New fake snow machine video from China for rentals and purchase
July 29th, 2010
Archive
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Everyday – new – exciting – adventurous – China – & now Hong Kong
July 25th, 2010
Nearing my hundredth day away from central Texas and the United States my honeymoon period continues. Each adventure of each day continues to excite me. Last week contained a bit of stress related to work. Monday, the 19th of July I flew to Guangzhou for several factory visits with vendors and (mostly) potential vendors of products I may (or may not) purchase. As I prefer, I woke at 5am to catch the 8am direct, non-stop to Guangzhou in order to not waste an entire day on travel. My first factory representative picked me up promptly at the airport, fed me an excellent lunch that included crabs, shrimp, and some other items before taking me for a tour of the factory. I realized at my hotel later that evening that all eight of the factory visits I planned on squeezing into two or three days would end up being three or possibly four different factories. Day two of the trip (Tuesday) had Sunny, from the stand factory picking me up at 10am. At 9:30am I received a text from Sunny about her 30 minute late arrival. At nearly 11am I hopped into the car with Sunny before heading to lunch on the one hour car ride to her factory. Once I arrived at the factory, we exchanged business cards. I asked to see the products that I had already ordered and paid for. Sunny explained that I had nothing on order and I had sent her no money. I looked at her card again and realized that she was a different Sunny. Woops! I quickly recovered, kept talking and decided that it was my time to head to Hong Kong to get my passport stamped for 90 more days in China. During the early hours of each morning and late hours of the afternoons leading up to the woopsy with Sunny I learned that I did not need to visit anymore factories. The folks I have been attempting to deal work very differently from me.
Hong Kong will be much better next time when I take a travel companion with me. It fascinates me how they get so many people into such a small area. There seems to be a Circle K or a 7-11 every 25-30 yards. The buses are all 2 stories and my hotel room was tiny. I enjoyed walking around and the shopping boggles me. The number of clothing stores overwhelms the serious shopper! I can’t wait to go back for several days.
Saturday hiking is still the highlight of each week. We hike some seriously challenging mountains outside of Beijing. The heat definitely assists in the level of difficulty. By far, the people I hike with make my world so wonderful. I have met some of the most kind, giving, wonderful, friendly people I have ever met in my life while hiking each Saturday. I can not say enough wonderful things about all of my new hiking buddies.
I found, with my dear friend, Tracy, an Indian food lunch buffet for under $8 per person. I enjoyed it so much the first time I had to make sure a second time that it was as good…. and it was. It’s in the same shopping center as The Saddle, my favorite Tex-Mex lunch place; because of it’s proximity to my apartment, the $5.50 price tag, and the two chicken taco, bean, rice, and chips & salsa lunch- not to mention – free wifi.
Tonight, Sunday, I finally made it to a swimming pool in Beijing. FANTASTIC – I know better than to go on a weekend. Oh well, I did go late in the day and by 7:30pm the crowd dwindled and I had a big chunk of pool all to myself. For a little less than $3 per person, the fantastic pool at Chaoyang park entertained me for well over an hour. My swimming companion and I enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. I found it fascinating that almost every single Chinese man at the pool had nearly the exact same swimsuit on. It’s almost like they stopped on their way in and received a uniform.
update since last update in Beijing and more
July 13th, 2010
The quick update consists of two massages at the same place, a Canada day celebration, a new Tex-Mex restaurant, another networking event, lots of soccer matches (on tv,) a bar named “juicy spot,” hiking, a trip to Shanghai, Suzhou, lots of Mandarin lessons, a house party, the Beijing zoo, and life in Beijing.I left out a few visits to different parks, lunch outings, and dinner outings with friends. My favorite Tex-Mex spot is La Bamba at the Wudokou subway stop.
I refer to people by name and sometimes they get descriptions:
Sharon, a friend (similar in age to me) from hiking, who almost her entire adult life in California and Canada is back living in Beijing with her young daughter. Sharon introduced me to a great new (to me) massage place with no frills. They mean business here and I actually enjoyed the second massage. Nobody in the place speaks English and my experience lasts about an hour each time.
June 26 I skipped the hike for a Canada day celebration at the Canada school with Tracy, Sharon, Elizabeth, and David Shan. I placed fourth out of ten in a hot pepper eating contest. We met Miss New York 2009 randomly. She spent a few months in Beijing interning at CCTV from New York. I ate 21 peppers which was only five fewer that second and third place finishers. Next year I will aim for first place with 50 peppers. After polishing off twenty-one peppers I inhaled three containers of yogurt in an attempt to avoid what some may call monkey butt. I call it the “red-ass.” I recommend entering a pepper eating contest. We were allowed to drink nothing until we had finished as many peppers as we were going to eat.
Pete’s Tex-Mex something or other sits fairly close to my home and really close to the Silk Market. It’s a bit difficult to find without asking for directions. After searching on the internet for every single Tex-Mex restaurant in Beijing, this restaurant screamed (through reviews) at me to give it a try. I enjoyed a burrito, iced tea, beans, and rice while my breakfast companion, young Chloe, a non-Texan, ate a burger and a milkshake. I will go back for more Mexican food and to try the chips and salsa. The atmosphere of the place made me feel like I was back in the ATX.
The Purple Jade Country Club hosted a multi-country chamber of Commerce networking event. Around one hundred different people – mainly from Europe and China- attended. I believe that including me there were two Americans at the event. I always enjoy myself in a room full of people. Many of the people attended other events I had been to. Hiking still trumps any social event for me.
World cup 2010 ended with a victory by the Spanish team. Everyday everywhere people glued themselves to television sets at bars, restaurants, and private residences to watch the excitement. I have seen more soccer (football) in the past month than I ever thought I would watch. The most fun match occurred while attending a birthday party for Ping at her home. Brazil came in second place in the match that night. A few people from Brazil yelled, screamed, and cried right next to me at Ping’s party. That definitely raised the excitement level of that match for me- a non sports enthusiast.
Last week I spent three days exploring Shanghai by day while getting work completed early mornings and late nights in my hotel room. The last day of my Shanghai trip, Friday I took the 190 mph train from Shanghai to Suzhou for 34 minutes to visit a possible factory for products for my Partymachines.com business. I spent two hours in Suzhou and then caught a train back to the airport for a flight home to Beijing. The very new train station in Shanghai could double as a disaster shelter for tens of thousands of people because of it’s massive size. The self service ticket machines made my experience painless because of the “English” button and simple instructions. The Suzhou station is nearly as large. It is so new that they are still working on it. Shanghai is alive and full of culture. I prefer Beijing because my world is there. I believe Shanghai trumps Beijing in land size and population.
Not including Texas, Shanghai is the center of the world. Their subway system is MASSIVE.
It is simple to navigate. There must be thousands of shops to walk through as well. I lost track of time while exploring shop after shop after shop.
The trip to the Beijing zoo may take a little mental preparation for the foreigner. I’ll start with the positives: The size of the zoo may intimidate. The number of different animals absolutely impresses zoo fans. They have panda bears! The aquarium is huge and impressive.
The zoo visitors throw things such as water bottles at the animals to get them to react. I find it odd and sad and bizarre. I watched a guy putting popcorn into a fish tank and laugh as the fish ate. Their level of respect for the animals in non-existent. It is on par with many other differences in Western and Chinese culture.
Hot pepper eating contest – 4th place out of ten
June 26th, 2010
Wow! Today at the Canada day celebration I polished off twenty-one spicy peppers to finish 4th behind a 2nd and 3rd place tie with 26 peppers and 1st place finisher with 65 peppers. I thoroughly enjoyed the contest. It was a bit painful. I inhaled two fairly large containers of yogurt, and a small container of ice cream immediately following the peppers. I experienced the eye watering, nose running, face sweating, and mouth on fire from those peppers. The event occurred at the Canada international school in Beijing. Appropriately they played Barenaked Ladies (Canadian band) music when the band was not playing. We (Sharon, David, Tracy, Elizabeth, and I) ate a fish dinner after the event. We did briefly visit with Charles and two of his co-workers during the afternoon. They showed up for a short while. Charles works at CCTV as an on-air personality.
Saturday and no hiking
June 25th, 2010
July 4 the adventure will take me to Shanghai and Suzhou for fun and work. It’s official. I just completed a week with three different Mandarin lessons, lots of time looking at electric bikes, a 4 hour bike adventure, a massage, a dental cleaning, productive work time, and lots of walking. Today there will be no hike for me. I will attend a Canada day celebration with friends late this afternoon as well as another massage this morning.
The Mandarin lessons challenge and frustrate me. I don’t know if I should take a lesson a day, two lessons a day, or cut it back. Being immersed in the culture helps tremendously. I wish there was a magic pill that I could take to instantly give me the knowledge.
Living in Beijing
June 20th, 2010
When I start carrying the voice recorder and talking into it every single time something new or exciting occurs I will become a full time writer. Each day brings new adventures- still. I am nearing sixty days in my current China adventure. I see no end to my stay here. My Mandarin lessons get more serious tomorrow as I start three separate one hour lessons in five days. Recently, my obsession with purchasing an electric bicycle has me examining electric bikes all day everyday. Now the journey to the Mandarin lesson lasts 15 minutes. With the electric bike it will decrease. The subway rides across town and the very very occasional taxi ride will cease. My exercise level decreases with the electric bike, but MY Beijing grows tremendously. My longest taxi trip to date lasted 22 km. That will be a peace of cake on the new bicycle. At this point I am still trying to talk myself into the purchase. The money plays a minor role in this decision. The lack of exercise concerns me mostly.
Hiking still trumps other activities. The break from the routine as well as the fresh air, and most importantly- the wonderful hiking folks make Saturdays a sanctuary. My comfort level with the trek to the meeting place finally increased. Instead of arriving 90 minutes early I only get there 20-30 minutes early now. Yesterday’s hike started with a 9:45am departure time from my apartment and ended when I returned home after 1am Sunday morning. We always seem to end up in some beautiful bunch of mountains 60-120 minutes outside of the city. Breathtaking is not even the appropriate word to describe the views.
Work continues to excite me. The adventures and challenges dealing with suppliers and potential suppliers here in China continues. Most of the folks use MSN Messenger to communicate which (some times) raises the efficiency level. Many times the banter (Back and forth) appears (to me) to be an incredible waste of time. I don’t know you. We are not friends. I don’t care if ou had a good weekend or not. Geesch! Maybe I’m a little insensitive. Get to the point. I don’t need to tell you – via instant messaging- how my day has been. Goodness! I do appreciate the messenger when the topic centers around work and also when we have a minor communication issue. If your spoken English is not as good as your written then the messenger works great.
Enough about the msn….. I received a batch of swimming goggles after a three week wait, a 45 minute subway ride, a 35 (more) minute cab ride, and then 30 more minutes back (to my apartment) in that same cab. Now I must figure how to get 288 pairs of swimming goggles back to Texas economically.
I also received two sample chairs and some bamboo disposable plates. Those items arrived quickly and painlessly. China Construction Bank now holds money for me. Instead of carrying around 20 or 30 separate 100 rmb bills I now carry 5 or six and a bank card. Getting my own bank account took very little time with my very helpful Chinese friend. This way I may pulse money when I need it and not carry an obnoxiously fat wallet. I am the king of the skinny wallet…. once more!
Since my food poisoning incident I have returned bread to my diet. My stomach thanks me for that. I am becoming more adventurous in eating. I go to different places regularly and alone.
Making friends takes effort. I am definitely spoiled in the US with friends. I am making positive progress here in China.
Pay as you go
June 3rd, 2010
I imagine that there are other ways to get by in China. For me it’s “pay as you go.” Saturday, after waking up with no electricity, I walked my empty (of credit) electricity card to a bank, handed the teller the card and some money and headed back home. I inserted the card into the box in the hallway and flipped the breaker switch back on. I have no idea when it will run out again. Maybe I’ll charge it again before it runs empty so the break from electric power is easier next time.
Monday, the cell phone needed to be charged again. Tuesday, I recharged the internet connection in my apartment. That was an unexpected one to me. It makes it simple. For the cell phone and internet I simply purchase recharge cards at any newspaper stand for 100rmb each, scratch off the stuff that covers the super secret code, dial the number, punch 2 for English, follow the instructions and “bam” I’m done.
I believe it was Monday afternoon that I had a “post it” note on my door in Chinese. I walked it down to the management office and learned that I owed water bill money. I promptly paid the nearly two dollars and headed back to the apartment. I also signed up for a fourteen U.S. dollar teeth cleaning.
Last night (not to scare anyone) I felt horrible. I ate some bad fish or meat two days ago. I know better than to do that. I walked 200 yards to the hospital, waited twenty minutes for my temperature of 102.74º F or 39.3º C to be taken and was promptly escorted to the fever clinic where I began paying for whatever it was they did to me. The entire (nearly two hour) experience set me back around U.S. $25 including medicine and lasted way less than eight hours.
Right now the clock reads 6:18pm Thursday. I skipped a Mandarin lesson (doctor’s orders) and a networking event tonight in order to get back to good health.
Saturday’s hike coming up will be exciting again and I better be healthy for it. The excitement about all of the new products I am sending back to Texas grows daily for me. My level of enthusiasm about this China adventure remains strong.