Tania in China

Tues, Oct 17: Out and About

I wake up less sore this morning, but still bobbing. I think I am finally getting used to it - China will seem strange if it ever stops bouncing up and down! My boss remembered to bring in his external hard drive today, so at lunch I head up to my room to start backing up my personal files off my ailing hard drive so I can make the switch. I decide it is just easier to eat lunch at the hotel buffet since I need to run up to my room to continue the backup. I am really getting tired of the buffet - tomorrow I WILL do something different for lunch!

We are slowly progressing at work, but still encountering network issues. I am doing better than Luigi since I am working on the development system, so most of my processes are all on the same machine. Luigi is working on the production system, so each of his processes are on a separate machine that needs to talk over the network to the others.

Mid-afternoon I head back to my room and perform the operation - I swap my old hard drive for the new one. I am really glad our computer guy sent along a screwdriver - I don't know that I could have found a Phillips head screwdriver here for such tiny screws. It is also a good thing that I have light colored carpet in my hotel room, since at one point one of the tiny screws stuck to the end of the screwdriver and went flying across the room! The swap was really easy, and I was amazed at how small the hard drive is - I thought it would be about the size of the battery, and instead it was smaller than my iPod! So, I am able to log into my computer, and start the process of copying all my files onto the new hard drive. I even check and make sure I will be able to watch DVDs and log into the UGS network systems, and everything is working.

I finally decide not to head right back to my room after work, and instead Luigi and I go to Walmart. At first I was really suprised to see a Walmart Supercenter in Nanjing, but when I thought that all of Walmart's stuff is made in China, I guess it makes sense. It is right in the heart of downtown, on the 3rd and 4th floor of a mall. It took us a little while to figure things out - food is on the botttom floor and everything else is one floor up, but there are only checkout counters on the bottom floor, so you have to find the internal escalator/ramp that moves between floors. There are no steps on this escalator - it is just a long sloping conveyer belt, so you can take your cart from the top floor to the bottom on it. Most of you may be suprised to hear about me going to Walmart since I am rather politically opposed to them, but I needed batteries for my camera and I wanted a clock that would glow in the dark, so I couldn't quite figure out anywhere else to go. The batteries were easy to find, and I was able to get 20 Energizer AAs for around $4. Not bad! The clock was another story - apparently there are not any Chinese who what to know what time it is in the middle of the night without turning on a light! I have looked everywhere and have not seen a single digital clock. This is not something I knew I needed to bring with me!

After making my purchases we tour the mall and surrounding area a bit, then take a taxi back to the hotel. It is really amazing to get a 20 minute taxi ride for about $1. And no tipping. After checking progress on the workstations in the office, we head once again to the Italian restaurant for dinner. Luigi speaks fluent Italian, so has become friends with the Italian owner and chef. They really do make good food here, although I still feel like I should be eating Chinese! After a huge plate of spaghetti carbonara I head back to the room for about an hour to work on getting my computer all put back together again, then back to the office for a 9pm conference call. Unfortunately there is a problem with the Ford conference calling system and none of us is able to connect. After a half-hour of trying, the meeting is rescheduled and I am off to bed, and am asleep by 10:30.

At about 12:10am, I get a call to the room from the front desk says "Miss Starr is calling for you, can I transfer the call?" In my sleep-induced haze I am trying to place the name Starr, so I tell them to transfer the call. It turns out the woman on the other end doesn't speak any English! I try to go back to sleep again, but 10 minutes later I now receive a call from a Miss Liu. Now at least the person can say "sorry" in English, and I don't know if it was somebody at the same spot at "Miss Starr" repeating the call, or if somebody else has been giving out my room number for people to call! I decide if it happens again to tell the desk to hold all calls to my room until morning, but luckily that is the last call of the night. But now I am wide awake. As I am trying to drift off, I hear a small repeated sound in the room. I couldn't place it, and am afraid it is something like a mouse moving around, so I turn on all the lights and walk around trying to place the sound. I finally figure out that it is water dripping from the ceiling to the floor around where the air conditioner is installed! I decide since it is now past 12:30am, I am not going to deal with maintenance coming to the room tonight, so I put some towels and cups under the leaks, and try to sleep through what is left of the night.

posted by Tania @ 11:43 AM