I am not Rocky!!!

One of my friends asked if I would be singing the Rocky theme as I was climbing all those stairs up the mountain. While I spent most of the time being too tired to sing songs in my head, I did keep thinking about that comment. So when I got to where I thought I was at the top of the mountain, I looked at the platform on the peak where the cable car was dropping people off and they were all looking out from the platform at the few people climbing the mountains and taking pictures of the views. I then looked at the last set of stairs and thought, this is my Rocky moment. So the theme song started playing in my head, I took a few deep breaths and decided to sprint up the last set of stairs. There were probably about 70-80 stairs, so not the easiest sprint, but I knew I could do it. I reached the top of the staircase and was getting ready to raise my arms when I noticed there were still 2 other sets of stairs leading up to the final platform each of which were about 70-80 steps long. So I stood on the short flat area that I sprinted up to with people above me all looking at me as if I was crazy for sprinting up a set of stairs that don't lead anywhere. I was out of breath feeling like I could hardly move and I still had to shamelessly walk up the real final set of stairs. When I got to the top, tour groups and other people were still staring at me as if I was an idiot for sprinting up to no where and well I was an idiot, so they were justified in giving me the crazy stares. Oh well, I made it to the top, maybe it wasn't in the best fashion, but I can still say that I climbed up to the top of it.

Huangshan Part2

After about 7 hours in total of going up and down stairs, climbing up the mountain and exploring the peaks, my legs were yelling for mercy so I headed to my hotel at the peak of the mountain to sleep. The hotel had a nice room, but it was absolutely freezing in the room. The top of the mountain was about-10 degrees Celsius which is about 14F and my room felt like it was somewhere between 30 and 40 degrees, so needless to say it was cold. I took both thick blankets from the two beds in the room to cover me up and slept in as many clothes as I could. After being under the covers my body heat was helping to warm up the bed so I finally got comfortable enough to go to sleep.

The next morning I headed out for my journey down the mountain. I knew it wasn't going to be easy when I walked down 2 steps in the front of my hotel and my legs were in pain. 2 steps down about a couple thousand more to go. I went back up to explore the peaks some more and then began to head down the West Side steps of the Mountain. The west side was neat (the part of it I saw) and after passing the cable car, I went back to the cable car to take it down the west side as I didn't think I could make it down the whole west side of steps in one piece. I don't think I have many fears, but I think cable cars going down the sides of mountains may be one of my fears. It was a little scary when you leave the cable car station and it feels like there is nothing around you except the cable holding you up. I am totally fine with ski lifts, but for some reason with the wind rocking my car around and there just being a feeling like if something goes wrong, I'm a goner. So it wasn't the most pleasant cable car ride, but I was happy when we arrived at the station at the bottom of the mountain.

I was supposed to have a driver waiting for me at the bottom that was going to be taking me around to the small towns around the mountain area, but the guy never showed up and didn't answer his phone when I tried to call him. I wasn't mad because the mountain was really all I needed to see on the trip and it really could be all that I needed to see for a whole year of trips. So I just retraced my steps to get back to Tunxi in order to catch my flight. Needless to say, my legs were hurting, I was exhausted, but it was a GREAT GREAT trip.

Huangshan Part1

While I was looking forward to both the Bahamas and Xian, I was really looking forward to Huangshan (Yellow Mountain). I can sum up Huangshan in one word…WOW. It was all that I thought it would be and one of the best trips I have ever done in my life. The mountain does not disappoint.

I knew that there was not going to be much touristy stuff to do in Huangshan, it was all about climbing up the mountain. Before getting too deep, when I say climbing, I didn't have any climbing gear, it is not climbing like rock climbing; you see China knew it was an important mountain so they built stares out of the rock of the mountain going all the way up to the top. While this may sound like it isn't really mountain climbing, I can say that going up stairs for 4 hours is not the easiest thing to do.

I began my day with having a guy take me on the back of his bike to the bus/train station in the town of Tunxi (the town that I flew into). I then hopped on a very local mini bus after they said they were going to Huangshan. I was a little hesitant, but the tour books noted that small buses left the town routinely to go to Huangshan, so I was confident that it would take me to the mountain. The area in between Tunxi and the mountain was full of farms and it was a cool little trip. Along the way, we would stop when people would wave us down and they would hop onto the bus to go to the mountain, most of the people were hopping on with stuff to sell at the mountain as they were not going to climb the mountain. The bus took me into the small town at the base of the mountain and after a little explaining the mini bus eventually dropped me off at another bus station, this bus was going to take me up to the starting point of the mountain.

So there I was at the starting point and I had the choice of taking a cable car or walking up and, of course, I was there to climb it, so I started my journey up. From the bottom the mountain looked pretty cool and it was a great day no clouds in the sky. I was actually mistakenly taken to the wrong set of steps, there is an East Side and a West Side, I was taken to the East side steps. From what I understood it was shorter then the west side, so I was a little disappointed, but oh well as long I got to the top. In the end I was very happy to have gone up the East Side, while there were less "attractions" to see on the way up, the views were still absolutely amazing. There is a pretty funny story about my reaching the top of the mountain, if you want to see it, click here to jump to the blog post. After my journey to the top of the mountain, I then spent the next couple of hours exploring the peak of the mountain (note that the mountain actually has 72 peaks so you kind of just go around to different areas exploring). It was actually really good that I went up the shorter set of stairs because it gave me a lot more time to explore the peaks of the mountain and take great pictures from the top. I would actually recommend this for those people that only have a limited time (note there are also cable cars that take you to the top in a couple of minutes and then you can explore the peak much more easily, but that is not the funnest way to explore the mountain). Again, the views and the scenes from the top were stunning, the mountain itself is a really cool mountain but around every corner I just kept saying to myself…"This is awesome."

Xian

After spending exactly 2 days in Shanghai, I headed off to a city that would be unknown by people other then the fact that some farmer had discovered a large collection of terracotta statues. Xian is a pretty desolate town that appears to survive primarily from the tourist industry that goes to this city as a base to adventure out about 1 hour into the countryside to look at the grand display of Terracotta Soldiers. I ended up going on this adventure with a couple of my friends and we started the first morning out with driving to see the terracotta soldiers. For those of you who are not aware of these statues, when you do a 10 day tour of China, the typical tour includes stops in Beijing (for all the history that it offers), Shanghai (for it just being the modern hub of China), and then they typically hit Xian because of the famous terracotta warriors (you will note that I think in just these couple of sentences I have typed the word "terracotta" more times then I have ever done in my life). So my main reason was to see what the hype was about with the soldiers and I can truly say that it was worth the trip out. We started with the smallest display of soldiers and went to the largest, with the largest being truly amazing. I am not a huge museum person, I would much rather climb a mountain (oh yeah there will be a post about that adventure), but for a display, this was worth it. Just look a the pictures and you will get an idea of what it was all about.

We then went to see the Wild (sometimes called Big) Goose Pagoda and then headed over to the Ming Wall that surrounds Xian. Both were neat, but nothing that I would go out of my way to look at. You could climb up to the top of the wall and walk around on the top. We walked around ¼ of the wall and it took about 40-50 minutes to do this, so that should give you some perspective on how big the wall is around the city.

We ended our day with, in my opinion, the highlight of the trip and it wasn't even a place that we were planning on going. It just so happens that the hotel we were staying at was right next to the Old Muslim Street. So our driver dropped us off at the beginning of the street and we began to walk down it. This is the kind of thing that I like, you had food vendors all up and down (and in the middle of) the street cooking all kinds of different foods. People were hawking all kinds of little things here and there. I can find food streets in Shanghai and I can definitely find people hawking things in Shanghai, but the atmosphere of this street just felt different, mostly because of the heavy Muslim influence.

Raining on our parade

As promised, here are the pictures as I saw it.

Wedding Before the Rain:

I turned to my left and noticed that the rain was coming:

About 5 Minutes Later, everyone under the gazebo a little wet:

The Bahamas

So as I said in my last post, a part of my long almost 18,000 mile journey took me to the Bahamas. This was my first time to the Bahamas and I have to say that it was quite enjoyable. We stayed at the Sheraton Cable Beach about 15 minutes from the Nassau airport. I had read a bunch of complaints about the hotel, but I actually thought it was not too bad. The beach was nice and the facilities were not so bad. The whole point in my family and I going all the way from Shanghai to the Bahamas was to attend my younger sister's wedding. The wedding ceremony was set out on the beach and it was going great until right before the ceremony was wrapped up it started to rain (actually I decided to do a post of the 3 pictures that define the moments before and after the rain hit, so click here to see that post). We all started to joke that we had heard of the bride and/or groom running away because of cold feet, but had never heard of everyone at the wedding running away. The scene was great because it started to drizzle a little bit, but at one point I looked out and noticed that there was a whole bunch of rain coming our way. Once the rain really started to fall everyone got up out of their seats and made a mad dash for the gazebo where the wedding reception was going to take place, this was before the wedding ceremony had concluded with the, "I do's" and the "I now pronounce you husband and wife." I'm sure it was not the way that my sister envisioned it, but at least it will be a memorable story.

I didn't have much time in the Bahamas, but, besides all the swimming that we did, I did get to go out and do a short snorkelling trip. The snorkelling was just okay, but before going back to the beach the "captain" of the boat said that we could look for conch shells. So he tied a rope to the back of his boat and three of us grabbed onto the rope and he basically just towed us back of his boat as we looked at the bottom of the ocean for conch shells (the water was bout 12 feet deep so we were towed on the surface looking down). After about 10 minutes we started to find the shells and I gave mine to my younger sister and her new husband, so all in all, it was a good (but short) trip.

Happy Thanksgiving All!!!

Well as most of you will be stuffing your faces full of turkey and all the good things that go with it, I will be spending my Thanksgiving and Black Friday Climbing a mountain (Yellow Moutain to be exact or Huangshan for those Chinese speakers out there).

Anyway, this adds to the posts that I still have on my agenda to do, which include a summary of the Bahamas trip, my Xian trip, and then of course there will most likely be some stories from this trip. For those of you keeping tabs, I leave for Japan next week for a 3 day trip to Tokyo and its surroundings, so yes, in addition to work, I am staying pretty busy.

Be Thankful for all that you have!!!!

Morning Exercises

So I still have to update you all for my trip to the Bahamas and my trip to Xian. Don't worry its coming, but I had to get this video up as I think it is important for all the world to see. I have told many people of the wonders of China, but unfortunately many people do not believe some of the stories I tell. So I was lucky enough to be able to take this video in Xian with my camera (yes it is a Matt G Original Production), it is some morning Tai Chi exercises that may seem a little unusual to those of you in the US (although I have been told that his technic is flawless...whatever that's supposed to mean).

14 Airports in 6 Days

Thus is my life over the past week. There are many people that have not visited 14 airports in their lifetime let alone in less then 1 week. If you're wondering why I did this, my younger sister got married in the Bahamas over this past weekend, so with some intentional stopping along the way (we stopped and had an overnight in Narita, Japan, then had an overnight in Baltimore before heading to the Bahamas) I got to roam around in various different airports. Yes you can get from Shanghai to the Bahamas without visiting different airports 14 times (note that I am not saying I visited 14 different airports, there were some repeats), but if you want to do some stopping along the way, it becomes harder. So as I write this I am back in Shanghai and right back into the groove of things. I actually got a good night sleep last night (I was pretty exhausted from my days of travelling into different time zones). Here are some interesting things you might also want to know:

-My first time in Japan was only a brief taste, but Japan is a pretty amazing place based on what I have experienced. I have an upcoming trip to Japan so will get to experience more of it and will get back to you on whether it is truly as amazing as I first thought it to be.

-I flew a total of 17,973 miles in the 6 days that I was flying, yes it really is a little insane if you think about it.

-I am still consistently disappointed with Washington Dulles airport, next to JFK and Shijiazhuang, it is one of the worst airports that I have visited in the world.

-I was most surprised by the Detroit airport during my trip. It seemed new and clean (at least the terminal that I was in) and it offered a lot of those good ole amenities that you look for in an airport (clean bathrooms, good shopping and food selection, functional airport space). Detroit is one of the worst cities in the US, but its airport is one that I would be happy to fly into in the future.

-US domestic airline carriers are some of the worst in the world and it will just keep getting worse. I avoided having to pay any baggage fees on my trips, but will most likely have to in the future. No meal service on domestic flights, no beverage service on domestic flights (except for NWA that they did have free beverages), no real in flight entertainment (at least not the good seatback entertainment you have on Asian airlines). By the way airline executives, by making consumers pay for the little things you are putting a bandaid over a very large wound, you should really look into ways of changing your businesses around to actually begin to make money instead of doing these short term not working solutions.

-I will talk more about the Bahamas in a later post so I will keep you updated.

Dawn of a New Day

As a part of my assignment here, my US Company has asked me and the other US people in China to begin to put in blog entries together about our experiences in China. As such, here is one of the entries that I put together:

People would say that I am a morning person, mostly because my alarm tends to sound sometime between 4:30 and 5 in the morning and I can jump out of bed without needing to hit the snooze and leave the house wide eyed without the aid of any caffeine.

It is at this hour that, in my opinion, Shanghai is at its best. My apartment is close to Shanghai's famous Century Park so many mornings I like to get up and go for a bike ride around the park. It is at this time that I get to experience a side of Shanghai that many people don't get to see…mostly because they aren't up until after 6:30 in the morning.

As I start my ride, the air is cool and thick in early November. I pass by the taxis lined up outside my apartment complex with a group of taxi drivers all out smoking and talking with each other hoping that their first customer of the morning will give them a good fare (maybe to one of the two airports here in town). As I get going I pass by the morning street sweepers, people in orange coats sweeping the sidewalks and streets with their brooms made of bamboo shoots and tree branches. A friend of mine once compared Shanghai to Disneyland because the trash and leaves that are on the ground one day are mysteriously gone the next…I guess this friend is never up as early as I am to see the army of orange coated people sweeping away the previous day's mess.

As I approach Century Park there is a group of ladies on the side of the road near a construction site cooking up some various different breakfast foods for all the workers as they will be coming to work within the hour. The pungent smells of their cooking radiates through the morning air. As I start my ride around Century Park there are groups of elderly Chinese coming together to start their morning Tai Chi, a very traditional internal martial art that is practiced for health reasons. As I go over bridges there are old men standing at the bridges yelling out at the top of the lungs, I am not sure exactly what this does, but I guess it brings some sort of balance to that person. I also pass by elderly people who are walking backwards and clapping their hands, it almost seems like they do this because they feel like maybe they can turn back the hands of time…and in the calm of the morning it really does feel like one could.

As I round the last turn I am met by a man on a motorbike with two freshly killed pigs strewn over the back of his bike delivering the pigs to the local market to be butchered and sold later this day. As I finish up my ride, the city seems to be finally waking up with various laborers heading off to work on their bikes and the sun cresting over the horizon. It's exciting to know that in these mornings I get to experience so much of China…before most people have even opened their eyes to start the day.

Election

So today millions of Americans are going to be heading out to vote. In fact if you are thinking of not going out to vote, think again and just get off your butt and do it.

Maybe you are not a fan of either candidates…well note that there are not just two candidates and as an American you can write in anyone's name.

Maybe you don't think your vote will count…I think after the incident in Palm Beach County Florida in the 2000 election proves that every vote counts. Even if you live in a State like Maryland that has voted for the same party since 1988 (but 1988 and 1984 were an exception because the democratic party candidates in these elections were awful and no one with a sound mind could vote for them), it still counts.

Finally, it is a privilege that Americans can vote in their next leader. There are places in the world (including the place that I live) that don't even have elections, the leaders are chosen by the leaders in power and if you have a bad government, the problem is just perpetuated. And don't forget that many people fought and died for this freedom. Its not just about filling out a ballot (or electronically pushing a button on a screen), it is more then that, so just get up and vote no matter how you feel about the election.

Free at last, Free at last.....

So I won't take this statement all the way because it really has meaning and let's face it, this blog doesn't have much meaning.

Today, just about 1 ½ weeks after breaking my little toe, I was able to rid myself of the modified cast and crutches that I was given what I have been calling a "geisha" shoe. Even though I move slower then a 90 year old Chinese woman, it is 100 times better then going around on crutches, those things just become a hassle mostly when it rains (which it has been for the last 3 days) and also because I mostly use Public Transportation with lots of people on it, so that has not really made it easy getting to and from work.

Anyway, the geisha shoe its not the most fashionable thing in the world, but it definitely is good since my toes is not totally healed. The doctor did say that I have to avoid running marathons for the next couple of months, which ends up not being all that bad because I have not even ran a marathon and the broken toe is an added incentive to avoid it in the near future.

Is there something wrong here?

I stumbled on this picture from the consumerist.com website. Even though I am not in the States, I do know that Christmas decorations began to come out basically after summer was over. I love that they are having a pre-holiday sale and they can include like 3 or 4 different holidays and be ambiguous about it. Actually there is a small part of me that misses the whole consumerism that Christmas has become. Don't get me wrong, being able to avoid all that chaos that comes with the Christmas Holiday is not fun, but there is something about walking around my neighbourhood with houses all decorated for Christmas and seeing the interesting Christmas commercials that come out (including the classic old ones like the Folgers commercial from the 80's where the guy surprises his family by coming home on Christmas), anyway, I am somewhat looking forward to experiencing that for the first time in a couple of years. I'm sure I will be over it quickly, but in the land of tacky Christmas-esque stuff, a little down home Americana will be good.

Dr. Nick, is that you?

For those of you that might not of watched the Simpson's (yes I know that the show is still on TV with new episodes, but let's face it, it's run was over like 8 years ago), the reference to Dr. Nick is Dr. Nick Riviera as pictured above. He was the quack doctor that would always show up when someone needed cheap medical aid and he was always the one who would say something to the extent that he had no idea what he was doing.

That being said, I reference him because my orthopaedic doctor yesterday reminded me of Dr. Nick. I go into his office and he takes about 10 minutes to figure out how to turn on his computer in his office (I know that doctors do not need to be techies, but they should know how to turn on their computer). He shows me the X-Ray of my fractured toe looks at it and proclaims that it is a total fracture and that it will need to be repaired. Then he turns to me and asks what I want to do. Well not being a medical expert, I said, "I have no idea, whatever you think is best." At which point he sits back in his chair and thinks for a while without a response. He then runs out of the room and comes in with a finger splint. After examining the finger splint, he noted that my small toe would be too small so he sat thinking for another couple of minutes. Then he looked at me and said, "What do you think we should do?" Typically if a doctor asks this question I think he is asking it in a rhetorical sense, but for some reason I think he was actually asking me what we should do. I suggested that we do whatever heals the fastest and he agreed.

In the end I am not sure if he decided or if I decided on the final treatment (as I was kind of giving him suggestions), but we decided it would best to try to pull the toe back into a position of where it would heal faster and then put a modified cast/splint on it so that it would not move or be able to have weight on it. So in the end he pull it back into its original position as a toe. My toe was numb, but he did keep pulling and tugging on it and kept looking at my other foot, almost like he had never seen what five toes together should look like. Anyway, he got it back into place and says that I will be on crutches for 2 weeks. I hope my toe is still there after the 2 weeks, I am waiting in anticipation.

It's Broked

On Sunday night I was getting out of bed to get a drink of water when all of the sudden my right leg gives out from under me. Since I was in a haze I didn't notice that my right leg was asleep, probably from sleeping on it the wrong way. So I collapsed much like a newborn calf would do when they are first trying to stand. Again since I am only half awake, I start getting up and notice that there is a throbbing pain coming from my right foot. My wife woke up in the same hazy state and was babbling words that I had not idea what she was saying as she was still waking up. I just told her to not worry about it and she rolled over and went right back into her REM sleep. After icing it overnight, I woke up and I could hardly walk normally on it so decided to go to the doctor in the morning.

Come to find out that I broke my pinkie toe last night. In the grand scheme of things, it is not a big deal, but it is pretty annoying. My first doctor's appointment just confirmed via an x-ray that I had a broken toe, the next appointment as described in my next post, was an interesting one with my interesting doctor finally deciding to put me in a cast, so I've been sidelined for 2 weeks on crutches. Now I am not a crutches expert, but after going like 200 feet on those things I am quite winded, it either shows that I am really out of shape or it shows that crutches are not as helpful as they were designed. Oh well, it will be a good workout during these next couple of weeks.

One Day in Macau

As I already mentioned, I had a chance to spend one day in Macau a couple of weeks ago. This was my first visit to the small island, and most likely my last, not because I was disappointed, but more because I think I got to see it all. Macau is now famous for being the gambling mecca over here in Asia, but not being a gambler, I was more interested in seeing some of the sights.

After arriving, I headed right for the most famous landmark, the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral. It was a decent landmark, but I was by far more blown away by the architecture throughout town. Macau Island is very small and so is very conducive to walking all over the place. This is good because it gives someone a chance to check out the different architecture around town. Macau was run by the Portuguese which contributed to the Mediterranean/Portuguese architecture that is found all over town. It is really cool to think about the fact that you are in China, but you get to walk down streets and feel like you are in the middle of Europe.

After checking out the sights, I went to the Venetian Macau, which some people suggest to go see as a tourist since it has so many cool aspects to it. The inside of the Venetian was nice, they did do a good job of putting in all the gaudy things to make it look like an old school Italian building, but it was a little too fake. I did get a chance to try Fatburger that has a location in the Macau, and it was just alright. This is one of those US West Coast Burger chains that have been really hyped up to me and to be honest, I was disappointed. There wasn't anything too great about it, in fact I'll take my US east coast Five Guys over anything that Fatburger puts out. It could be the fact that I was in Macau having it, but I probably won't be making a return anytime soon.
Overall, this is a nice place to go if you have an extra day after hanging out in Southern China or Hong Kong (which probably many of you don't have), but probably not a place that you need to go out of your way to go see on an individual trip as there is just not enough stuff to do (my total time on Macau for all the stuff I talked about above was less then 5 hours).

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

My family and I have been in China for just over 2 ½ years and as of yesterday I had taken basically every form of reasonable transportation offered by China, car, subway, short ferry (across a river), long ferry (from Hong Kong to China), bus, bicycle, motorcycle, airplane and magnetic levitation train. The only things left on my transportation agenda was the ever so famous rickshaw and then the not as famous regular train.

Well today, I was able to knock one of those things out. Today I took a train from Shanghai to the Changzhou; the trip took a little over 1 hour. The ride was good and smooth, we took one of the new D trains that is a little higher speed (and slightly more expensive) then the regular trains, I think our top speed was around 175 km/h or about 115 miles per hour. For just under 8 US dollars, I got to sit in first class, which was nice…for a train. Anyway, now that my Chinese train virginity has been taken away from me, I hope that my family and I can begin to explore the areas around Shanghai via train as it is by far a much cheaper alternative to having to hire a driver for a day. By the way, Changzhou is not a place to really put on your itineraries if you ever come to China, it really has nothing going on with the exception of one large pagoda in the middle of town and a temple on a hill, but you can see those things almost anywhere.

Where Have I Been?

Okay, so I have not totally given up on this thing, I promise. I have been around, we have had people in town over the last month and it just makes it hard to put some entries into this thing. A quick update of the past month:

• So my last post had to do with getting up to watch football, well since then the Ravens won two in a row…and then lost 3 in a row. This team is still going to struggle to get to 6 wins even with 2 already under their belt.
• I had some meetings in Hong Kong and Southern China, and was able to do a short day trip to Macau. This was my first time there and I will share a little more with some pictures on a later post.
• We celebrated Maddie and Jacob's birthdays…3 months after the fact. Actually, most of their friends were gone when their birthdays happened in June, so it was a good time to have it in September. We had a clown that made balloon animals and a magician, which is something we could never afford in the US, but over here the price is insanely low.
• Our niece came to visit us from California. She was here for 10 days and both Renee and I had a chance to show her around. It was fun, she was willing to try new things like a motorcycle ride and some street food, so it was good to have a visitor who was open to trying different things (like most of our guests)
• We had a week long holiday the first week of October. We were taking care of a little baby during this week, so that is what kept us busy despite the fact that I had the week off.
• The baseball season is over, I was wrong with my prediction for the Orioles, they actually ended up winning 68 games, although they played the last month of the season the way I thought they would be playing the whole season. Oh well, at least they beat my prediction.
• We had some good friends from the US visit us this past week, even though I had to work, it was a lot of fun. Renee and them got to go to Beijing, this was Renee's first time and from what I heard they all had a great time. We had some great conversations with them and got some good hang out time.

All in all, this is one of the first weeks that Renee and I will be without a guest staying at our house, so while things have not been really busy, it will be a little more normal not having non-family members hanging around the house. There have been a lot of stories that I have missed out on putting into this blog, so I hope that I can remember them and add them in, otherwise I will keep you all up to date with the goings ons over here.

1am wakeup call

If you haven't gotten the message, I am a huge NFL fan. So I checked my satellite schedule and noticed that one of the sports channels would be showing a live game at 1am my time. So I set my alarm this morning and woke up faintly hoping that the game that would be shown would be the Raven's game. Well it wasn't the Raven's game, but it was the New Orleans Saints against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. While it was the NFC and I didn't have any affiliation with either team, I was super excited to be able to watch the game. The game was okay until the second half when the teams started to score a bunch of touchdowns. Right now I am struggling a little bit at work, but I think I can get through it. Luckily next weekend we have Monday off, so I can get up again and enjoy another random game (the Raven's are supposed to play at 4:15am my time next week, so maybe I will just get up a couple of hours later next week). Nonetheless, I was so happy to be able to watch some football, it's great that the season has started. By the way, the Raven's win doesn't convince me that they will do that great this season, mainly because they scored on two plays that you won't get a score on all that often and the Cincinnati Bengals look to be one of the worst teams in the league this year, so still hoping for 6 wins this season, we shall see.

WTF = Hilarious

Last week I was involved with a fantasy football draft. I do these things not for the competition, but just for the fun of keeping up with NFL stats. In the league that we were drafting last week, we have 10 teams in the league and only about 4 people showed up for the draft, so the rest of the teams had set up for autopicks, which for those of you not familiar, you can pre-rank your players so that they are drafted in an order other then the defaulted rankings by ESPN. So unless you have pre-ranked your players, you will just get the default players based on the ranking on ESPN.

Our total draft has 20 rounds, which means that there are 200 picks in total. For those of you not that familiar, you typically use the first 4 or 5 rounds to select your skilled positions (running backs, quarterbacks, wide receivers). We are playing with individual defensive players, so we have more starters then the regular teams, which means after you have selected skill positions along with their backups you tend to move to defensive players and move to the kickers and your bench players (mostly because the skilled positions give you most of your points and the kicker only gives you a couple of points each week). In short most people in the draft didn't draft a kicker until well after the 13th round, except for one team.

This one team selected a kicker, Nate Kaeding, for the number 11 pick overall. Right in the middle of people taking the best running backs and quarterbacks, one team picked a kicker. Needless to say, all the people that were participating the draft started lighting up the chat feature in the draft. This is where the funniest moment happened, someone just typed in the infamous 3 letter abbreviation, WTF. Now don't get me wrong, this abbreviation is not a good thing and should not be used, but in the context of what happened, it made me sit back and laugh at my desk. I am not a fan of the texting/internet chatting abbreviations that are becoming more coming (LOL, LMAO, IMHO, etc), but this abbreviation, when used in the right situation, is one of the funniest things that someone can type.

The Dark Knight...wait I'm confused

The other night I was able to watch The Dark Knight, which is conveniently already out on DVD here in China (not saying whether it is legal or not). Unlike Robert Downey Jr, I actually understood the whole movie with the exception of one part. With Heath Ledger, the actor who played the Joker, dead in real life, I am confused (if you have not see the movie I am warning you that I talk about there ending right here, so skip over this post if you do not want to know parts of the ending) why they didn't kill off the Joker in the movie. I am no movie magician, but there was a part at the end that could have been re-edited to show the Joker dying. By keeping him alive, either they are going to have to have another actor take the place of Ledger in the next movie or totally make the Joker irrelevant in the next movie or someone explain that the Joker died in between the movies, all of which don't make any sense when they could have easily killed him in this movie. Anyway, I am just confused as to how they could complicate the situation, but I guess they are trying to make the next one even more intriguing, too bad I am not that much more intrigued.

A little PTL Time

So we decided to add a little flare to our dinner time prayer by adding clapping to a beat (quite a big step for our dinner time prayer). Well both the kids had their eyes closed and we were clapping and singing the prayer. When we got to the Amen part, Renee turned to Maddie and said, "Maddie?" Trying to get Maddie to also say Amen, but all of the sudden, with her eyes closed she had some sort of uncharacteriscally charismatic moment when she extended her arms out and proclaimed, "PRAISE THE LORD!!" Being attendees of Presbyterian churches, Renee and I were quite taken aback by such a charismatic moment at the end of our prayer. Nonetheless, we looked at each other and couldn't help laughing out loud. It was by far one of the funniest things to happen in our house in the past couple of months.

By the way, after asking Maddie where she learned to do that, she just proclaimed that she was not sure, which could only mean that it was the Holy Spirit getting her pumped up from our clapping and singing.

There are two of them?????

So do you remember this post??? Well there appears to be a second subway humping offender. It just so happens that I was on my way home after work yesterday when the subway started clearing out. It just so happened that in my general vicinity was a middle aged local man along with a couple of college/school aged girls. All the sudden the train started moving, the man closed his eyes (to really soak in the subway atmosphere) and began to sway his hips back and forth. This second offender appeared to be desiring to have relations with someone, so he decided to take it out on my good friend, the air. Yes, the man started to hump the imaginary air. Having already experienced this, I remained unphased, but the people around him began to clear out pretty fast. I mean, is the air really that good looking???

Haiku

No, I am not going to try to write a Haiku for you (although my 6th grade Haiku writing skills aren't too shabby) Today, I went out to lunch with some colleagues to a "trendy" sushi restaurant called Haiku. As I prepare to go to Japan in December, I have been going through a Japanese food kick, to try to find good Japanese food in Shanghai to try to have something to compare to the real stuff in Japan. Actually, even though proximity wise, we are much closer to Japan then in the US, the Japanese food is not that great here, so I have really yet to find a place that I tell people that they need to try when they are in town. This place serves both the legit sushi and sashimi that are for the die hard Japanese food people, and they also serve American style sushi rolls (you know, the kind with cream cheese and all the stuff inside of it). I had read and heard a lot of good comments on it and to be honest, the place didn't disappoint. It will probably run between $15-$20USD per person (luckily I didn't have to flip the bill on this one), but if you want some good quality seafood in your sushi, then you will have to pay that kind of price here in Shanghai. It was by far the best sushi I have had in Shanghai, but not the best I have had in my life (that goes to a little place in old town Alexandria, VA). The rolls were right on tap with those that you can get in the US, and the raw fish on the legit sushi tasted fresh and was well prepared (or as prepared as raw fish can get). Actually, I think I am becoming less of a rolls type of guy because there is usually so much stuff on them that they mask the flavor of the fish (yes I realize that is the point of them in the US as many places don't have the best quality fish, so they just mask the quality of the fish by adding a bunch of stuff like avocado, cream cheese and sauces). Anyway, this place is a good start on my adventure to find Japanese food in Shanghai to compare against the real stuff in a couple of months.

Update

You might have noticed that there were a couple of posts where I mentioned sleepless nights and a little guest that was staying with us. Well, I wanted to avoid coming out and giving exacts as it is not exactly the most legal process over here. But you probably figured out that we were taking care of a little baby that was in Shanghai recovering. I can tell you that we had a great time taking care of the little one, but not without the frustrations. Basically Sunday night was the first night since the 10th of July that I had gotten a full night's sleep, and even then I was woke up a few times just because my body was used to it. The baby was great to have around, our eyes were really opened up to what it is to take care of a recovering special needs baby along with what it would be like to be taking care of a third child. I really think the hardest part was trying to balance the lack of sleep with still trying to have high energy for Maddie and Jacob. Actually, now that the little one is gone, going back to taking care of 2 kids seems like a walk in the park I mean not having another little one screaming in the background really helps. Now I guess it is back to having sleep filled nights and riding bikes again.

The Incredible Renee

One of our main forms of transportation over here in Shanghai is the taxi. Some taxi's are maintained well, others seem like they are about to fall apart every new mile they drive. Just the other day, Renee and Maddie had finished some grocery shopping and were attempting to get into a cab outside of the store. Renee attempted to open the door once by pulling on the handle, but the door didn't open. She tried again, and again, no success. The final time she really put her back into it and, in a Hulk like fashion, ripped the door handle right off the door!!!! Yes my wife has found her inner strength and was able to dumbfound the taxi driver into thinking that maybe she is some sort of covert Olympic Weightlifter. The taxi driver had to climb into the cab to let them in from the inside, a nice jester since Renee had just destroyed this guy's only source of income…I mean how does a cab driver make money if people can't get into his cab?

I was wrong…hopefully way wrong

I am very happy that I was wrong about my good ole O's. They have eclipsed my prediction of only winning 59 games this season by winning their 60th game yesterday. While still sitting in last place (in last place in by far the most competitive division of the majors), they are only 3 games away from being .500. They have not been this close to .500 this late in the season in probably 9 or 10 years, so this makes me excited. So much so, that I hope I am very wrong in my prediction and I hope that they can be right around .500 this season, that would be a major success for a team with basically no names (for those non-O's fans).

What's that on your lips?

Currently I have a cold sore on my upper lip. In a land that doesn't have Blistex or really any advanced lip treatment; I had to resort to an alternative for the cold sore. After going through our medicine cabinet, I found a bottle of Lansinoh. For those of you not familiar, I was introduced to Lansinoh primarily because they were a client of mine. One of the main products that Lansinoh makes is their patented breast cream for breastfeeding mothers or as I refer to it, nipple cream. It is used to prevent dryness of nipples, which is why I turned to this cream. You see, I am not a doctor, but I know enough that the nipples appear to be very similar to lips, so I am currently using the cream on my lips (as originally advised by the former owner of Lansinoh). I have been using it for a couple of days now and it appears that there is a little improvement, but I will give you guys the final update once everything is healed up. So if you happen to see my glimmering lips, you will know what gives them that special glow.

One World, One Opinion

Just in case you didn't know, the Olympic slogan is "One World, One Dream," so now you know the play on words in my title.

With just over a day before the Olympics begin here in China, I'm sure that all you readers out there (wherever you are) are being inundated with articles about Beijing, the Olympics, pollution, human rights issues well basically all the different publications are all saying the same thing. Actually, the most interesting thing about it, is most of these media outlets have sent a couple of journalists out to China and after only spending a couple of days in China, they seem to know everything about the whole country. Now don't get me wrong, is Beijing polluted? Yes. Does China have some human rights issues? Yes. But for all you people out there who have never been to China and are just getting your opinions of things over here based someone's article after spending 48 hours in a country of over 1 billion people and which is, area wise, significantly larger then the US, I would ask you to take a step back and think about who is authoring that article. I mean, my opinion of what China is like has changed significantly over the course of the 2 years that I have been here and the bottom line is that even what I think is only based on my limited experiences and the things that I have seen.

If I told you there was someone from Europe who visited America for the first time, specifically New York City for 2 days and then started writing an article about what America is like and what Americans are like, I think you would agree that there is no way that he/she can write a half decent article about what things are like in the US or what the people are like in the US based on their 48 hours of experience.

Again, I am not denying that there are things wrong with this country and how things work, that is obvious by all the articles that are coming out and saying the same things. But it is probably in your best interest to take some of the highly opinionated articles with a grain of salt because most of these journalists are not really experts. Actually, just keep to the sports reporting and I'm sure you'll be okay.

Thems Be Fighn' Words

Basically, in the first two years of being here in China, I rarely saw fights break out (actually I can't remember ever seeing on). Then, all of the sudden, over the past couple of months I have been seeing fights breaking out in various different places. I have already mentioned in a previous post the fight that broke out on the subway.

The next fight that I witnessed was at a bank when I was trying to pay Renee's taxes. This was between one of the guards at the bank and a customer. It got to the point that the customer flicked the hat off the guard and then punches began to fly. It was actually pretty interesting because all the people in the place seemed to keep minding their own business even though these two guys were going at it. Finally another guard and the guy's wife were able to break things up, but not before choice words were exchanged.

The next fight I was witness to was in between some real estate agents that were trying to get customers. This was actually the most interesting fight of them all. To give some quick background, landlords can list with multiple agents and they can list their properties at different prices, so actually it is even more of a competition between agents here to get the places rented or sold because you don't just list with one agent. Moving on, it appeared that one group of agents standing on one corner of the street took offense to another agent passing by them and the 3 agents at the corner began beating on the 1 agent passing by. Seeing that he was outnumbered, the 1 agent ran off into his office. I started to ride off thinking that it was over when all of the sudden the one agent emerged with 5 or 6 other agents from his office. This is when the brawl began. Now that the 3 agents were outnumbered, the 5 or 6 began doing some WWE moves on these 3 guys including one of the agents picking up their portable white board and slamming it over the other guy's back (classic) while two other guys stomped on one guys back and face. Renee and I had bought some groceries so we had to get home to get them in the fridge, but the fight was breaking up as we were leaving.

I am not writing this to say that China is becoming more violent, it could have just been that I was in the right place at the right time, but more then anything I am just noting how weird it is that in 3 months I have seen 3 fights, whereas the previous 24 months I saw 0.

Prediction

Do you all remember my prediction for the Orioles? Well if you don't (and you don't know how to click the link), you might remember that I predicted that they would win 59 games this whole season. As I write this, they have won 52 games thus far in the season and with 54 games left in the season, I am pretty confident that they will crush my prediction of 59 games. Note that if they do end up only winning 59 games this season, not only will it be one of the worst second halves that a team has ever played, but I will have to begin actually doing this prediction thing on a more regular basis. I am not planning on quitting my day job though because they will most likely get to around 70-75 wins this season if they keep pace with how they have been doing this whole season. Believe it or not, this will be an accomplishment for these guys and I will be very happy to be wrong.

UPDATE: I wrote this while the game today was going on, just in case you wanted to know, they now have 53 wins, so only 6 away, looks like my title of being an idiot is still in place.

Shattered Dreams

Okay, so maybe the title is a little drastic. But over the past month, when I've been home, I haven't gotten one full nights sleep (noting that Renee has not either). It has been a while since a little cry in the night has woken both Renee and I, so there is some getting used to it. To the point that I will be in the middle of a dream and abruptly brought away from it by the cry's of a little one.

In fact, I vividly remember having a dream where Jesus was riding a ski lift down a mountain and right before I could find out how there was a ski lift in the olden days, and more importantly, why Jesus was riding the ski lift down the mountain, I pulled out of the dream by a hungry little one. Oh well, maybe the ending of the dream will be revealed to me sometime in the future when I can begin to have full nights of sleep.

Peanut Butter Adventure

Just to let all you readers know, for the first 21 years of my life my peanut butter, spread between two pieces of white bread, was always accompanied by classic JELLY. After I married Renee, she began to refine my palette to begin eating the better things in life…like JAM. So as of the last 6 years, I have been enjoying my peanut butter coupled with various kinds of jams. Well, now that I am well into my 27's and heading straight towards my 28's, I figured I would go out on a limb and try some different variations to my peanut butter sandwich. In the last two days I have gone with two different variations. Yesterday I went with a peanut butter and banana sandwich. This is a sandwich of myths that I remember seeing on the plethora of kids shows that I got to watch growing up. It was quite enjoyable, but it was not quite on the level of peanut butter and jam, sorry Chiquita. Today I went with the ever loving peanut butter and honey combination. Maybe it was the honey that I used, but it didn't bring out the peanutty flavor that jam brings out. So thus far my adventure has shown me that a good ole peanut butter and jam sandwich is the way to go.

Feel free to shoot me any suggestions for combinations with my peanut butter (be realistic). Not sure I will try a peanut butter and bologna sandwich, but I am pretty open to non-meat combinations with my peanut butter.

Heart Breaking

On Sunday morning, Maddie was sitting on our bed as we were changing our little guest. All of the sudden, Maddie started saying that her stomach hurt and that her back started to hurt. We asked her what was wrong with her and, in classic form, she replied by saying, "I think…I think…I think my heart is breaking." I had to stand there and try to hold myself back from laughing really loud as this was a classic line. I guess I can contribute her knowing about heart breaks to her watching those Disney Princess movies, but it was still a classic line.

Food-Extravaganza

One last thing about my San Francisco trip was some of the goods eats that I got while I was there (and not busy).

In n Out Burger – Proclaimed by many to be one of the best (if not the best) fast food burger out there. Actually the last time I went to In n Out I was a little disappointed by the regular Double Double. Not to be one that just gives up on places, I decided to venture towards the not so "secret" menu and get a Double Double Animal Style. This was my first night back in the US and it didn't disappoint, in fact I was thoroughly impressed. This thing had all the right things in all the right places (wait, am I talking about a hamburger?). This burger put me back on the In n Out bandwagon, I can't wait for my next one.

Darby Dan's – I usually stay in South San Francisco (SSF) when I go to the US and, in addition to the city being the self proclaimed "birthplace of biotechnology," it is also a hub for really good HUGE deli sandwiches (see the picture, not taken by me). Now I am not saying they can compete with the folks in NYC, but these sandwiches each come with their own personality and one of the places that I have glommed onto is Darby Dan's. This time around I went for the Sleeper, which is basically turkey, ham, provolone and bacon with all the weird fixin's this place puts on their sandwiches. This is by far one of the best sandwiches I have ever had, it was absolutely stupendious. If you happen to flying into SFO airport (which is also in SSF), you might want to make a quick detour to this place, it is a true experience.

Patxis Pizza – Chicago deep dish pizza right in the heart of…Palo Alto? Okay, maybe not the mecca of Chicago deep dish, but these guys must have spent some time in the windy city as they know what they are doing. For me, the Chicago deep dish is all about great sauce and great crust and this place is doing a good job with both of those. My only complaint is the crust is a little salty, not sure if it supposed to be, but I almost remember seeing deer outside the shop licking a pile of crust…oh well, this was another solid choice.

La Tapatia – In a land where there is no even halfway decent Mexican food, I come back to the states with Mexican food on the mind. La Tapatia is a tacqueria in SSF that is leaps and bounds above any kind of Mexican I can get on the east coast (China of course I can't get anything good). This time around I decided on the carne asada burrito, and this was a great choice. Everything that I could wish after living in the desert of Mexican food, very delightful.

So if you are ever in the bay area, all of the places noted above would make for a good stop, too bad when I am living in China I am over 6,000 miles away from these places and when I live in the US I am over 3,000 miles away from these place…oh well.

#201

Okay, so I guess I completely missed my 200th post. It is most likely because I tend to post multiple posts at a time. Well it took me longer then I thought to get to 200, hopefully 300 will be right around the corner. Nonetheless, I give myself a pat on the back for at least updating this thing once a month.

LaRouche means La Crazy

On an earlier post, I mentioned that I sat next to an Australian guy who was a part of the Larouche Youth Movement. This movement is an underling of the "infamous" political/economist Lyndon LaRouche. I had no idea who this LaRouche guy was when his name was mentioned on the plane, but after doing some research, I can see that the guy I was talking to worked for a crazy man. In my discussions with the guy, I noticed that he had some weird views about some current political and economic issues, so I tried to counter point all his views (not argue, just inquire with counter points), but they seemed to be brushed off, a sign that the guy really had no answer to my counter points, mostly because the counter points were logical and his views were not.

The only other thing that was really weird was that this youth movement he is a part of gets their message out via African American Spiritual singing. When he said this to me, I just fell silent... as I typically do not respond to crazy.

Happy Birthday

A big happy birthday to my wife (one day late here in China, but right on time in the US). I have no idea how my wife spent her birthday as I am away on a business trip. Anyway, to the love of my life (I couldn't think of a better cliche) a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY...LOVE YOU!!!!

It's been a while

Over the last couple of months, I seem to be apologizing a lot for not posting on my blog. I just got back from a business related trip to San Francisco along with now being outside of Guangzhou. I had a lot of prep for my San Francisco trip, so that took up my free time, so again I apologize.

I will try to catch you all up on things going on since my last post. First story related to my plane flight to/from San Francisco. My flight went via Beijing, so there was a small layover in Beijing. While I was walking through Beijing's new terminal (two quick things to note about this, Beijing's new terminal is actually made up of many new terminals and is pretty much a new airport, also I came from Shanghai's new terminal, so I am just walking through all kinds of new terminals...now back to the story), for some reason I was thinking what I would do if someone wanted to switch seats with me on the flight (flight duration is 11.5 hours). I came to the resolution that I would give up my seat if asked. Not sure why I was thinking this or why I came to that conclusion, but thus are the thoughts when you have free time in an airport terminal.

Well, you can guess, when I got onto the plane someone sitting in my aisle seat said that he was sitting next to his friend and asked if I could switch seats and he pointed to the middle seat in the row in front of him. My first thought, 11.5 hours in a middle seat, my second thought was to quickly scan the people who I would be in between....a petite middle aged Chinese women and a red haired normal sized Australian (at least I found out the Australian part during the flight). But I went with my conclusion from sitting in the terminal earlier and said it was okay and sat in the middle seat. Actually it worked out okay, the middle seat is not that comfortable, especially for those long flights, but I had a good conversation with the guy I was sitting next too. Note that he worked for this economist Larouche that I had never heard of, but he had some pretty interesting views on things (not always the right views as you can see from the website, but it made for interesting conversation).

To wrap up this story, it should be noted that on my flight home from San Fran to Beijing then from Beijing to Shanghai the plans were not more then 1/4 full, so on both flights I had a full row to myself. Some may say coincidence, but I am convinced it was because I gave up my seat that the planes home were empty. Actually the person checking me in said the plane is rarely this empty...so there you go.

Just some pictures

A "friend" of ours has been busy as of late so we have had the opportunity to look after their baby (note that this is "un-related" to an earlier post). Attached are some pictures of the baby for you all to enjoy: