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.