HothAdventuresInChina

2009-03-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

My Best Friend 张培俊

Humm… Zhang Peijun, I find it really hard to write this since we have been together 6 days a week for the last 8 months. Zhang was my driver who became my best friend in Shanghai. The first day we met, I remember how nervous he was. His boss told me that he new just a little bit of English, which was so true, because we quickly discovered communicating at times was very challenging but we never gave up. I bought a dictionary, he bought an electronic translator, and we both decided that it was going to work. Then one day he told me that he’d signed up for English school. Wow, I was so impressed, because he wanted to improve his English to improve our communication. He was a fantastic safe driver, who did more than just drive for me. He paid my bills (to this day, I still don’t know how to pay an electric bill), made friends with the security guards in my apartment complex so I never had to pay for parking, he would even call the apartment maintenance management when something was broken “every” week.

When my family arrived I remember him being so excited to meet the rest of my family. Shortly after, we went Chongming Island, then to Ningbo/Ninghai where we had forgotten our passports and he saved the day finding us a “2” star Chinese hotel. Then, on we traveled to Nanjing, and finally Huangshan. Chinese dinner the first night in Huangshan was certainly memorable because my family completely embarrassed me. They decided to complain about the food and since Zhang had done the ordering you can imagine how badly he felt. I was so mad at my 3 “boys”, the next night Zhang and I dropped them off at KFC, then we went and ate together. He ordered Chinese food and we had a very nice relaxing dinner. My family was only in China 5 months so the many hours we spent driving together and seeing different parts of China went so fast. And I can’t forget Odis’s sisters coming to visit and Beverly needing to buy cigarettes. Zhang and Bev buying cigarettes made me laugh for days!

Our first outing to Chongming Island, we're on the ferry and I'm trying probably completely mis-speaking a word in Mandarin something terrible because Zhang is all but laughing at me.

We took Eric to SMP skatepark and we decided to play a little frisbee.

Dinner at a restaurant in Nanjing over National Holiday. Hooters Restaurant - A colleague of mine decided it was a good idea to take our drivers out for American food! I can't believe I brought my 15 year old along. The boys sure had a good time!Suzhou trip with the HP visitors from India and the US.You'll probably kill me Bev for posting this but it's one of my favorite photos. I'll always remember Zhang helping Bev buy cigarettes.Our trusty dictionary. "Nope, this is the word you're looking for Darrell and you say it like this..."Xiti, an ancient village near Huangshan with the boys. I know Andrew and Eric really like Zhang a lot. Snow on palm trees, it was pretty darn cold there!Huangshan - Look mom, I can run and almost fall down! Or I'm swimming??

Huangshan -Santa who?

Then my family left January 24th and we all said our goodbyes, I could tell Zhang was also sad. He really liked the boys and was especially fond of Eric. Eric and Zhang’s daughter also have similar personalities and they would rather play than do their schoolwork. Eric also went to Zhang’s home and met his family.

Once again, my life changed during the last 7 weeks when my family left and I continued to feel loved, this time by a BIG Chinese family. Zhang’s family adopted me; we took two vacations together, had dinners together, spent a lot of time talking. The more we built our friendship, we realized even though we come from very different parts of the world we have so many similarities.
1)Zhang cares about people and loves to help. I like to teach and help people grow.
2)Zhang works really hard for his family, and so do I.
3)We both like sports, although he likes ping pong and I like basketball. He told me Chinese people are too short to play basketball so they don’t like it that much. Humm, what about Yao Ming?
4)We both like watching the news, although we often found ourselves fighting over the TV remote for Chinese or English speaking news. Humm, sounds familiar at my home it Eagle too!
5)In 1991 he was working as a welder the same time I was working at Monroc and periodically did some welding.
6)He likes to understand why things are the way they are. I like to know why and how to fix them.
7)He is great at people networking and in China, it’s so important. I thought I had great networking until I saw him and learned from him.
8)He’s a leader who listens. I was his boss and learned how to listen from him. (Sometimes he would tell me “I decide”, even though I was the boss and he knew something that I didn't know and was in my best interest.)

So over the last 7 weeks Zhang Peijun and I spent many hours together, his English improved so much, my Chinese also improved (although not near as much as his English ;-). We talked about a variety of things, our kids, our spouses, our likes/dislikes, and work, what we want in life. I showed him our home in Idaho on Google maps and we also found his home in Shanghai. He also found New York, Chicago, San Francisco and was just fascinated. In Idaho, he cruised downtown Boise and was amazed there weren’t any cars on the roads. I explained that Sunday is rest day and people don’t really drive and relative to Shanghai, there are very few cars on the roads.

He taught me how to cook Chinese food and I taught him how to cook Italian and Mexican. I hope that I can remember how to cook some Chinese when I get home so my family and I can remember the food. (I also really like it, because it’s healthy with lots of vegetables and I lost some weight while I was there.)

Qin Dao Hu - Boat cruise on the lake. Zhang's wife is saying to him, "You go first dear and try it, then tell me how it is." Dinner at my apartment, Zhang's wife (in green) and sister (purple) having a great time watching him prepare the food. He's telling me, "Turn that camera off while I'm in the kitchen!" Nope sorry, I'm the boss, I decide ;-) Dinner with Zhang's family at my apartment. City Beach - About 1.5 hours from my apartment. I can just hear Zhang telling me, "Get your hair out of my face, I can't see anything!"
One of my favorite photos. We both learned so much from each other and our close friendship I will always remember and someday I will go back to Shanghai to visit 张培俊 and his big family. Maybe in 2009 or 2010 during World Expo. And to you and yoru family Zhang, my door in Idaho is always open and if you come to the US, I’ll be sure to show you America!

我爱你张培俊
Becky

2009-03-16T06:09:00.000-07:00

All About Ava!

I’m writing this blog at 30,000ft on my flight from Shanghai to SFO, it comes with so many mixed emotions. I’m ready to see my family and friends in Boise but certainly can’t leave Shanghai without saying farewell to Ava who always made my life interesting and full of laughter. So this blog is dedicated to Ava Dong!

When I first arrived in Shanghai, Ava was one of the first people I got to know for two reasons: 1) she was my secretary who provided me support at my HP job, 2) but more importantly she provided me support to live in Shanghai. Because you know…. There is a language barrier and getting things done can be challenging for a Mei Guo Ren who doesn’t speak decent Mandarin. Ava helped me get my China bank account set up, find me an ayi (more than one time;-), I would even call or text message her out of the blue to translate something for me or “please call this person” because I can’t understand what they want. I must have done that 100 times.

But for me, the most important thing about Ava was her smile and laugh. During the difficult days at work I would hear Ava laugh, which always brightened my day. And frequently we would use instant messaging to find out interesting facts. One day we both started laughing so hard we had to leave the work area. Ava was always finding ways to make me laugh. Just last Wednesday, Ava and her boyfriend Pengy invited 4 of us to dinner to wish Greg and me goodbye. During our dinner Ava commented about “sucking boys”. Now the translation was obviously incorrect, and I’ll leave this to your imagination, but Ava, haha, I got you back! ;-) Ava is now working for Dell Computer and is teaching her new employees how to eat ice cream everyday!

Ava, thanks for your friendship, caring, your smile is infectious and someday our paths will cross again!

Dinner party celebrating Ava's new job with Dell!

Ava, what happened to your boot? You should really learn to keep your clothing on ;-) Ava and Pengy bought Greg and me dinner on Wedesday night before we left China. It was so much fun and very relaxing. The waiter had a really hard time using the camera so we were really lucky to get this photo! Ahh the memories!

My two favorite Zhong Guo Ren, Ava and Zhang!

Thank you for everything Ava and I'll be back again someday!

Where was I last week?

2009-03-09T05:44:00.000-07:00

A quick trip to Bangalore, India was in order due to work related activities. I flew out early Saturday, 2/28 and returned Friday, 3/6. On the way to Bangalore I routed through Singapore and was able to spend a couple of hours wandering around downtown shopping and site seeing.

I landed at the new Bangalore Airport north of the city. It was very nice, spacious and an easy drive from the airport to my hotel. (For those of you who landed at the old airport… it’s heaven!) Because I arrived so late, Sunday was a rest day and I spent time reading, doing a little work and relaxing.

Monday morning Ranjit picked me up for a quick jaunt to the HP site. I met the team then had many meetings for the next four days. I really want to thank the HP team for making my stay so memorable. You guys were fantastic hosts!

I love fresh fruit and like Shanghai, it's easy to find! Ahh the Bangalore traffic. Makes Shanghai traffic look tame. I'm really glad my hotel was close to HP.

Yup, KFC in India, and also China, Malaysia, Singapore; ALL OVER ASIA!

You ask, "what is this?" It is a paper recycling program in India for paper. Paper is washed to remove toner and ink, made into pulp, dried into these little disc's and given to a partner to make books for school children. It is so fantastic to see a country like India with over 1 billion people investing in "green" which will help our kids future!

I really appreciate my collegue, Ritesh (in the middle) and his manager, Rajesh (on the left) taking me to a delicious dinner complete with swords and hats.

The waiter, such a great guy. I just love my new outfit!

And, I really enjoyed the "Queen Throne" in the bathroom!

Ahh yes, and finally something that makes you go "hummm??"

2009-02-23T06:22:00.000-08:00

Xitang
Last weekend I went on a little journey to the little watertown, Xitang,(ok only 500,000 people) about 1.5 hours driving west of Shanghai. It's really only about 50KM, but traffic, oh, the traffic.... The town is where a portion of Mission Impossible 3 was filmed. My trip again was with my Chinese family, this time it was 7 plus me. Since there aren't any seatbelt laws, except for the driver and front passenger, we decided to cram everyone into my van, so off we went Saturday after lunch to Xitang.

The family photo

Young couples holding hands in public, this is a new thing in China. The 20 somethings are quite progressive, it'll be interesting to see how the next 10 years goes.

The map of Xitang

I finally have been able to get a portion of my Chinese family to take an American photo. We hug and smile!

My bed at the guest house we stayed. Ohh, how my back hurt the next day! But such a fun experience, I didn't mind.A little shopping, what cute shoes!And fun clothes, the shoulder wraps on hanging on the far wall were 30cny, $4USDTime for teaAnd Chinese Poker, argghh, I cannot hold 27 cards in my hand at one time!

This cat had the neatest eyes!And quite mischievious trying to get a fish hanging to dry.What is this? I think it's dried ginger....Those green wrapped things have rice and pork in them. They're good.Maybe it was in our dinner somewhere...The boats on the river... How beautiful

It rained really hard on Sunday and people were still working and washing their mops in the river. The big birds were taking a bath. I think they were some sort of crow.

Umm, I'm in love. this little girl was so cute, I couldn't resist.These are little candle boats that you buy, make wish, each color has a meaning and then float it on the river.A little music? OK, we couldn't play but this instrument was gorgeous!And I bought a new hat!But she could play music wonderfully.

And finally, a few translation issues...

2009-02-14T20:18:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day in China!

So let me start this journal entry with I love my family and friends! 6500 miles away from home and this was one of the most memorable Valentine's Day ever! My amazing husband coordinated with one of my HP Boise friends living in Shanghai; Ben and his wife Elaine, to make sure I received flowers. I have no idea how long Odis had been planning this so let me back up a little.

Last Sunday night Ben and Elaine came over for homemade chicken enchiladas, and ohh, they were soooo goood!!! Ben asked me if I was going to be in the office this week, which didn't seem at all odd to ask since my physical office time in Shanghai can be intermittent lately working with the US and India over the phone. Then again on Thursday Ben asked me what time I was going to be in the office on Friday? If I remember correctly I answered, "Yes, I'll be in, probably around noon."

Then Friday came around and I got really busy trying to plan the move back to the US. I had to run a couple of errands, then coordinate an apartment cleaning (that's another separate story) and at some point try to grab a bit to eat. So basically, I completely forgot about going into to work to meet Ben. As Zhang and I were driving back from an errand to eat lunch he received a phone call and it became quickly obvious, even in Chinese, that I was the topic of conversation since I heard "Becky" continually. Once he hung up the mobile phone, he said to me in really broken English, "Ben's driver, Elaine gave flowers to Ben's driver at HP..." OK, so I'm puzzled... I thought someone had died because Chinese don't really give flowers to each other except at funerals. But I couldn't figure out how my name was involved. The I realized Valentine's Day was close and I started to put the puzzle together. I asked Zhang, "Are the flowers were for me?" He said, "Yes, Darrell." The lesson here is, drivers in Shanghai are like secretaries in the US, they know everything so be careful if you want to keep a secret;-) Although personally, this make the surprise even better.

I finally made it to work at about 1:30 and I sent Ben a text message and 10 minutes later I was personally delivered flowers and a card all the way from Idaho! Wow, they are just beautiful.

19 red roses and 6 pink gladiolus

And a beautiful poem
Odis, I love you more and more everyday and I can't wait to kiss and hug you! I am truly blessed having you part of my life.

Love,

Becky

Qian Dao Hu (1000 Island Lake) – Day 1

2009-02-01T04:05:00.000-08:00

Thursday, January 29

Let me first start with the preface that I have never traveled with a Chinese family and been exposed to so much Chinese family life. The rules of a Chinese family are very different from an American family and it’s very difficult to explain. But to my Chinese family reading this (Jerry, I’m sure you’re translating…), I hope that everyone had as much fun and guanxi as I did. It is a memory that I treasure, hold close to my heart and will take with me when I leave China If I didn’t quite follow “Chinese rules” it’s because I don’t know them or understand them well enough. I tried my best and I’m sure you can appreciate that I’ve been trying hard to learn several 1000 years of culture in 7 months. Catching up is not easy for an old Mei Guo Ren in such a short period of time. Lessons are always welcome.

Thursday morning, 9:00am I was picked up in the van by Zhang, and uncle, his wife, and daughter. We met up with the other vehicle just across the Lupu Bridge and we were off. After a 4.5 hour drive south west we arrived about 1:30 at the hotel. I hadn’t realized it, but Zhang Yue hadn’t been outside of Shanghai so this was big experience for her and she was very excited. Anyone who has kids... "Are we there yet?" She has my headphones on listening to American Rock and Roll. She has a bit of her father in her... I'm such a bad influence, The Eagles, ACDC, Billy Joel, Red Hot Chili Peppers, quite the variety.

We walked to lunch at restaurant around the corner in a shopping plaza. I found out, similar to in the US, there are different ethnic foods by location and apparently, my Chinese family wasn’t entirely fond of the meal. Personally I though it was fine but I’m only an infant at 7 months old in China.
We then drove to Santan Island and went for a walk. It was raining so umbrellas were the necessity of the day. We saw birds, snakes statues and just spent time walking and talking. We must have walked 3 miles. Zhang Yue and I raced each other too.

Walking across the bridge. A boat dock and plenty of room to hold tourists. It was offseason and rainy so crowds weren't a problem.
We ate dinner at a small local restaurant. Fish was their specialty, and my Chinese family seemed less than enthused with the taste. I have to admit, this dinner was OK, and it was food and I was hungary. I did learn, that like everything else it China, even a meal can be negotiated. Instead of 580CNY we paid 500CNY for the meal.

After we arrived back at our hotel I was informed that I would be taught how to play Chinese poker. So six of us met up in an Uncle’s room and I began learning this complex game. Each person is dealt 26 cards and you’re expected to hold them all your hand and keep track of the various combinations. The object of the game is to get rid of your cards via poker hands, and you play in teams. Jerry explained the game to me more than once and periodically I would hear one of my team mates tell Jerry something. Then Jerry would translate, “you played the wrong card”. OK, so I’m no good at that came, don’t think the’ll be asking me to play again…. I tried really hard, don't give up on me!

Monday, January 26th

2009-01-31T19:30:00.000-08:00

Today I was picked up by Zhang and his daughter at my apartment for an outing with his family. First I went to his home to meet more family.

The single lane road to Zhang's home. The road was designed for foot and 2 wheel traffic. As people have started to drive more cars it's become a bit crowded.Relaxing outside where the sun was shining and people talking. Of course I couldn't understand much. I realized later they were planning an outing for me and 8 members of the family! Wow, such an honor to be included.Jerry and his wife. Jerry works for Disney in Shanghai and is fluent in English. Made it much easier for me. Thanks Jerry!Zhang's daughter an wifeZhang Yue loves sweets! Not a chocolate fan though.

And new a few American activities that I brought with me from the apartment.

So I showed them how to sit down and it was much easier! Oh my, Andrew's ripstick, that was nearly impossible and I couldn't show them because I can't do it either. My Chinese friends get an A for effort and teamwork! A couple of games of Uno. We brought the cards from the US and on our trip to Huangshan we taught Zhang how to play. He and I taught the rest of the family how to play today. It was definately a hit. The Chinese love playing cards.

Then on to dinner at a local restaurant! Zhang's father and mother.15 people went to dinner, what a great time. They introduced me to a Chinese wine called HuangJio. It's not too bad.

We ended the night at Jerry's apartment playing Wii. The girls are boxing and we laughed so hard. It was also Jerry's wife's birthday so we had cake and sang happy birthday in Chinese and English.

Chun Jie! 春节

2009-01-31T17:08:00.001-08:00

Happy Chinese New Year and fireworks everywhere! In Chinese tradition, fireworks are supposed to ward off evil spirits. Honestly, unless you’ve been here during Chinese New Year you can’t imagine what it’s like. Unfortunately it’s really hard to take good photos of fireworks so instead here’s a video from the apartment window with a 180 degree pan. Unless you want to hear about the weather, ignore the sound, apparently I was talking to Odis and I’d had a few drinks ;-)

This photo is one of many aftermaths of a set of fireworks right outside my apartment. This box is about 2’ x 2’ and the aerial show lasted about 10 minutes. You can buy these on any street corner. Also, people let fireworks off anywhere, including their balconies in horizontal fashion. My neighbor below me seemed to enjoy horizontal fireworks. There were notices posted in the lobby of my building with photos of firework damage and how a person is breaking the rules if they light fireworks off in the building.

Fireworks have been going on all week, pretty much 24 hours a day, and for some reason, 7:00am also seems to be an important time. I’m not sure why, but I don’t need an alarm clock right now.

Living in the midst of tradition I became really curious about the 15 day holiday and did some research on the internet. My favorite part is about the superstitions, if the US was 5000 years old, we would also have this many oddities. (We chase a rabbit and a fat man in a red suit!) For instance, wearing red will scare away evil spirits and bad fortune. On day 2 be extra kind to dogs and feed them well. Zhang’s parents received a dog as a gift from a relative for the new year.

This is the Year of the Ox and Zhang was born in 1973. I think my guys in Idaho would agree this fits him to a tee! Especially with our family….
“The Ox is thought to be the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work. The Ox is a power sign, like the Rat, Snake, Dragon, Tiger, and Monkey. They're quite dependable and possess an innate ability to achieve great things. As one might guess, such people are dependable, calm, and modest. Like their animal namesake, the Ox is unswervingly patient, tireless in their work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint.”

If you’re interested in learning more, here’s a pretty good link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year

Gōngxi fācái
Congratulations and be prosperous!

A Visit

2009-01-26T01:53:00.000-08:00

My family left for home exactly a week ago, the day before Chinese New Year. Since that time, I’ve seen what I hope to be the true life of a Chinese family. After the 3 boys disappeared into the abyss of the Pudong Shanghai airport Zhang and I left the airport. I don’t know why I even bothered to put makeup on that day since it quickly came off from the tears. It took us a little while to find the van because he had forgotten where he parked it. I too could tell that it was because he will miss the kids and Darrell. And even though he didn’t say anything, he knew how sad I was to be without my family. I had plans on going to work for a couple of hours in the afternoon, but I wasn’t feeling up to it. As we were driving he slowed the van down at a junction and asked me if I wanted to see his home and meet his family. I said sure, not knowing quite what to expect, but also knowing that this would be a great opportunity to see a traditional Chinese family.

We drove through a narrow alley and parked the van in a very small concrete slot next to vegetable crops. His family housing consists of four 2 story houses that were built in 1983. I would estimate that each house is approximately 1000 square feet with the kitchen, 1 bathroom, and a living/family room on the 1st level. Upstairs is two bedrooms and a bathroom. He, his wife and daughter live one house, his sister and her family in another, his parents in the 3rd, and an uncle in the fourth. They share a courtyard together for the kids to play, wash and hang laundry, do cleaning chores and relax together as a family. One thing I didn’t anticipate was the lack of heat in the houses and I now understand why I see the Chinese wearing so many layers of clothes, including the babies. I knew how much I take for granted, but I now realize how wonderful having heat in our homes really is. Imagine going camping in your home when it’s near freezing outside.

I was instantly greeted by the entire neighborhood, looking through windows and peeking around corners. Zhang told me many of the people in his village had only seen laowai (foreinger) on TV. It was a sunny day so everyone was outside enjoying the warmth. He introduced me to his mom, mom’s sister, wife, daughter and a cousin. Several of the family members weren’t home because they were working. I had heard that the Chinese love to have visitors and the expectation is that you will be “catered”. Well, this is true, they had me sit in a short little chair (short for me because I was at least a foot taller than most of them), and brought me a plate of fruit and a plate of various nuts and candies. His mom sat down next to me, asked me if I was cold (she did the same thing to Eric when he went to visit, except he was wearing shorts, that story is for a different time) and was just fascinated with my hair. She kept touching playing with it. We tried to have conversations which proved difficult but everything seemed quite peaceful. I certainly wasn’t nervous and his family seemed pretty relaxed too.

Me, Zhang Peijun, his wife Ming and daugter Zhang Yue. Notice the little chairs.

Zhang Yue and some of her friends.As the afternoon progressed on and the sun moved away from the courtyard it began to cool off. I’d had my share of fruit, snacks and tea and I was starting to get a little tired. He must have sensed this because he asked if I was ready to go. He drove me back to my apartment with quick stop at the local supermarket on the way to pick up a couple of things. My apartment was lonely with no noise from the kids or Odis, kind of an eerie feeling being alone and it takes some getting used to. Zhang asked what I was doing on Tuesday and if I’d be interested in spending the day with his family. The holiday week is slower since no one is in the office so I said yes.

Jintian Wo Jia Chu Aidahe! (Today, My Family Went To Idaho)

2009-01-24T02:52:00.000-08:00

Today my family left Shanghai for our home in Idaho. On August 15, 2008 I remember it vividly, my family running to greet me at the airport in Shanghai, and now 162 days later they are returning home. I am really sad to see them go, but also at the sametime excited that they get to start another chapter in our lives. Looking back, our stay was fully of laughs, adventures, learnings, sadness, tears and fun. For those of you who don't know, my company changed business strategies and decided the R&D center I was managing didn't fit into the new plan. So.... we are all going home early.

Over the last couple of days, we've been spending time as a family watching movies, finishing packing their clothes (6 suitcases), eating at some of our favorite places, and saying goodbye to friends. The emotion was running high in our house.

On Thursday night Eric had 7 friends from school to our apartment or a LAN party. Three of the boys stayed the night and I don't think they got any sleep, but Friday was a party and movie day at work so lack of sleep was not a problem. Here's a photo with the boys lounging all over with their laptops...

Earlier in the week we went go cart racing. Remember, safety is not a consideration in China (although we do happen to be wearing helmets) so these cars went FAST! Andew and I are in the lead, Odis is last, and also laughing so hard his stomach hurt. You can even see the smile.

I know it's a little strange but in China, people often get their hairwashed. There must be 6 haircutting places on each city block. Here's a photo of Eric getting his hair cut. I'm just sure he'll be thrilled that I've posted this photo.

We spent some time at Century Park near our apartment. We had so much fun on bicycles that we rented for $5 an hour.

The kids even played frisbee with a street vendor selling meat kabobs! I really like the hat. The frisbee in China has been a great conversation and activity boost for meeting the locals. Initially they are so shy and afraid, then eventually we'll throw them the frisbee and pretty soon 100 people are watching.

And finally, our last photo together before the three of them got on the airplane to SFO and on to Boise. I'll be home March 6 weeks and 6 days after I close up shop in Shanghai.

Our trip to Yellow Mountains

2008-12-27T16:20:00.001-08:00

I'm doing this a little backwards since I already posted Christmas Day in Malaysia so be sure to visit our Merry Christmas post as well. I wanted to share these photos of the Yellow Mountains in the Anhui Province near Huangshan about 4 1/2 hours from Shanghai. This now ranks on my top three most beautiful mountains in the world that I have seen (Sawtooths and Banff are the others). We left on Saturday morning on 12/20 and returned late 12/22. There are so many great photos I had a really hard time choosing because the memories are so plentiful. I'll try to give a brief description for your amusement!

Our hotel in Huangshan had a really cool temple and we used long exposure to capture this photo. It's one of my favorites with the reflection in the water.

Boys on horses at the Huashan Cave Park.

The bridge to cross to the caves.

Big bridge, eh?

Zhang in snow. Peace or victory? All the Chinese do this in photos. I think Eric is turning Chinese....

Yup, snow on palm trees!

Eric and his snowman at the base of the Yellow Mountains just before we got on the gondola.

Check out the teeth of these icicles as we rode up the lift.

Looking back

See the walking path?

Now we're walking on the path. I can't imagine being one of the workers building these stone paths.

At the top! Beautiful!

A local village Xi Di. It's over 1000 years old.

This footbridge is made out of wood and 55 gallon drums.

Humm.... I wonder what Odis's boss would say?

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-27T06:37:00.000-08:00

It's our Christmas Day photos from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! To all our friends around the world.... Merry Christmas!

12/26/08

A couple of pictures around our hotel "Palace of the Golden Horses". It's a beautiful hotel and quite breath taking.

Front of the hotel

Swimming, we're always breaking the rules....

12/27/08

We went to an Elephant Park and rode, bathed and fed the animals. We had a terrific time! Look everyone, this elephant is tipping us over and we went swimming!

This baby elephant loves sweets such as ice cream and cookies. Andrew and Eric fed it a cookie and it followed them. This little elephant doesn't like oranges. Better get the dentist!

Dad's Sisters

2008-12-13T20:13:00.000-08:00

Well, on the 31st of Oct a pair of intrepid souls, for the first time in their lives, ventured outside of the familiar boundaries of their native land to brave the far distant and mysterious orient. Today we happily induct into the world travelers club, two of its newest members; my sisters Beverly and Arlene.

Of course, as we all know, adventures begin with a little funding….

They spent the first day or two in Shanghai getting acclimated to the new environment.

They got to know the people....

and sampled traditional Chinese cuisine….

The fabric and pearl markets, were interesting and enjoyable to the both of them, however it was at the knock-off market (Ku-gi-guan) where the claws began to come out. Other than myself, few noticed the subtle transformation that took place as these mild mannered, mid-western gals with charming, passive demeanor's, evolved into vicious bartering vixens.

With a Stomach full of Shanghai, We took off on a whirlwind tour of eastern China.

Beijing was fun.......

Tianamen Square

The forbidden city

The summer Palace

and, of course, the Great Wall

Our next stop was Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers

Then on to Chongqing for a three day cruise on the Yangtze River

Mei Wente!

2008-12-07T06:29:00.000-08:00

Mei Wente... No Problem! I'm convinced that's what the apartment management company tells me everytime we have something odd happen. With the "chill" landing in Shanghai, I've certainly come to appreciate our heater working. Well, you can image... sure enough our heat wasn't working correctly when it became necessary for to use it. Looking back, silly me for not testing it out prior the cold weather came. Well, it took 4 phone calls and 3 "worker" visits and we finally have heat. The first two trips to the apartment, two different guys came and pushed a few buttons and said, "Mei Wente". OK, it's still blowing cold air! "Mei Wente", wait two hours and it'll be hot. NOPE! So on the 4th phone call, I finally called Amy our leasing agent and explained. That afternoon I had 6 people at the apartment, only one was actually a worker! The others were managers. And I figured since I had them here, I might as well show them what else could use a little fine tuning. Here's a picture of our kitchen with 6 Chinese fixing (actually 1 does all the fixing, and two worked for me, the ayi and driver) the kitchen sink, stove, exhaust fan, and refrigerator.

Next came the great freeze. For several consecutive nights our temperature dropped below freezing. This helped us discover that the people living above us had a water leak because you can see from the picture below we had quite an ice collection. It is a combination of the perfrect storm because our AC/heater unit blows air which caused the ice to build faster. Once again, I called and told the apartment management that they have large icecicles outside on their building and they need to send a workier. The guy showed up an hour later, and once again told me, "Mei Wente!". Gestured to upstairs and left. It was obvious nothing was got fixed because next night we had double the amount of ice build up. At this point I was getting a little worried because if some ice fell off and fell 35 stories it would seriously hurt someone. I placed the 2nd call, this time to Amy. Another person came and apparently fixed the problem since we don't see water dripping.

Speaking of no problem, so I've been really bad a posting photos, Mei Wente. Here you go! Enjoy, would love a couple of comments.

What a beautiful Christmas tree!

We love Christmas and the boys decided to put up the tree my friend John Bagley left for me. We went shopping for lights and ornaments at our local supermarket. Christmas isn't celebrated in China (or it's not supposed to be) but it's clear that commercialism is taking over here too. We found really crappy ornaments and lights. Tomorrow I'll be taking one string of lights in to work to get fixed because the wires are cut.

Silly boys.....

What's up with turtles?

It's Been A While

2008-11-15T18:43:00.000-08:00

Gosh, time in Shanghai has just flown by. The kids are settled into school as much as can be expected, Odis has been busy connecting with people that enjoy the outdoors and I’ve been swamped with work. It seems like we always have something going on; from school activities to an outing with friends, to seeing a part of Shanghai vicinity. Here’s a couple of things that someone in the Hoth family participated.

Lupu Bridge outing. As I’ve mentioned before, China is all about doing things big and making for tourists so profit can be generated. This picture is Andrew and Eric with the two HP expat employees on the top of the Lupu Bridge. The Lupu Bridge is one of 4 major bridges crossing the Yuan Pu River in Shanghai. These bridges are massive like, almost as big as the Golden Gate. What’s really amazing is they have all been built since 1990.

Here’s a picture of the climbing up the bridge.

And finally, a picture with “Expo Gumby”! In 2010, the World Exposition Fair is coming to Shanghai China and this is their mascot HaiBao. The boys think he is completely evil which makes it a ton of fun to try to get pictures. He’s all over the city.

Regarding Expo 2010. The commercial development for Expo is absolutely mind boggling. I cannot begin to tell you how much construction is occurring. They say that the local bird is the “crane” and at any given time there are up to 4000 cranes operating in Shanghai. I would estimate that the Expo area is probably the size of Eagle from Chinden/Beacon Light to Highway 55/Highway 16. Also, they are adding an additional 3 subway lines in time for the Expo.

A couple of weeks ago my manager, Shari came to visit from Boise. After a very long week of meetings she and I took a trip up to Beijing. It was an amazing experience and our trip to the Great Wall was truly beautiful. I spent an hour hiking the Great Wall . Just think when the Great Wall was built, there wasn’t any trucks to hall the equipment and stone. The power of humans! Here’s another picture of Shari and me with two Chinese school girls who wanted their picture taken with some Americans.

A trip to Tiananmen Square

A tour through the Forbidden City

And finally a visit to Summer Palace

The next posting should be by Darrell since his sisters came to visit from Iowa and spent two weeks with us! Here's a sneak preview....

Maoxian (Adventure) Ningbo!

2008-10-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

10/1/08

Becky

Maoxian! Adventure! It’s been a very hard couple of weeks for me with work stuff and I decided that the family needed a short relaxing vacation. Relaxing? No way, Maoxian! The kids are on holiday Wednesday thru Friday so they aren’t missing any school. Zhang (our driver) showed up at our apartment at 8:00am today and we loaded up the van for our overnight excursion out of Shanghai. On the way there we drove on the Hongzhou Bridge that is 22.2 miles long! The bridge just recently opened on 5/1/08 so we’re probably only the 20 millionth car to cross over it in 5 months. We arrived at our hotel in Ningbo at about 11:00am and as the van door opened it dawned on me that we (Darrell and I) had forgotten our passports. Remember how I said “Maoxian?” China may be a little 3rd world at times, however since the Olympics they have cracked down on foreigners and are very strict. We could not check in to our hotel and we were at a loss. Zhang said to me in Chinese, “I’ll find you a place to sleep tonight.” Then he said, “Ni dong?”, which meant, “Do you understand?” I said yes, and then followed up with ”let’s go play” which means, no more looking for a hotel, let’s go see things.

We drove for another ½ hour and stopped at a beautiful lake, Dongqian to take a break. I watched the kids and Zhang skip rocks in the water. Zhang talked to some locals and asked them how to get to the top of a mountain I had been pointing to earlier. He told us time to go and off we went to this mountain. I envisioned parking at the bottom of a hill and then going off for a hike just like in the US. Well, Maoxian! We found out you just don’t go hiking in eastern China unless it is organized in a park or some sort of tourist area. And when I say “tourism”, this isn’t foreigner tourism, this is Chinese tourism. So we parked the van and Zhang told us to take the bus! I’m thinking, “Oh man, what is this all about?” So we bought tickets and hopped on the bus with cigarette smoke and all. At this point I was decided I was in a third world country. Oh yea, did I forget to mention that there was a girl on the bus with a bull horn telling us all about the tourist area in Chinese!

As we wound our way up the hill on the one way road, the bus driver honked at every corner to let the downward bound vehicles know he was there. The further we climbed in elevation it became more and more beautiful; there were very lush trees and a lot of underbrush. After about 15 minutes of switchbacks we stopped and everyone hopped off the bus and we followed since we couldn’t understand what the bull horn was telling us. We walked up a carved stone path with lots of steps up and then we climbed up this viewing tower for an amazing view overlooking the Dongqian Lake and the whole valley. It was a little hazy so we couldn’t exactly see the mountains in the distance, but I have to tell you the view was breathtaking, similar to being up in Cascade Mountains except a lot more tropical.

We continued our journey up the mountain and then came upon tea fields all over the mountain! Wow, I can’t tell you how magnificent it was. We learned today that the Zhejiang province is very famous for growing tea plants in China and we happened to be on the famous mountain, “Wutai”. The family hiked through the tea fields and really enjoyed ourselves.

Dinner, Maoxian! OK, so we really went Chinese tonight with our food. Good thing Zhang was there or we might have starved, especially since we didn’t have lunch. We had various meats with some vegetables. My driver is very competitive and we challenged each other to eat the fish eyes. Of course he had no problem because the Chinese don’t believe in wasting food and the Chinese women fight over the fish eyes because of the vitamin E. I thought it was disgusting, very salty and chewy. Mioxian!

Remember how we didn’t have our passports? Well, we still didn’t have a place to sleep so Zhang suggested we drive south to Ninghai and try to catch a place down there. Basically it was my driver and me trying to get two rooms in a 2 star hotel. You can only imagine what people thought. Then they were probably even more confused when my family walks in. I’m pretty sure some illegal activity was going on at this hotel, but hey, who cares it was a place to sleep and very cheap. I’ll let you know how I feel tomorrow after sleeping on a traditional Chinese piece of plywood, I mean bed. Oh, I can feel the Advil calling my name now! Too bad it’s sitting next to our passports.

2008-09-28T06:19:00.000-07:00

A sweet day at the park. The quadra cycle looked like too much fun to pass up.

The boys got new bikes. The little hellians rode them right out of the store!

And Eric took to one of his dads favorite sports.

SMP Skateboard Park

2008-09-28T03:47:00.000-07:00

9/27/08

Becky

Saturday afternoon Eric, Odis, and I took off for the world's biggest skateboard park. To our surprise it only took about a 1/2 hour to drive there. Like it is advertised, it is definately big. For those of you who frequent the skateboard park in Eagle it's easily 15 times that size. Eric went riding for a couple of hours and while he certainly isn't Tony Hawk he did pretty well and had a lot of fun. We found out there is another park not too far from our apartment so well be sure to try that sometime. The park is only a couple of years and and very little maintenance goes into it so there are a lot of concrete chips and cracks, but over all it is still really good. Here's a few pictures:

A huge half pipe.

A view of a small portion of the park. Notice all the cranes in the background.

Eric riding his RipStick down a ramp.

A very cool tunnel that Eric rode through. On the other end was a full pipe.

Our driver Zhang playing frisbee with Eric and Odis at SMP Park. We always wonder if he knows how to play games since his life is all about working. He always seems to enjoy himself when he does engage in some Hoth fitness activities.

Eric playing frisbee with infront of the SMP park sign.

SMP Skateboard Park Quest

2008-09-21T07:42:00.000-07:00

19 Sep 08 (Dad & Eric)

Shanghai has what it professes to be “the largest skateboard park in the world.” Located somewhere on the far side of town, nowhere near a subway stop, it’s exact position is annoyingly illusive. With a day off from school, I suggested to Eric that he and I try to find this mysterious isle of recreation.

So, anticipating an early start to our excursion, Eric downloaded and printed out the physical address of the park last evening. We planned on hitting Decathlon (the local sporting good store) as it opened to get a skateboard, then have our driver take us to the park; Easy enough. Oh, how the best layed plans can go to h*** in a handbag!

Due to some juvenile lolley-gagging, it was after 10:00AM before we ever got going. Then the boards offered at Decathlon, as it turns out, weren’t exactly what Eric had in mind so we left without purchasing one (a decision which later came back to haunt us). We did, however, score a business card that read “SMP Skate Park”, as well as an address, albeit in Chinese characters, that gave us concrete directions to the park. So we thought.

Our search for a board led us to some dark, antiquated, underground market in the older part of town (Puxi). The directions to a board shop, (again written in Chinese Mandarin characters) were found on-line. They proved to be antiquated as well, as when we finally found the store we sought, or at least the location identified by the address, it (the shop) had obviously changed hands and now only sold knock-off Disney paraphernalia.

Our driver was patient with us and circled the block several times while we searched the catacombs of the underground market. And even upon our empty handed return, took us to two different department stores, which as it turned out, sold sports apparel, but no equipment. One store had a skateboard on a shelf as a display, but would not part with it. Frustrated with us and needing to get across town to pick up Becky he abandoned us on Nanjing road, a place where one can typically find about any piece of crap he or she might desire; less a skateboard!

After a quick lunch, Eric and I decided that we should just go on out to the skate park. If nothing else, we can figure out where it is. And reasoned that if there is a park that size, there should be a shop of some sort as well. As we jumped on the subway heading out to where we had seen the park on Google Earth, we realized that we had left the directions (not to mention our city map) in the van with our driver. No problem; we had the card that I had scored at Decathlon earlier in the day! We had what we needed, right? Wrong!

As we got close to where we thought would likely be the closest stop to the park, we showed the card to a young person and asked if he knew how to get to the venue. He indicated that we needed to get off the train at that specific stop. I guessed that we were where we needed to be. We got off the train and followed him over to a map on the wall of the station where he began pointing to the area near the Decathlon sporting goods store. It turns out the card that I picked up at the store was not for the park after all, but rather for a board shop back near our apartment!It was now approaching 5:00 PM and we were no closer to finding the park than we were when we began our boondoggle. Eric needed to be home by 6:00 to get ready for a scout campout, so we abandoned our quest and bolted for home.

PICTURES!

2008-09-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

Becky 9/21/08

Well, time to write seems to have become a thing of the past for me with work and my family. I know everyone has been asking for pictures so I though I’d spend a few minutes and post a few. A lot of the pictures have a tremendous amount of history, so if you’re interested I recommend a Google-a-thon!

8/15/08 SFO (San Fransisco) to PVG (Shanghai Pudong)

8/17/08 Andrew and Eric’s 1st outing. Walking on the Huangpu riverwalk. Across the river is The Bund, notice the French architecture.

8/21/08 Hongzhou with the Tyson family (Ben is a coworker with me at HP). It was HOT that day 41C with 90% humidity that day. We picked one of the hottest days of the summer to visit. Thank Heaven for dry wick!

West Lake

Rental bikes, they are made for Chinese, not big Americans. It was fun riding around the lake. Only Eric fit his bike.

West Lake with a chuan (boat). I think it was a restaurant.

Lingyin Temple

8/23/08 Zhujiajiao watertown. The locals use boats to get around.
Our first outing with Bohdi, a local adventure club. It rained heavily that day so we enjoyed the mud. No hills though!

Time for lunch. Notice the mud!

Better wash my bike off!

9/7/08 Chongming Dao (Island). Family outing to a forest park where we walked, rode a few rides, ate and walked some more.
Eric and Andrew trying to ride in water spheres. The kids couldn’t stand up, I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

Andrew and Eric grass skiing. Who says you can’t ski in China?

We don’t need vehicles to move trees when we have 1.3 billion people! The Chinese love having their picture taken, notice the smiles.

9/14/08-9/15/08 Nanjing. Very important city in China. If you’re into history look up WWII and the Japanese wiping out Nanjing. Very sad, but the Chinese are extremely resilient people. I remember learning about German Concentration Camps, but don’t remember anything about Nanjing. Interesting what we are taught in school.

Darrell and me at Yuejianglou Tower

And the family

Walking on Nanjing Wall

Dinner at a traditional Chinese restaurant in Nanjing. Our driver Zhong joined us. It’s interesting how he becomes part of the family. We’ve never met his family, but hope too sometime.

Zhongshan Mountain National Park. This is the most prestigious area of Nanjing.

Dr. Sun Yatsen’s Mausoleum – 1st Nationalist leader of China is buried here.

Linggu Temple –

A view from the top. It was late in the afternoon so the fog/pollution had rolled in, but you can see the city skyline to get an idea how the BIG Zhongshan Mountain was.

Ziaxia Lake – Chinglish at it’s finest. Notice the people swimming, we’re not sure why they bother with signs except maybe for tourists who get a kick out of them.

Residential Permit Adventure

2008-09-21T01:45:00.000-07:00

02 Sep 08
(Darrell)

Today I went to file for my residential permit. I was to meet a woman named “Mrs. Wu” (whom I was told does not speak any English) at the Bureau of Foreign Registry to help me process the paperwork. Our driver got me to the building at the time I was to meet her, and I went to the area indicated on the notice provided to me. Upon arriving I immediately knew I was in for an experience. The area was populated with about 100 Asian people with about a half dozen or so westerners sprinkled in amongst them. I took a seat and called Mrs. Wu from my cell phone. Fortunately, I heard her phone begin to ring in the row of seats immediately behind mine.

Well, finding Mrs. Wu was easy. As it turned out, Mrs. Wu, was not only not able to communicate with her client (Me), she also had no experience in processing government documents! She had with her an associate (whom, of course, also did not speak English) to show her how (a training session of sorts). It was he who seemed to go out his way to get the individual at the desk all worked up, as the interaction between they and the official appeared to be nothing short of confrontational.

All said and done the appointment went well. I think! What I mean is; I sat in front of the government official in a bewildered state as contentions made during the animated discussion whizzed passed like bullets in a firefight; without any invitation for me to participate.

Despite there being several other open windows a crowd formed behind me (for what reason I don’t know!) But after about five minutes of confrontational banter it was indicated that I should sign the form placed before me. Now, I signed the form as requested. But being the form was in written in Chinese characters I cannot say for sure what it was that I signed. For all I know, I may now be an official member of the Chinese Nationalist Party.

The Rest of Us Get Here.

2008-08-17T02:31:00.000-07:00

August 17, 2008
By AndrewWe (Eric, I, and my dad) arrived on August 15th, and surprises ran rampant. At the airport, there were security guards everywhere! We got through easily enough (my Dad providing more than a few headaches) and, after meeting up with my mom, made our way to our apartment, Xiang Mei Gardens.

My dad sleeping

On our way there, my Dad spotted a Chinese guy who, in the rain, had stopped his vehicle on the side of the road to pee. Naturally, this became our joke. Whenever we see something different, we ask if it's been peed on.

Anyway, our apartment is on the 35th floor. Because the numeral “four “ is considered bad luck in the Chinese culture it is not used in the numbering of the floors, e.g. 4th, 14th, 24th, 4oth, etc. So we will actually be living on the 30th floor of our tower (13th floor is excluded also). We were noting these numerical exclusions in the elevator when Dad pointed something out to me: my number in football for seven years has been 44. He said that if I tried to use my number in China, no one would want me on their team. Hmmmmm.... quite the observation, dad!

Never the less, the apartment is awesome. It has a great view of the Pudong area. Looking to the East, we overlook Century Park, the largest city park in Shanghai.

The building itself is easy to find from a distance. Just look for the balls on sticks.

Anyway, It's going well. The food here is really weird, and it's entertaining to watch Dad use chopsticks. It's really fun.

It's really nice, and my brother and I got our own rooms! Very important.

Mass of Stuff

2008-08-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

8/13/08

If you’ve been reading my other posts you’ve heard me vent, rant and rave (you get the picture) about finding housing. In my last post I mentioned that I have my keys. We’ll today was “move” day from my service apartment that HP has been leasing a couple of years. In addition to me moving, I also am responsible for closing down the service apartment. Well, like any good home, the longer a person lives there; the “mass of stuff” accumulates.

Humm, so here goes, let me explain the process. Last night (Wednesday), Ava my admin assistant from work came to my apartment with me and we reviewed the “furnishings list”. This is the list that the landlord and leasee sign that identifies what belongs to the landlord. We began to discover that a lot of stuff didn’t belong to the landlord and instead had been furnished over time by HP employees to make it their home away from home more comfortable. Upon discovering the “mass of stuff” we decided to ask Zhang, my driver to come up to the apartment and Ava asked him how to move the “mass of stuff”? As she walked him around and showed him everything, it became pretty clear by the excitement and laughter in their voices that we were clearly in over our heads. At this point Ava turns to me and says, “Zhang suggests calling some movers.” You can imagine my thought process at this point, A) Oh man, too much crap, maybe I’ll just dump it off the balcony, it’s 29 stories up. B) Humm, ok I need some of the “mass of stuff” for my apartment. I opted for B, although A would have been very entertaining. One more catch, did I tell you I don’t speak Chinese and how in the world would I find movers? Zhang must have been reading my mind because at that precise moment he picks up the phone and starts making calls, keep in mind I can’t understand anything that’s being said. About 10 minutes later Zhang comes and tells Ava the options, she translates to English, I chose pack and move everything for 600cny (about $90). Zhang calls the company back, says 10 Chinese words, hangs up, then turns around and says “10:30 tomorrow.”

It’s now 9:50am today (Thursday) and the movers are here. I had been up since 5:00am working with folks in Boise and I had just barely gotten out of the shower. I answer the door and there are 5 movers standing there and they start talking to me in Chinese. I show them 10:30 on my cell phone text message and one guy says, “oh ok ok!” which in China is universal for “I understand”. I even catch myself saying “oh ok ok!” At 10:30 I let the movers in and they feverishly start packing. Ironically, one of the movers made sign language to tape a box and I ended up providing tape from the apartment. Five men can pack fast, including dishes and glasses. They started to set them in the box without any packing material. At that point I decided to say something because I need the dishes and was afraid they were going to break. Within an hour everything was packed up and everything was moved down to the 1st floor.

Then the rain came down like cats and dogs and the movers couldn’t load the truck so they just sat down by the elevators and waited. Once it let up, they moved everything to the truck. Zhang gave them directions to my apartment and off we went, almost…. The streets were flooded (up to 1 foot in some areas) and we had to make a lot of detours or sometimes just drove through it along with the scooters and bicycles. It took about a ½ hour instead of 15 minutes.

I opened the door to the apartment and within 15 minutes they were done unloading the “mass of stuff”. There is no OSHA, no contracts to sign, just get it done. What an experience!

Tomorrow my family arrives! Whoo Hoo!

08-08-08

2008-08-10T07:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, the Olympics are here!
I can't begin to tell you how important the Olympics are to China. Not only do they want to make a great showing in sports, but they are on the world stage and everyone is watching. This is their chance to stand up and show that they can play with the other 'big countries'. And based upon the opening ceremonies, I have to say they are doing a fantastic job! I just happen to be typing this blog post on 8/10 and watching the USA and China men's basketball game. It's almost the end of the 1st quarter and it's only 16-16, both teams seem to be nervous and playing a little "tight".

Friday afternoon, my HP team had a small celebration. Roman, a Boise engineer living in Shanghai for two years organized the party. It consisted of pizza and drinks for lunch and we watched "Witless Protection" with Larry the Cable Guy. It was fun trying to figure out how an English slang blurb was translated to Mandarin. Roman did make the disclaimer prior to the movie that the local engineers "should not use this movie to learn English". Then we had a Foosball tournament. Let me tell you, these guys/gals are really good and take it very seriously. The winners, Justin and Sophia (their English names), were awarded matching shirts.

On Saturday (8/9) I went with one of my co-workers, Hernan, and his family to Yiwu (eewoo), a city about 250 miles southwest of Shanghai. We rode the "bullet train" and it only took about 2 hours to arrive in Yiwu. It is one of the commercial capitals of China, meaning, if you own a business and need to import goods from China, there's a strong chance it could have come from Yiwu. You can get any kind of goods, from jewelry to tires to clothes to toys. Now I didn't say they were the best quality, but hey, were in China!

Hernan and his wife, Alejandra, are native to Guadaljara Mexico. They have three incredible children ages 9, 6, and almost 3. I must tell you, our little family of 6 (including me) must have looked quite interesting to the Chinese. When I pushed the stroller I would get the funniest looks from the locals. I'm sure they were thinking, "That little girl doesn't look anything like her. A blonde woman pushing a stroller with a brown eyed, black hair little girl. " I am very greatful that Hernan's family took me with them, they are truly wonderful people, "la familia"!

On the way to my new apartment today, it started to rain really hard. It's hard to describe what I mean by "really hard", something like your in the shower and you can't turn it off. An umbrella doesn't do much. My driver, John and I were sitting at a stop light waiting to turn and we saw a big flash of light then quickly followed by a very very loud bang. Yup, lightening and thunder. It startled both of us and we started to laugh which is always good (icebreaker), since my Mandarin is lousy and his English is better than my Mandarin, but not by much. Remember earlier in this paragraph I mentioned "new apartment"? Well, I finally have the keys! I'll start moving in tomorrow once they finish cleaning, install phone, Internet and satellite TV. The apartment is on the 35th floor of the Xiang Mei Gardens complex and has a fantastic view of Century Park.

I'm looking forward to seeing my family, only 5 more days!

First Post...

2008-07-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

你好从上海 Hello from Shanghai!

Wow, I can't believe that I'm really here. I can remember last October when an HP manager asked if I was interested in working in Shanghai, China. It happened on a Thursday afternoon before a long weekend and a short family vacation to Southern California. Since that time, I've had many emotions leading up to my US departure; excited, ecstatic, anxious, confused, frustrations and even nervous! My official 364 days in Shanghai has started!

On July 19th, Odis, Andrew and Eric drove me to the Boise airport and we said goodbye for 1 month. When I arrived in Shanghai, a coworker, John (aka, "Big John", he's 6'6" tall) greeted me with a big smile and said, "Hi Becky, it's great to see you." I can remember his expression on his face, "She's here, now I can go home and see my family." I am replacing John as one of the Shanghai managers so he can return to Idaho. John and the other Expats (that's what you call working foreigners living in another country) have helped me settle right in and feel very welcomed by the HP Shanghai team.

I’ve been here almost two weeks, the city life in Shanghai is completely different than what I’ve experienced anywhere else; Boise, New York, Mazatlan or southern California. First impressions are always interesting. One of the biggest differences is how pedestrians, bicycles and scooters all flow with cars, buses and big construction trucks. At intersections, vehicles don’t stop on right turns and left turns can seem to happen at any time. Pedestrians need to be watching several different directions and show “intent” when crossing. Any indecision or hesitation by the pedestrian could mean bodily damage. I’m starting to get used to the new rules.

Currently, my biggest task at hand is finding a place to live. I can’t really describe the process, but let’s just say it’s “interesting negotiations” with the Expats community. There are agents, landlords and apartment complex managers all getting a cut of the action. You get the picture. I think I’ve found a place to live, and apartment overlooking a really big park, but nothing is ever for sure in the “home finding” business.

I can’t wait, Odis and the boys leave for Shanghai in less that two weeks. I’m counting down the days, 13 to go! I miss them so much and I’m really looking forward to giving them big hugs and showing them some “Shanghai” sights!