Tania in China

First Day - On My Own

After checking in, the manager walked me over to show me their "Star Trek" system for calling for an elevator. There is a large console in the middle of a bank of 5 elevators with a key pad. You enter the floor you would like to go to on the key pad, and then the console tells you which elevator will be coming for you. Apparently there is software that decided the most efficient use of the elevators! There is rarely much of a delay waiting for an elevator at any time, but you have to remember to watch for your elevator letter on the console (A-E), and that you don't have to push any buttons once you are on the elevator. It has taken a while to get used to that.

I was hoping for a junior suite since I am platinum with the hotel program, however, I received just a regular king room. The rooms are really nice - something that would be in at least the $200-$300 range back in the US. I walked in the room and couldn't figure out how to turn on the lights, then the bellhop showed me that you have to put your room key into a slot near the door to activate the light switched, and leave it there. This means that whenever you leave your room and take your key with you, all the lights, plugs, and air conditioning are turned off. It is better for energy conservation, but not good if you want to leave something plugged in to recharge while you are at work.

The first thing I did was to setup my laptop, and found that although they change for internet access, I can get a month of access for around $38. Not too bad, but since I am planning to check out of the hotel in a couple of weeks to spend a weekend in Shanghai, and then check back in that Sunday night, I don't know if I have to buy a whole new month of internet access. I have found that the "high-speed internet access" in China is a whole lot slower than high-speed anywhere else. I tried to use my Skype account to call home, and there was at least a 3 or 4 second delay going both ways, so it was practically impossible to talk. I am going to have to try again to see if it was just a local problem, but at least I can use it for making local calls in China instead of paying the hugely expensive hotel rates.

After letting everybody know that I finally got in safely, I went to bed without even unpacking anything.

Breakfast is included with my hotel rate, so I made sure that I was up and showered in time to make to the restaurant before 10am. The buffet is really, really nice - something that would probably run at least $20 back home. They have quite a few American/European dishes - pancakes, waffles, bacon, fried tomatoes, beans, and eggs made to order, as well as quite a selection of Chinese hot dishes and a salad bar. They also have a selection of at least 5 different types of baked goods each day, and some exceptional croissants! You can tell they are made on site and have never been frozen. There is also a selection of yogurt, cereal, fresh fruit, and juice. One of the fruits is that different cantalope - I really like it! They also server brewed coffee, which is much better than the packets of instant coffee that are supplied in the room. It is going to be really easy to over-eat at this buffet - I am going to have to watch it!


It took me a couple of hours to unpack everything and get settled in, as well as to post at least the first few items to this blog, then I decided that I just had to bite the bullet and head outdoors. I bought a map from the shop in the lobby, and headed out. I figured I should be ok as long as I stay on the same street and make it an "out and back" trip, and even if things do go wrong, I had the name of the hotel printed in Chinese with me so I could grab a taxi to take me back.

Some of the buildings and stores has English as well as Chinese signs, but not most. It did seem that I was the only non-Asian around, but I didn't feel especially pointed out because of it, but it might just be because I am not really good at noticing that kind of thing. After walking a ways I stumbled onto the shopping center of the town, with huge department stores on each corner. I took the time to walk through every floor of one of the stores, and they are truly "department" stores. Each floor has 20 or 30 departments, one for each brand, and each department has 2 to 4 of it's own employees. There must have been over 400 employees working in the store that day! I recognized almost every brand sold, from Coach and Prahda to Nike and Hanes. Apparently they only sell Western brands in these stores. I didn't do a lot of price comparisons, but the prices did look good.
On the main floor they had both a Starbucks and a Haagen Daz, so I ended up having ice cream for lunch. Me? Ice Cream for lunch? Go figure...

By 2pm, the time change and lack of sleep were really catching up with me, so I headed back for a nap. I have been experiencing the same problem that I did after I got off my first cruise - the whole world seems to be bobbing up and down around me. I hope it stops soon - it is really annoying!

The manager of the China project, Ben, offered to take me and Luigi, another co-worker just arriving from Australia, along with Ben's wife Kelly to dinner. It was a really great experience; the Chinese concept of eating out is that you order a number of dishes, then they are brought one by one to the table, and you all share - reaching into the dish with your chopsticks to move food either onto your individual plate, or straight into your mouth. We had quite a variety of dishes, including a cold noodle dish, skewered meat, minced meat and vegetables that you wrapped up in a thin pancake, an eggplant and tomato mixture, along with other dishes I can't remember. Everybody else had beer, but I figured since I was so sleep deprived and the world was still bobbing, I had better stick to Coke. It was a very nice introduction to China, and it was great getting to know my team members. It really was amazing that the bill for 5 or 6 dishes, 3 beers and a Coke came to around $18. It is certainly worth it to eat native! After dinner we walked back to the hotel by way of the DVD store. They had a large selection of disk to choose from, including boxed sets of TV shows, for dirt cheap prices. I know they are just copies made in China, but I am going to get to a point where I just can't watch any more CNN! On the way back to the hotel, we passed several people selling fruit on the street, and I now know that the catalopes really are a different species that we get in the US! They have the same webbing on the skin, but are more the shape of a small oblong watermelon. I wonder if anybody grows them back in the US, or if there is a climate reason they won't grow.

It was only 9pm when I got back to my room, but I was dead tired, so it was all I could do to change clothes and fall into bed.

posted by Tania @ 9:51 AM