Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Morning

Nothing unusual to report—another quiet morning.

Afternoon

The only unusual thing was that as I was coming home, I was standing in line for the subway. I was a bit farther back in line than I wanted to be, but thought I might squeeze in. As the line started to move forward, I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to make it, so I stepped out of line to allow anyone else who wanted to try to squeeze on to go for it. Picture about a dozen people trying to squeeze through a set of double doors at the same time, and somehow, they were doing it. But the weirdest thing was that the subway attendant was pushing the entire mob from behind to help them all squeeze in. What the heck? And, they all made it—I was the only one standing on the dock as the subway pulled away. Even more incredible!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Morning

Similar to yesterday in almost every respect. I’m getting better at knowing where to be for the subway fun, but it is truly amazing how many people pass through the Guomao transfer station for Lines 1 and 10. Their setup is pretty good to move a lot of people. Good workout and breakfast, and quiet morning at the office. Extremely quite in fact—Li Xiang ended up traveling to Shanghai to help out on some customs issues for some trucks we’re importing, so there wasn’t the normal chatter between Zhang Li and him that I heard on Monday. Qui-et!

Afternoon

I headed back to the hotel to meet Tracy and our agents for another look at the apartment we’re thinking about getting. We wanted to look again to make sure that it’s what we wanted, and to figure out what we need to get before we move in. That took most of the afternoon with traffic, so we came back and ate dinner down at Gourmet Street, and went to bed.

Starting a Routine---MIke

Monday, January 9^th, 2012

Morning

We awoke at 4:00—our new normal. That’s okay, because it’s easier to find something to do, than it is to wrestle with an alarm clock. We went down to the gym for a workout, and then to breakfast after cleaning up. Since it was my first full day in the office, it would be my first rush hour commute, so I would find out how crowded it could be. Jumping on at the Wangfujing station, I thought, “This isn’t so bad.” Plenty of room (relatively speaking—nothing that would fly in America, but lots of room over here). Four stops later, I transferred to Line 10. Several people got off, and I stepped on after the four people in front of me—everything normal to this point. What I failed to realize, however, was exactly the size of the throng behind me. All of the people who were not yet on the train literally (tip of the hat to Chris Traeger!) pushed their way on, causing all of the people on the train to be squished against each other. I couldn’t move AT ALL! The worst part was, I ended up on the opposite side of the train from the door. This is bad, because I needed to work my way back to the door when it came time to get off, but I simply couldn’t move! So, fortunately, I had four stops of people getting off and getting on to wriggle my way to the doors. Unfortunately, I had only moved a few inches as we were slowing to stop at the Agriculture Center where I get off. Now, I don’t want to say that panic was setting in, but my concern level was definitely on the higher side of normal at this point. As the train finally stopped, I started pushing—hard. I’d have been punched several times over if I were anywhere in America or Europe, but the reaction from the Chinese? They just did their best, without losing their place, to make room for me to make my way out. Finally, as the bell sounded to signal the doors starting to close, I was at my last layer of folks. With a desperate final push, I flung myself out as the doors started to close. My long overcoat barely cleared the doors as they slid closed, but I was free! Whew!

After a five minute walk to the office, I spent a quiet morning checking email, logging receipts (for reimbursement), and starting to get an idea of what the normal rhythm of the office is. It’s much quieter in this office with its four people (including me!) than Dynacraft with its 250 people in the building. To make it worse, Angela is traveling in the States this week, so there are only three.

Afternoon

Tracy met me for lunch, and we walked to a neighboring tower for a buffet lunch. They charged us ¥386, or about $60, for the two of us, which I thought was strange, because last month at the same place we were charged ¥287 for five people. Hmmm. Turns out if you show your business card to prove you work in the building that you get a discount. Who knew? After lunch, Tracy headed back for some workouts and to relax by the pool. More office stuff for me, trying to learn what goes on. The subway ride home was slightly better, because I knew what to expect. I figured out that I needed to be about eight people back in the line waiting for the subway to end up in the second or third layer from the door. That worked out to be close enough to the door, once we were all on, to still be able to get off four stops later without too much drama. Much better! Dinner was from the local grocery store—I had spaghetti (not quite perfect, but close), and Tracy had some rice and vegetables and some large grapefruit (that wasn’t half bad!). After a quick swim, we tottered off to bed.

• (Tracy) Ok, I really have to say that I do not spend my days lounging at the poolside.  I am working out and THEN heading over to the pool!

Relaxing day---MIke

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Morning

Tracy woke up not feeling well—the cough she’s had for the past couple of months was not treating her well in the “fog” (that’s the government’s term for the smog over here), so she didn’t sleep well. After another awesome breakfast (smoothies, doughnuts, dumplings, cocoa crisps, ham, omelets, chow mein, etc.), Tracy came back up to the room and went to bed while I got ready for church. Two stops west on Line 1, four stops north on line 2, and one stop north on line 13 brought me across the street from the Jin Tai building, the fourth floor of which is where we meet. During Sacrament meeting, our speakers were a Venezuelan (and his son!), who were followed by a Norwegian, who mentioned a Ugandan in his talk. I also heard a British accent and possibly an Australian accent as well. There was a gentleman from Ghana in the back. Now, we sit in our wards in the States, and hear about church members across the globe. But to see the diversity here in Beijing really brings it home. There are people who believe in Jesus Christ everywhere!

Afternoon

We went down to the poolside and did some reading, and unwinding. Then, we came back upstairs and watched the new Transformers movie (not anywhere close to as bad as I thought it would be—it was actually pretty good!). We have no speakers, so we had to wear our headphones, but it was okay. Dinner was back down at Gourmet Street, and more experiments—same type of meals, but different flavors. If we keep going, we’ll be able to dial in what we like and what we don’t.

Snow and 19 degrees---MIke

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Morning

So, we had big plans for this morning. We were gonna go see a bunch of sights, and buy a few things, and revisit one of the apartments to make sure it was what we thought it was. However, we found that snow was falling, and starting to stick. Now, normally, snow is no big deal to us. We’ve dealt with it before, and we usually handle it like old pros. But it turns out that when snow falls on marble (did I mention that they use marble for everything?), it turns slick. Really slick. Unsafe slick in the shoes we were in. But, we battled on, and got onto the subway for our big day. Now, it turns out that when you’re doing something for the first time, it takes a LOT longer to do it than you thought it would, and it’s frustrating to boot, because the little things just don’t go right (you don’t know exactly where to go, so you end up going in circles looking for something, for example). So, to cope, we decided to do one thing at a time, and then return to the hotel for a break, and then head out again for the next thing. This meant that we would only accomplish about a third of what we wanted to accomplish, but it also ensured that we didn’t kill each other by the end of the day. All good. J  So, after the apartment visit, our next trip was to lunch. We found in the basement of our hotel a large shopping mall, and it has a large eating alley called “Gourmet Street.” Now, the “Gourmet” is misleading, because it’s all fast food-ish, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. For about $3 each, we ended up with dishes that were larger than we could eat. They were bowls of rice with some meat-vegetable-sauce type stuff on top—nothing but good! And there are about fifty of these places down there, so we won’t run out of food to try any time soon.

Afternoon

We went  . . . to Wal-mart. That’s right. We flew halfway around the world, and went to Wal-mart. Now, the rest of the story is that we (read that as “I”) forgot the cord that goes from the computer to the TV, so we wanted to find one of those. We also realized that we could get some water for a cheap price, and perhaps a few other things. So, another four stops east on Line 1, and then two stops south on Line 2, brought us to our destination. It’s a multi-level store, very crowded, and is almost nothing like the Wal-marts in the States. I mean, you can get many, many of the same things as you can back home, but they are all different because they are all locally made. We struck out on the cord (lots of new gadgets, but very few accessories), but found the water and some milk for Tracy’s hot chocolate. We came back and decided to eat dinner at the Italian restaurant on the second floor of the hotel—pretty good, but not great (overpriced, really). After dinner, we went down to the pool, and went for a swim. If you haven’t already, google pictures of the pool—something to behold. Then, it was off to bed.

Apartment hunting

Friday, January 6, 2012

Morning

We got up at 6:00am, because we were so tired—normally we’re up by 4:00. After cleaning up, we went down to an amazing buffet breakfast (included in the price of the hotel, fortunately—it’s about $80 for the two of us) that has western and eastern foods, just like the last place. We got our plates and sat down, and as I took my first bite, my stomach turned completely over. I was sick! Well, I went straight back up to the hotel room to try to sleep it off, even though I was due at work in an hour, and Tracy did her best to finish two breakfasts. An hour later, I found the problem—the little breakfast wrap that they gave us on the plane had given me food poisoning, but I felt much better after parting ways with it. Then, I was off to the subway, feeling much better, and after riding four stops on Line 1, and then transferring to Line 10 for four more stops, I made it to work. I was really only there to check in with the team and pick up my laptop, but decided to check some emails, which meant I left at noon. Tracy, meanwhile, took a nap and then organized the room before lunch.

Afternoon

Thanks to a miscommunication, lunch was on the fly, as we were scheduled to meet our housing agents early that afternoon. We grabbed a small quiche for sale at the gourmet bakery near the lobby, and off we went. We looked at eight or nine apartments, and pretty much settled on three of them. We decided to go sleep on it overnight and send the priority list to the agents on Saturday morning. When we got back, we were so tired that we ordered room service—a chicken burger for Tracy, and a pasta bowl for me. By 7:00 pm, we were out!

(Tracy) Here are some pictures of our apartment before the old tenants have moved everything out and before it has been cleaned.  We will have a nice view of the park/court yard below us and get western exposure.  

Our Arrival here at last!

  Thursday, January 5, 2012

We landed at 10:00 pm, China Standard Time, or CST, after a 12 (!) hour flight. It wasn’t that bad of a flight, though, as Tracy had wheedled her way into getting us three seats all to ourselves so we could stretch out. And, of course, on the international flights you get the little screen in the seat back in front of you that has movies, TV shows, games, etc. to keep you from going completely crazy. Though we were tired since we’d been flying since 6:00 the previous night (Seattle Time), and we had only had about an hour nap each, we were still very awake for the customs adventure (which is always a bigger deal in your mind than it turns out to be in real life), and the drive to the hotel, which took about 45 minutes.

Now, a bit about the Grand Hyatt Beijing. We are just down the street from Tiananmen Square—in fact, the next subway stop from the one on the corner of our block is for Tiananmen. Presidents stay here. CEOs stay here. Dignitaries from everywhere stay here. So, if I added to that group that the Gaudios stay here, well, we could play that old Sesame Street game—you know it, sing it with me now, “Three of these things belong together . . .” This is an amazing hotel. The pool is one complete floor by itself. The room is the size of an apartment. Don’t believe me? Google it. Freakin’ amazing!

So, we got to the hotel, checked in, and crashed (in that order).

I (Tracy) did need to add a picture of the Hogwarts-esk pool. It has a ceiling that changes color and even has a night sky with constellations