owns and operates this.  They were first class all the way with Australians managing the facility and testing everything.  It was a huge help to have them.

Macau...unfinished business

So this past weekend was spent in Macau.  Honestly I was there for some unfinished business.  Promises made a few years ago that needed to be completed.  However before I go into that on a future post, let me say a few things about Macau itself.

Formerly under Portugal control it was turned over to China in 1999 and is now one of the Special Administration Region controlled by China.  This means it has it's own government, it's own currency and is generally very different from China.  Now if you ask a Chinese person this they would say otherwise.  They would say that Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau are all part of China.  And yes they are, but in a different way.

What I have enjoyed on my visits to Macau is the old vs new.  You have old Portugese influenced architecture next to the new grand casino's.  Old money vs new money.  As a break from living in China it is wonderful!

This is me in front of some of the new.  The Macau Tower stands about 61 stories tall and about 233m high.  It's quite impressive and scary in it's own way...more on Macau and the tower next time.

Philippines 70.3 - Run

So after a good swim and good bike, it's off on the 21k run (aka the 1/2 marathon!).

On to the course I went with an extra water bottle in hand to hydrate.  I noticed very quickly that my legs were simply not responding.  I didn't think I went that hard on the bike portion so I figured it would just take them 15 minutes or so to loosen up and get in stride...

Same as the bike, the crowds were everywhere.  But this time instead of whizzing by going at a high rate of speed I was just jogging past giving kids high fives and hearing them roar in appreciation!  There were literally entire schools of kids in their uniforms lining the roads and cheering.

About 25 minutes in my legs were still not adapting and it was time to refuel.  During a long endurance race you will burn thousands upon thousands of calories, which means you need to hydrate yes, but also consume calories.  This is done either with gu like substances, banana's, or even protein type bars as well as taking salt tabs and electrolyte tabs.  Well after the 25 min, it was my scheduled time to take some pills (electrolyte's and such).  Well let's just say they didn't go down and for the first time while doing a race I moved to the side of the road and back up they came!  Guess those never got into my system.

I seem to be moving decently here, definitely not indicative of the norm on this race!

The run course itself was very flat which was nice.  It was occasionally tree lined giving some protection from the sun, but often was out through neighborhoods or near the water and completely exposed.

Like the bike this too was a two loop course meaning you ran by everyone a couple of times and knew where the biggest support was.

All in all my run felt like 1/2 run and 1/2 walk.  My legs never got into it and consequently my final time was about 40minutes past my goal of 6hours. 

Would I do this race again?  Heck yeah!  Great course, great support and lots of fun, I've just got to learn how to get my legs turning over!!!

Philippines 70.3 - Bike

So after a good swim for me it was on to the bike portion.  90k or 56miles. 

Quickly I realized one more problem, that being my bike computer wasn't working.  While not the end of the world I use it to determine the distance traveled, speed and my cadence.  It certainly helps when pacing oneself over this distance.  Oh well nothing I can do at this point.

The race was a two loop course over relatively flat terrain.  The one exception being this bridge you see in the first picture below.  Up and over that bridge was tough as it seemed straight up on a long steady climb.

 After the bridge it was out and back 2x, each time relatively straight allowing for decent speeds.  We went through a super long tunnel, where literally I had to pull my sunglasses down as it got so dark in their with them on you couldn't see anything.

Most of the roads were in good shape but there were areas heavily beat up thanks to container/cargo shipping that happens daily.  The good news was this course was completely closed to cars the day of the race, making for a safe environment.

I read in one post race recap that the bike was compared to the course at Kona, Hawaii where the Ironman world championships are held.  Specifically in the sense that it was extremely hot out on the bike and also because of some heavy winds causing speeds to be much higher coming back in than they were going out. 

The best part of this entire course by far was the outstanding crowd support.  It was reported the next day that there were over 25,000 people lining the streets cheering everyone from the pro's to the worst performing athletes!  There were sections of the bike that had crowds lined 2-3 deep cheering like crazy.  A small wave or a smile of acknowledgment from the competitors just fired everyone up even louder.

All in all I had a good bike portion and was well on my way to hitting the time goal that I set for this race...

Philippines 70.3 - Swim

Race morning comes EARLY with a 3:00AM wake up call, 3:30 breakfast and 4:00 departure from the hotel!  Continuing with my streak of bad luck, the organizers didn't have enough shuttles to take the athletes to the race start, so they got a local van to take about 15 of us all while sitting on the floor as this was more of a cargo van!  I'm thinking at this time with all the bad luck I've had, I was bound to have a great race!

After checking my gear and getting all set up, it was time to head down towards the swim start...

One challenge that the organizers hadn't totally thought through was that the tide was out causing very shallow waters at the beginning and to make matters worse there was a lot of coral everywhere! 

The swim start itself was a water start meaning that we had been swimming or treading water for 10-15 min before the start, then the gun goes off and everyone starts in a flurry!  It was simply a beautiful swim.  The water was crystal clear, making the swim almost like a snorkeling day.  You could see all sorts of colorful fish which kept your mind off the exertion to some extent.

Course wise this was 1.9k (1.2miles) in one large clockwise loop.  The water was a bit rough thanks to a typhoon that came through a few days before so there was an occasional bigger type wave but all in all it was fine. 

Coming into shore I was feeling pretty good about my time but hadn't seen my watch since the start so I didn't really know.   The last 100m or so I swam breaststroke simply trying to avoid cutting up my hands on the coral.  Upon getting out I looked at my watch to see a time of 37min and change, so I was quite pleased with my start...

Philippines 70.3 - part 1

Last week I was off to the Philippines for my race.  My flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong got delayed on the ground for a couple of hours (pretty much the usual for me), making the connection super tight to Cebu.  As we were getting off the plane I had about 25 minutes to make my connection.  The flight attendant was sure they would hold it as there were a few of us going there and that was the last flight of the night.  Well as soon as I got off the jet bridge there were gate agents waiting holding signs for Cebu...and my boarding pass...for the next day's flight!  Damn this isn't starting well.

Thankfully Cathay Pacific put me up in a nearby hotel and made things as easy as possible.  The flight the next morning around 8:30 went as planned...until I got off the plane, went through customs and realized I had left my iPad on the plane!  Crap this is continuing to not go well.  After alerting the staff they checked the plane but no luck on the iPad.  I tried to file a "lost" claim but they didn't seem to have one. 

On to the hotel I go and it's about 12:30 now.  Upon getting to the hotel and checking in, I find out the last shuttle to race check leaves at 2PM.  (FYI the race is the following day).  So I quickly build my bike, grab some stuff and head over to the check in.  From here the rest of the day seemed to go relatively well.

Time for the race briefing, explaining the rules, time line for the day, laying out the course, etc...

It's ALMOST race time, Philippine style!

So last night I did my last swim before racing on Sunday in the Philippines.  All in all my training has been good leading up to this one, with the exception of my swim, where I just haven't put in the time.  So I needed to get this one in.

However it nearly didn't happen...For this swim I went back to my old apartment complex to swim where I haven't been for months.  As I was about to get in the pool from one end, I completely slipped!  I landed hard on my wrist and came within inches of smacking my head on the pool and knocking myself senseless.  There were a couple of other foreigners near by and they were shocked I didn't get hurt.  Lucky!

In fact the swim itself was far and away my best swim of the year.  It was strong, felt fast and leaves me feeling good about that part of the race.

Here is a little more coverage on the race...
http://ironman.com/events/ironman70.3/philippines70.3/philippines-70.3-preview?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ironman%2Ftopstories+%28Ironman.com+Top+Stories%29#axzz22M0BAFd9

Now if we can just avoid the typhoon that is in the area....

Disturbing office behavior

Well to say the least today I laughed as hard as I have recently thanks to some extremely disturbing office behavior.

A couple of weeks ago I heard someone in our office clipping their fingernails at their desk.  While this annoys and disgusts me I guess I can understand.  Today's action...no explanation possible.

Right before lunch today I heard what sounded like an electric razor.  Then I got a Skype message from another colleague telling me to check it out.  One of our local Chinese colleagues decided it would be appropriate to shave her armpits in the office!  And no she didn't go use the bathroom she did it right next to her desk.

Was that the end of it?  Nope of course not.  It turns out this wasn't her razor but rather she had borrowed it from a colleague!

I truly can't make this stuff up!!!!

Gorgeous day in Shanghai!

We are going on about 1 week with beautiful weather.  While it is plenty hot still, the sky is truly blue, a few clouds are out and it it simply beautiful!  This photo was taken this morning, July 30, from my deck after I took a quick run.

Not sure why were are getting this great weather, although some say, it's because business is slow and factories are not running at full capacity.  If that's the case, it's too bad since my business needs those factories and mills at full speed ahead.  But personally I'll take the blue skies!

An "explosion!"

I'm no fan of eating liver so I wouldn't try this food anyway.  However any food that has a description of "liver explosion" just doesn't cut it for me...

Bathrooms

Bathrooms are a consistent topic of conversation over here.  Mostly because you find some terrible ones...holes in the ground when you are out in the factories, smelly beyond anything that can be described or just down right dirty!

But this is a new one.  This is down on the "The Bund" in an upscale building with some expensive restaurants in it.

It looks like other floors all have restrooms already but the 4th floor has one "coming soon" but nothing else on the floor????

Qi Deficiency

So last week I went to see a TCM, which is Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner.  Basically I went because my hip had been bothering me thanks to doing a lot of biking and running this summer.  There was not necessarily lots of pain but more just discomfort, even when sleeping it was tough.  So I figured a western doctor would give me some drugs, tell me to avoid running or the bike the next couple of weeks and go from there.  But since I'm doing a race in 3 weeks in the Philippines I figured that option won't work.

The TCM I figured might help the alignment and get what I think is the IT band back in its proper place.  After a brief exam the doctor gave me 6 acupuncture shots, that then get held under a hot light for about 25 minutes, during which I fell asleep.  Then after that I received the cupping treatment.  18 cups in all on my back.  These are hard to describe but they leave a bruise that looks like a giant circle.

OK so the treatment is over and the doctor says she also noticed I have a slight "Qi Deficiency."  Other than asking me a few questions she didn't say more so I googled it upon getting home....

It's most interesting.  Firstly on the symptoms I don't believe I have any of those.  In terms of the tongue, I think it's pale because we never see sun here!  If my pulse is "empty" then does that mean I'm already dead? 

The only thing they have correct is the "factors" other than the old age I will agree...

So if anyone knows where I can buy me some excess Qi that would be great.

My donation

China is just so appreciative in all respects (insert your own sarcastic comments should you wish).  This is a photo of basically a year end tax receipt that shows how much income tax you paid to the government.  Love their comment:

"Thank you for your contribution to China's flourishing and prosperity!"  (Like I had a choice by the way).

Gift box

So since I was back in June some of the women in my NY office were asking me about life in China, what challenges there are, what I miss, etc.  Well these aren't necessarily things I miss but either tough to get or very expensive here.  What a nice treat to get cereal, my favorite hot sauce and some Cyrstal Light energy packets in the mail the other day!!!