Tania in China

Wed, Oct 11: Working Hard, and Shocking News

Since I had gotten to bed so late last night, I actually didn't wake up at all until 5:30am. Maybe I am starting to adjust to this timezone! I had about an hour where the room wasn't bobbing, but as I headed down to breakfast it started again, and kept up all day. Will it ever end?!?

We are finally getting started in earnest at work, but the networks here in China are so slow that we are finding it is taking much longer to move around the very large files that we need to distribute, so everything is going slower. We have a goal for what we want to have completed by the end of the week, so we will have to see if we are going to need to be putting in any extra days or not. I am hoping to get out and see some of the sights in Nanjing on Saturday, then I will have some more pictures to post.

For lunch, we are off to a new Italian restaurant. They have a sign posted on the door and at each table stating "We have no kind of water for free." That is a bit off-putting to potential customers! The funny thing is that they gave us each a free sample of wine, and a free appetizer! Go figure. I got a pasta dish with a mushroom and onion cream sauce that was excellent! It tasted just like something you would get at an Italian restaurant in the US. Two of the others at the table got pizzas, and said they were ok but a little bland. The other diner got penne in a spicy tomato sauce and really enjoyed it. It seems a bit crazy to eat Italian in China, but at least it was not McDonalds! I actually have not seen a McDonalds in Nanjing, although there is a KFC down the road.

When I got back from lunch I had quite a shock to find out that a woman I had worked with for years died suddenly on Monday. She had been a Type-1 diabetic for over 20 years, and apparently died of either a diabetic coma or of insulin shock. That is the second person I have worked with to die suddenly in the past few weeks - the other died in a traffic accident. It really drives home how fragile life is...

I spend the afternoon plugging away at work, and find the office gets warmer and warmer as the day progresses. Part of the problem is all the new computers that have been delivered - I think as they run through the day they really heat up the space around them. I did not bring enough short-sleeved shirts with me, and two pairs of my work pants are lined, which means the lining sticks to my legs as I get sweaty. Yuck! I hit a stopping point at work around 6pm, and the heat has made me so drowsy that I just head back to the room, eat some of the snacks I had bought earlier in the week, and go to sleep. I don't even have the energy to put together my first batch of laundry to be sent out tomorrow.

posted by Tania @ 9:29 AM