End of week recap Jan 30th – February 3rd 2010
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Saturday January 30th (Shanghai)
I’m in my hotel room and I’m watching the drivers down at the street level. No one drives in a straight line here! I just also noticed that the window in my room is locked. Boy, it would be nice to get some ‘fresh air’ in here instead of the stale air… ugh. Well, ‘fresh’ air is relative. It is smoggy outside, but it might be better than breathing the smoky air from the ventilation system.
Jill, Desi and I headed down to the fake market in Pudong this morning so they could look around. We headed back over to the Puxi side for lunch at Boxing Cat, and dinner at Kabb (bar and grill). The beer selection at Boxing Cat looked really good, but I passed on having anything to drink while I’m here – probably for the better. After lunch, we walked around a small market square. The items there are much better in quality, and are made local. I picked up some cool gifts.
My lungs, eyes and throat burns from all of the smog that I’ve been inhaling outside today. I also found out that the Zhangjiang high tech park is surrounded by chemical companies. That is just wonderful. A similar problem exists in my hotel room – some guy on this floor is smoking and the cigarette smoke is going through the ventilation system. That is just wrong. It feels like I’m a chain smoker today and it is really making me feel sick.
Sunday January 31st (Shanghai)
I finally got enough sleep. Jill and I went over to the Shanghai World Financial Center and purchased our tickets to the 100th floor observation deck. It was FOGGY in Shanghai today, so there wasn’t any kind of view. Still a cool place to visit. I posted a set of photos on Facebook. We had lunch at a place called Element Fresh.
We went back to the fake market to meet up with Desi. Dinner was at a place called Blue Frog. Element Fresh and Blue Frog seem like trendy places.
Afterwards we took a taxi down to Puxi and saw some of the Bund area (the waterfront) and walked down to the People’s Square (kind of like the Shanghai version of Times Square).
I called it a night pretty early.
Monday February 1st (Shanghai)
I used chopsticks for the first time in a long time for lunch at the IBM center buffet. Still apparently know how to use them. Now I won’t go hungry 
Tuesday February 2nd (Shanghai)
Yes, behold the power of chopsticks. After work, we went to dinner at a fancy and popular restaurant in Pudong with some co-workers after work. I got enough crap for having to ask for a fork last week. I figured I should just use the chopsticks and hone my motor skills.
-T
Wednesday February 3rd (Shanghai)
YAY this is my last day of work in Shanghai. I’ll be glad when this day is over. Not much to talk about in terms of work stuff… really there wasn’t much to do anyway. After work, I went to an Irish pub in Pudong with one of my US colleague and each of us bought a 300gram steak. I got it well done just because I didn’t entirely trust the meat over there, but it was still pretty darn good tasting. A Guinness on the side would have been perfect but I behaved haha.
I did a pre-flight check-in this evening on the United Airlines website. The seating chart shows that the middle three seats are empty for my row. Hopefully it’ll stay that way and I’ll get plenty of space to sprawl out for the flight.
I just finished repacking my bags, and I’m so ready to get out of here. See you tomorrow!
-T
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