Mainland - Day 2-4

As predicted, Wednesday was VERY interesting. At the crack of dawn (and that’s 5am in Shanghai), I was picked up by our driver and shuttled to the old Shanghai airport that does domestic flights, and boarded a plane for Xuzhou with my boss and another colleague. We sat for an hour and a half on the tarmac before taking off. I’m told this is normal.
We arrived in Xuzhou and met our driver on the other end who shuttled us to Zao Zhuang City, where our plant is located. It was over an hour drive, so we stopped in the city for lunch first. We had American Style lunch – which was a pepper steak, white rice, veggies, and a fried egg. It was actually pretty good, though I was sad that they did that for my benefit.
[Side note: if you ask me to pronounce any of these names, I will do my best, but will likely be screwing it up royally]
We arrived at the plant and got a very nice tour from one of the senior operators. The plant wasn’t running so we got to get up close and personal with it, climbing to the top of the structure for a full view of the surrounding countryside. This was “real China”. I have pics on my digital camera that I will post after I get home of the surroundings. Needless to say I felt like I had smoked a pack of cigarettes after we left, as the pollution from the neighboring coke over plant was really, really bad.
We were at the plant from just after lunch until 5pm… and eventually the urge came upon me. I had to use the facilities. I went into the ladies room, and this is what I found:

Yes, folks, after that, I had experienced all of the Chinese culture one could ever ask for. Use your imagination, and you’ll be pretty close to reality.
We headed back out to the airport at Xuzhou. On the way, there are multiple toll booths, as the Chinese government has recently built some very nice 4 lane highways, and like all good governments, they are asking the users of those highways (mostly BIG trucks) to pay for them.
Driving in China is an adventure, and while trying to squeeze our way into line at the toll booth, we had our first ‘encounter’. We exchanged paint with another car. Small amount of paint mind you, easily buffed out. However, our driver and the offended driver argued for a good 15 minutes over the “price” of this exchange. It’s my understanding that insurance isn’t the norm here as its very expensive, and so this is how negotiations are conducted… curb side. We gathered quite an audience, and even had the local security come to our aid…

Some unnamed dollar amount was exchanged, and we were on our way. My colleague politely informed me that this is “Chinese stuff” – in other words, the Chinese way of doing things. Also, it’s not polite to ask how much money was exchanged, so I don’t know. There was a lot of hand waving around the bumper… so hopefully it didn’t cost our driver too much.
We got to the airport an hour ahead of our scheduled departure and waited for our plane to arrive… 3 hours late. Again, I’m told this is normal.
Wednesday was a long day… crawled in bed at 1:30am.
Thursday was spent at the office. I was treated to a traditional dim sum lunch with three coworkers that was really delicious.
Friday I worked from the apartment and went to the big Gateway mall down the street in the late afternoon. The mall was about 6 floors of stores… incredible! I was too overwhelmed to buy anything. Yes, I know… close your mouth… it is possible.
Here are a couple more pics for your entertainment…
The view from the apartment – 27th floor

The mascot for the World Expo – his name is Hai Bao. I think he is a smurf derivative.

Tonight I’ll have dinner with some friends who are expats here. Hoping to see some more culture on the other side of the river.
Zaijian from Shanghai!

Mainland - Day 1

This is Carrie's sister, Sarah, here...reporting live from The Woodlands, Texas.  So, I get an email from Carrie yesterday, who is in CHINA, and it's titled "...need your help".  Really?  Are you trying to give me a heart attack???  I thought at the very least, someone hacked into her account and was going to ask me to wire them money.  Ha!  Turns out, she was just having trouble blogging from over there and started rambling on about Communism or something....  :)  So here I am to save the day!  Carrie emailed me her pics and post and had me log in to her account and give ya'll the update.  She even wrote "insert pic here" throughout the post.  I guess she thinks I'm a little slow, huh?  ;)   I told her I would do it as long as she brought me back a purse or two.  Sounds like a fair deal to me, right?   Well, here it is!  Enjoy...

After minimal sleep on Saturday night and gruelingly long flights (4 hrs + 12 hrs) and a 5 hour layover in San Francisco, I finally arrived in Shanghai! I passed through customs with ease, and was met by my company's driver just outside of customs - Jay. Jay held a sign that said "SES, Best Regards". SES is the name of my company, and I'm guessing that Best Regards was my name... as it's usually how I sign off on my business emails. Too funny. Jay doesn't speak English, but we managed to communicate just fine. He insisted on taking my bags, and then instructed me with his finger to wait at the curb while he pulled up the car.

We headed off into the city - about a 30 minute trip from the airport to the corporate apartment which will be my home until next Wednesday. On the way out of the airport, I got my first glimpse of the polite Chinese translation of an English saying "Beautiful and pitiful is the grass under your foot." That had me smiling for a good 10 minutes.

The World Expo is ongoing in Shanghai, and as we crossed the Lupu Bridge from the Pudong side (east) to the Luwan side (west), Jay spoke his only word to me - "Expo"- and pointed to a massive complex to my right. I saw several 10's of thousands of people milling about and huge exhibition halls for different countries. If I get adventurous this weekend, I may head over there to see what I can see!

"Lupu Bridge is the second longest arch bridge and steel bridge in the world"

We arrived at the corporate apartment in no time... it's a very nice 2 bedroom apartment with a tiny bathroom and tiny kitchen. Here's a pic from the website for the complex - and my place looks just like this!

It's very comfortable and has an ayi (housekeeper) who comes daily during the week.

I went to sleep pretty early Monday night - 9pm - which was as long as I could hold my eyelids open. I woke up at 3:30am on Tuesday morning, and just got out of bed and started wandering around the apartment. Then, the sun came up - at 5am! I was desparate for breakfast and a coffee so I ventured out around 7am to track down the Starbucks, and found it and the grocery story City Shop - which has mostly western items - and a french bakery and restaurant my boss has told me about. Every business was closed, and I was beginning to fret when alas I found the Starbucks was dutifully open! A grande mocha and blueberry muffin later and I was a VERY happy camper :).
The office doesn't get moving until 9am I was told, so I went back to the apartment and scurried around until 8:45 when I made my trek to the Pine City Hotel, where our office is located.

Meeting everyone was great - they are all very friendly and work very hard to speak English to me. I reminded them that they all know much more English than I do Chinese! Here's the marquee for my new employer in our Shanghai office.

After work I went to the City Shop and bought about 550 RMB worth of food - just under $100 US - for the apartment. Cheese was the most expensive item, but alas, I love cheese.

Interesting facts I've discovered so far:
1. Chinese people like Buicks. There are hundreds of them on the roads. Apparently the Chinese affinity for Buick saved the label from being decimated by GM.
2. There are no real rules of the road except keep moving forward. This goes for cars, scooters, bicycles, and pedestrians. If you hesitate, you confuse everyone. So keep moving.

This morning I fly inland to our plant. Something tells me this could be a VERY interesting trip.

The Switcheroo

After years of having all of our family photos stored conveniently on Kodak Gallery's Premier site as our own website, they are discontinuing this service at the end of this year.  BOOOO.... HISSSS!!!!  I have a gazillion pics on there, and hence I start the challenge of relocating them. 

The old site, www.kodakgallery.com/mfthompson, which has house all of our family events since Mike and I got married, will be defunct, and replaced with our new (and improved) site on SmugMug.  To see the most recent of pictures of the Thompson family, visit thompsonfamily.smugmug.com, and you will get the latest and greatest.

I leave for China in the morning (before the crack of dawn), and am taking Mike's little digital camera with me, so I hope to have some good shots to share when I return in 10 days. 

Check out the new site and let me know what you think.  It's very different from KodakGallery, but geared more for photographers, so I'm hoping its longevity will be greater than the last option.

Here's a couple of semi-recent pics of the kids from the spring in the bluebonnets...they were slightly tired of the sun in their faces and driving, so it was difficult getting my models to cooperate for a combo pic.

See you all soon!

'Nuf said

I am going to China on Sunday. Needless to say, neither of us will be the same after my visit. I fly into Shanghai, and then it's off to "real China", as my boss puts it.

I promise to blog from there if the communist firewall doesn't prevent me. Also, I'm breaking my promise about blogging about my duck boat tour in Boston, seeing as how they have become noted as unsafe in Philidelphia (or was it Pittsburg?).

Until next time, stay classy Houston.

Just a few pics from the Fourth

The kiddos on our front porch enjoying dessert... brownies!

Andrea kissing on her precious baby girl Amelia Jane

The bikes decorated for the bike parade!

Annie all ready to ride her bike

around the esplanade for the first time

Will's feet couldn't quite reach the pedals,

so he had some help from Dad

Mrs. Farmer with her ribbon for her prize winning blueberry pie. 

We couldn't even afford to buy it back in the auction to eat it!

Amelia - the happiest baby on the block!

Independence Day

Man, I hope I spelled that right. That's one of those words that just has too many e's in it to be right. Oh well... Forgive the imperfections please.

Good day today. Church was filled with the choir and congregation singing all of my favs - the National Anthem, America the Beautiful, My Country Tis of Thee... Now if only we could have busted out in Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA, it would have been sweet perfection. I'm a softy patriot and I usually tear up during any of those individually, so collectively they are a danger to my eyeliner, but I managed to keep it together throughout the whole service.

We followed church with Chuy's, where I made the mistake of having a margarita. With this heat and two shrimp tacos, I was immediately sent into a food coma. At home, I got both kids down for a nap asap and then crashed for about an hour until Annie told me it was time to get up. I could have probably slept till 5pm. But alas, we had guests coming!

The Guyre's, Hayden's, and Farmer's came bearing various accutriments including but not limited to beer, fruit, sliders, brownies, blackberry cobbler, rice krispie treats in star shapes and red, white, and blue, and oh yea... Beer. The Thompson's provided the hot dogs, chips, homemade guacamole, cream cheese dip, and some creamy jalapeño from Chuy's. Let's just say that no one... Not even Jason Guyre...went hungry.

The esplanade was filled with kids and parents running around. There was a pie baking contest - congrats Carrie Farmer for her #2 prize winning blueberry pie - a bike parade for the kiddos with decorations, and several bouncing deals to torture your small children. At least they had them segregated by age, though maybe weight is a better way to divvy up the kids in those things. I know some hefty 5 year olds that can take my 25%er down for the count.

Then we all trekked down to Stude park where the kids and dads enjoyed the city's fireworks display and the moms worried that we would be short a kid when it was time to go. Post trek bak home, each kid proceeded to eat MORE... I'm certain at least one will be puking before the night is over. Ours are down for the count...Annie was asleep before her head hit the pillow, but I'm sure Will will make his nightly appearance around 2am into our bed.
Happy Independence Day folks! God bless the USA!

Incognito

Today, I was approached by a Mormon. Not just any Mormon, mind you, but one cleverly disguised as a Kroger employee. I was so convinced that he was an employee, that when he offered to "help me", I told him he could have the cart back (I was loading groceries into my car in the Kroger parking lot).

To my credit, he was wearing what appeared to be a Kroger employee outfit - white button down shirt, black tie, black pants, and had a name tag on. Of course, after he started to get really friendly, I did a closer inspection of the nametag and realized that yes, it did have the LDS logo on it. Aha... friendly neighborhood Kroger employee he was not... mystery solved.

As an aside, I will not comment on my personal beliefs about the LDS religious sect, but instead will espouse how much I love the newly renovated Kroger at 11th and Shepard - reported by CultureMap as the largest Kroger in the city of Houston.  I am still getting confused by the aisles, but they have put up a nice new placard that has a full menu of items, and where they are to be located.  Even my husband (who, when he can't find an item on the list, claims that the grocery store was completely out of said item) would be able to successfully complete a grocery shopping trip. And the employees there, either imported from other Signature Kroger stores, or just turned over a new leaf due to their fab new store, ARE very friendly and helpful... so you can see how the confusion could occur.

Have a safe and fun Independance Day!