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.