Ok folks, so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you a day by day update as to what I've been doing while here. Since it's been a few days since I arrived, I'll start at the beginning.
Aug 23: Caught a flight from Cleveland -Hopkins airport to Newark, NJ. Cleveland begins serving alcohol at 5am. This is an awesome fact. Newark begins at 9am. This sucked. Got on my flight from Newark to Beijing at about noon. Didn't get off the plane until about... 1:45-2:00pm, Beijing time. 13.5 hour plane flight. But, I will say that free booze in business class is awesome.
Aug 24: Arrived in Beijing. Was driven to the Pullman hotel in West Wanda. Very nice 5 star hotel. Less than $100 / night.
Aug 25: Was picked up at the hotel and driven to my apartment that I'll be staying in for the next few months. Visited my office and met a few coworkers. Went to Sams Club to buy food and supplies for my apartment. Bought a case of Yangjing beer for about $8. Sweet!
Aug 26: First full day at work. Began reading specifications and went to lunch with the project manager, and program manager, as well as two of our customers from Vietnam. Received an email a little bit ago that they're taking us out to dinner today too. Sweet!
Aug 27: So, today started as a regular day, walking the half mile to the office, doing some reading, some catching up on emails and such. Getting stuff ready for next week. Mid-morning, Raymond comes in and takes me and Roger on a plant tour. Let me just say... if you've never seen a factory that builds coal boilers, it's a serious wakeup call. This place is fugging huge. After our tour, went to lunch. Then back to the office to do some more reading.
Tonight we went out to a traditional Beijing family restaurant as a welcome dinner for me. Seriously...this food is amazing. Everything I've had (well, almost) I've liked. Aside from mushrooms. I still can't stand mushrooms. I've tried.
Aug 28: We went golfing at Beijing Country Club. Holy s*** is that place nice. So, we golfed 27 holes. They give you a cute Chinese girl as a caddy. They know just enough English to ask what club you want, give you suggestions, whatever. Anyway, so we golfed, and if you make a bad shot, those caddies will search and search and search until they find your ball. I would have given up on a couple of them. I thought one was going to go into the water to find it. No BS. After all of the golfing (you walk), we tipped the caddies 100 RMB (about $15) grabbed a sandwich, and we were on our way. By the time we got back to the apartments, I was so damn tired from the golfing that I took a nice shower, sat down on the couch, and passed out for about 2 hours. Woke up, made some dinner, watched a little TV, walked around the compound and went to bed.
Aug 23: Caught a flight from Cleveland -Hopkins airport to Newark, NJ. Cleveland begins serving alcohol at 5am. This is an awesome fact. Newark begins at 9am. This sucked. Got on my flight from Newark to Beijing at about noon. Didn't get off the plane until about... 1:45-2:00pm, Beijing time. 13.5 hour plane flight. But, I will say that free booze in business class is awesome.
Aug 24: Arrived in Beijing. Was driven to the Pullman hotel in West Wanda. Very nice 5 star hotel. Less than $100 / night.
Aug 25: Was picked up at the hotel and driven to my apartment that I'll be staying in for the next few months. Visited my office and met a few coworkers. Went to Sams Club to buy food and supplies for my apartment. Bought a case of Yangjing beer for about $8. Sweet!
Aug 26: First full day at work. Began reading specifications and went to lunch with the project manager, and program manager, as well as two of our customers from Vietnam. Received an email a little bit ago that they're taking us out to dinner today too. Sweet!
Aug 27: So, today started as a regular day, walking the half mile to the office, doing some reading, some catching up on emails and such. Getting stuff ready for next week. Mid-morning, Raymond comes in and takes me and Roger on a plant tour. Let me just say... if you've never seen a factory that builds coal boilers, it's a serious wakeup call. This place is fugging huge. After our tour, went to lunch. Then back to the office to do some more reading.
Tonight we went out to a traditional Beijing family restaurant as a welcome dinner for me. Seriously...this food is amazing. Everything I've had (well, almost) I've liked. Aside from mushrooms. I still can't stand mushrooms. I've tried.
Aug 28: We went golfing at Beijing Country Club. Holy s*** is that place nice. So, we golfed 27 holes. They give you a cute Chinese girl as a caddy. They know just enough English to ask what club you want, give you suggestions, whatever. Anyway, so we golfed, and if you make a bad shot, those caddies will search and search and search until they find your ball. I would have given up on a couple of them. I thought one was going to go into the water to find it. No BS. After all of the golfing (you walk), we tipped the caddies 100 RMB (about $15) grabbed a sandwich, and we were on our way. By the time we got back to the apartments, I was so damn tired from the golfing that I took a nice shower, sat down on the couch, and passed out for about 2 hours. Woke up, made some dinner, watched a little TV, walked around the compound and went to bed.
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