Shanghai: Jetlagged Observations

Prologue
Four weeks ago today, well yesterday, depending on which side of the International Date Line you're sitting on, my bossy-boss (the boss of my boss) came and asked me if I'd be interested in going to Shanghai to work with some people in our office there to gather some requirements for a financial reporting application. I told him that was the wrong question, because my answer would always be, "No." The right question would be, "Would you be willing to....?" and then I'd answer yes.

China has never been on my list of places to go. I mean, I can't even say it's been at the bottom of my list, it's never been on my list at all.

He told me to think about it and get back to him. So I did, and the more I thought about it, the more I was sure it was fine for me to not go. Then I called Linda and she said, "Why wouldn't you go?" And when you put it that way.....

I went back into his office and told him I'd go. That was, as I mentioned, four weeks ago. Between then and now I haven't thought a lot about it, other than getting the necessary visa processed and buying a travel guide book on Shanghai. People around me have been more excited about it for me than I have. As I've thought about that, I've not been able to reason out why that is. The only thing I can think of is that it's not like it's a vacation for me or anything. I mean, I'm here to work and churn out a 20-something page requirements document. Honestly, Cinnamon is more excited for this trip than I am and promptly started looking up places for me to visit and explore. I do hope to have time to do those things and that my days aren't so busy that I can't escape a little early and go do a river tour and take the 46-second elevator ride up 124 stories (or whatever that is).

Shanghai
Meanwhile, here I am. It's Monday morning where I am, and Sunday night where you are. I think I'm handling the time change nicely. I tried to not sleep very much on the plane ride so that I could be ready to fall into bed on Sunday night local time. I think I did okay with that considering that I started dozing off at about 8:00 p.m. last night after doing 1.75 miles on the hotel's elliptical machine and showering. I was going to order room service, but decided I wasn't hungry enough to justify it. I was more tired than anything, and my elephant-sized ankles and legs insisted on just lying down and doing nothing else. I was more than happy to accommodate them.

When I finally got through customs and collected my baggage, it was already 5:30 p.m. I found a representative from The Four Seasons hotel who told me there are two different options on getting there -- a car which would cost about $500 yuan, or a taxi which would be about $160. I opted for the taxi and went outside to wait in the very long queue. I had just gotten there and prepared myself for what looked like it would be a hefty wait, when some man came up to me and said, "Taxi?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Taxis are over there," and pointed to a bunch of cars that didn't look like taxis. I obviously wasn't thinking clearly because I momentarily got out of line to check out what he was talking about. He kept gesturing and pointing, and I said, "What's that line of taxis over here, then?" Which is the line of taxis that everyone else was waiting for. He said, "No, no they're over there," pointing some more, but no one else really seemed like they were doing anything about it, so I got back in line (having lost about 10 places) and looked at him firmly. He still tried to get me to go to his invisible magical taxi place, but I stayed put. A few minutes later, some other guy came up and tried the same thing on me. He said, "Taxi?" I said, "Yes, that's why I'm in this line." He was also delusional about his little never-taxiland, but I didn't move this time and he went away.

I looked around me to see if these men were trying to lure anyone else to taxiland, and they weren't, so I figure it must've had something to do with the fact that I was a foreign woman traveling alone. I don't know what they wanted from me exactly, except to sell me a high-priced ride to who knows where, but honestly. I didn't fall off the rice paddy truck yesterday.

My taxi driver, when I finally did get a legitmate one, was awesome. I kept thinking that if I were on The Amazing Race, he'd be exactly who I wanted. He paid no heed to posted speed limits, going usually about 120 kmh and making lane changes that would make a Nascar driver cringe. I, however, loved every minute of it. Short beeps on the horn along with one blink of the blinker were used in tandem as lane change notification, and beeps with blinking high beams were used as "You're in my way so move," or "I'm coming over so move" notifications.

The initial highway, Hunan Highway, from the airport to the city was relatively easy to negotiate. The only thing of note was all the fireworks that were being set off from people's backyards. I guess people still have an abundance of fireworks left over from celebrating Chinese New Year. Other than that, there wasn't really anything of special note about the drive into the city. In fact, I thought it was kind of boring, if that's all Shanghai was. Whither the skycrapers? I wondered.

Then we pulled off that highway and started negotiating through more of a city scape. That was more of what I had been anticipating. I don't know of it's always that brightly and colorfully lit; I suspect that it's still in celebration of the new year. But my first thought was that it looked like what would happen if Las Vegas did New York. It has the skyscrapers and volume of buildings and people of New York, but the glitz and lights of Las Vegas. Okay, maybe not that bright, but it gives you the general idea.

Some of the buildings are truly jaw-dropping. There is one that looks like a robotic claw holding a huge pearl. It's tall -- probably 60 or so stories, and very pointy with its claws holding the pearl, or huge globe, inside of it on top of the roof. In the distance I could see the huge Oriental Pearl TV Tower. You may remember seeing it in in a scene in Mission Impossible: III.

There are just as many bicyles and mopeds/scooters as there are cars. It is amazing to me that for as much chaos and individuality everyone uses to operate on the roads that I did not see any accidents. it's like a beautifully choreagraphed two-ton steel dance of near-misses. The soundtrack is, of course, provided by the consistent and constant sound of beeps and honks.

The hotel is fabulous, as you'd expect a Four Seasons to be. My guide book had said that the staff anticipates your needs before you do, and that's true. Everyone is helpful and calls me by name, service is quick and efficient, and they even apologized to me when I blew up one wall.

Okay, maybe not an entire wall, but....here's what happened. I purchased some travel plug converters at Target. The set has four different plugs to accommodate almost every travel desitination, so I figured it was a crap shoot no matter what. In my room, there's a desk with a little fold-out drawer thingy that has some plugs in it, as well as a fax/modem plug. In one of the drawers is a travel converter. This morning when I was ready to start styling my hair, I tried using one of my Target converters in the bathroom plug, which incidentally, is different than any of the ones that are on the desk. I couldn't get any of my Target converters to work, so I brought my brush blow dryer to the desk and plugged it into the hotel-provided converter. Immediately, a little puff of black smoke came out of the blow dryer and charred my finger (mark's still there, even after washing my hands multiple times today). I thought, "That can't be good." So I had to resort to using the brush from my blow dryer thing in tandem with the hotel's blow dryer to try and style my hair, which means I'm having not a great hair day. Workable, but not an ideal solution.

Then I started trying to figure out this whole converter thing. I found a plug in my Target kit that fit into another one of the (still different) plugs on the desk. I plugged Cim's GBA into it, and nothing happened. I plugged my BlackBerry into it, and still nothing happened. I tried to turn on the TV, and it wouldn't go on. I tried to turn on the lamp on the desk and...nothing. (In this case, I believe that "nothing" is a better response than "proceeded to blow up every other electrical appliance brought with me.")

I found another outlet with yet a different type of plug and fished yet another Target converter out, and was able to start charging things on that wall, so I could tell that it wasn't the hotel's or even my converters issue -- I really had succeeded in blowing out that whole wall's electricity. Whoops.

When I went downstairs to come to work, I reported it to the front desk people, even going so far as to admit my part in it, and she apologized to me....I guess for...the inconveniece caused to me because I blew up my blow dryer and their hotel? I'm not sure how that worked, but she assured me that they would send an engineer up to look at it. I'm probably not the first dumb foreigner to blow things up in their hotel.

At around noon today, I wasn't terribly hungry but decided it was time to get something to eat since it looked like that's what everyone else was doing. I started putting on my coat, and one of the girls came over to ask what I was going to do. I replied honestly that I didn't know. She invited me to step out with her to get something since there's not really any place in this building to eat. One of the other girls assured me that going with this girl was the right thing to do since it's widely known and accepted that if you want something good to eat, just go with (R). When I took another look at her, I could see why. I haven't seen many people here that aren't skinny. (R) is definitely a bit chubby, even by American standards. I happily agreed to go with her.

We went to a place that she said was a mall, but just looked like one huge food court to me. You purchase a debit card, then go around to all these different little food counters and order what you want, paying for it with the card. She told me the good thing about it for me was that I could just point and they'd fix whatever for me. It was nice to have her along with me, but the point and order method will work nicely for when I'm on my own. Most of the dishes were between 7 and 18 yuan each, or 91 cents to $2.34 for one of the bigger, more complete plates. I got some dim sum items and a bowl of Hong Kong style noodles with bak choi. (R) got some other dim sum and rice stuff, then ordered some chicken feet, asking me if I wanted some too. I (hopefully) politely declined saying that maybe I'd try some later in the week. We both knew I was lying, so when we got back to the office, she brought them over to me and said, "Okay, try." I did. They weren't bad, but there's not a lot of meat on a chicken foot. It's mostly....foot and a little meat.

Walking back to the office she stopped to at a little store-front kiosk to get a drink. They looked more like smoothies, something I would want as a snack, not to accompany my meal, so I said I'd get a Coke or something. She said, "Try the milk tea, it's really good!" and was astonished to hear that I don't drink tea. She wanted to know why, and I said, "I've just never really had it. I drink herbal stuff if I'm sick, but that's it." She was very adamant that herbal tea is not the same as tea because it's not caffeinated. Which....exactly.

When we got back to the office, she told the assitant that I've never tried tea. I said, "No, it's just that I don't drink it." She said, "Well, same thing," and they agreed that while in China I need to do what the Romans do....or something like that.

So that's some brief highlights of my first 24 hours here. Believe it or not, I am actually expected to work while I'm here, so I hope to have enough time to see some of the sights. I'm low enough on the totem pole that I doubt the people in the office here will be arranging anything off hours for me, so I need to be adventerous all on my own. My computer clock tells me it's 11:50 p.m. on Sunday night, but my local clock here says it's 3:48 p.m on Monday afternoon, so maybe I'll go see if I can get to that Oriental Pearl Tower for that e-ticket elevator ride.

More to come later....

Why I Love the Internet

I get a lot of junk mail sent to me. Who doesn't? I mean, no matter how many times you check that box on a company's website to agree that they won't sell your address or use it for otherwise nefarious purposes, someone somewhere is trolling cyberspace for email addresses and mine hits the jackpot every time. I usually send them directly to my junk folder hoping that the email domain gods will prevent that address from spamming me again.

Today, though, I opened one. And am I ever glad I did! It made me laugh out loud -- the poor grammar, spelling mistakes and above all, the naive possibility that someone will actually fall for this scheme. He's dressed it up a bit trying to disguise it for what it is, but a scam is a scam is spam.

Enjoy your laugh for the day. I've taken the liberty of adding my commentary in italics.

You received the following message from: kwaussi (edwinkwaussi@yahoo.fr)

From Edwin Kwaussi
Avenue 5 Lot 172 Cocody Quarters
Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire
edwinkwaussi@yahoo.fr
+225 0619 3223
I'm including the address headers and all of his personal information just in case anyone would like to take him up on his offer.


Good day Dear One, He doesn't even know me! He must really love me already to call me this.

Greetings and How are you today,I am Edwin Kwaussi Hello, Edwin. It's very nice to meet you. I wish you knew about the joys of puncuation along with salutations. I would like you to permit me to apply through this medium for your co-operation and to secure an opportunity to invest and do joint relationship and business with you in your country.
I have a substantial capital I honourably Inherited from my late father late Chief Marcel Kwaussi Ooh! A chief, was he? This is getting better and better! who deal in Cocao-coffee platation that must be that rare art form of making plates out of coffee. Hard to do but oh so delicious. and share from family Gold, diamond Minining site.The Epmgigo rebels killed Him recently in poltical crisis in our country that have resulted to war since this past two years. I've never heard of a family Gold, diamond minining site. I wonder what type of industry that is exactly?
I intend to invest this money in profitable areas in your country into a very lucratives business venture of which you are to advise and execute the said venture over there for the mutual benefits of both of us . More profitable and lucratives than Gold and diamond minining?
Most especially is for you to help me come over to your base if possible for You I like being referred to with the capitalization of "You." It makes me feel so....royal. be able co-operate with me to become my business partner in your country and create ideas on how money will be invested, properly managed and the type of investment after the money is transferred to your custody with your assistance. I wonder what he would say if I said I wanted to invest his Gold and diamond minining money in gold and diamonds? I inherited this sum from my late father whom the rebels killed because he was not supporting their selfish intrest to topple the president Gbagbo the present president. Punctuation not withstanding, he's got some alliteration skills.
Meanwhile, on indication of your willingness to handle this transaction sincerely by protecting my Interests and upon your acceptance of this proposal.I would furnish you with the full detailed information, procedure, amount involve is below and we shall mutually agree on your percentage interest or share holding for helping me to secure the release of the deposit and investing the fund into a lucratives profitable venture in your care.It is The sum of Eight Million,Five Hundred Thousand USD $8.500.000USD I shall be glad to reserve this respect and opportunity for you, if you so desire, but do urge you to give the matter your immediate attention it deserves.I want you to be rest assured that everything is in order and legitimate of course it is it was due to the political crisis in our country that have resulted to war which cause everybody to find a way to get out the country, that make's me to use this medium to request for your assistance hoping that you will not let me down. It appears that Edwin is also discovering the joys of the internet. Alas, I don't think it will net him the same humorous results it is for me. This money is legitimately acquired by my late father from sales of cocoa-coffee and diamond dealings. The gold! What about the gold? And the minining? And shouldn't his father's village (I assume it's a village since he is the honorable chief) have some say-so in this matter? I wonder what my percentage of the cut would be? Eight million bucks is nothing to sneeze at. But half of percent of that is very sneeze worthy. Looking forward to your prompt response
Thanks and God bless
Edwin Kwaussi.

************************************

Let's just see how legitimate this all is, shall we? Among the other joys of the internet is the power of Google. Let's start with the country name Edwin gives us, Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire. When I actually take the time to read it, it appears that it could be French for Ivory Coast. So far, so good. I've heard of that.

Next, President Gbagbo. Wikipedia gives some interesting information on him, confirming that his rise to power has been achieved by questionable means.

But anyone can figure that much out. Like me. Let's try the hard stuff. Starting with the supposed rebels, the Epmgigo. Now things start to look a little bit questionable. The only hits I get on that are ones that appear to refer back to this same letter. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this!

How about something truly unique -- his father's name. When I google that as spelled in this email, Google thoughtfully asks me, "Did you mean Chief Marcel Kwasi?" And the only link is one to a forum where this same letter is being discussed.

Oh, Edwin. I'm so disappointed. You called me dear one, you said you were reserving this opportunity for me, and now I see that you've cybercheated on me. Is that even your name, Edwin? Is your father really a chief specializing in cacao/coffee, Gold and diamond minining? I'm not sure I can trust you anymore. Please consider this my response:

NO.

Marty -- A Small Body in a Big Life

Each life that touches ours for good
Reflects thine own great mercy, Lord;
Thou sendest blessings from above
Thru words and deeds of those who love.

When such a friend from us departs,
We hold forever in our hearts
A sweet and hallowed memory,
Bringing us nearer, Lord, to thee.
("Each Life That Touches Ours For Good," by Karen Lynn Davidson)

Marty was small, but he had a big heart. I know, you've heard that before, right? But here's the thing -- Marty was small, even for his only being five weeks old he was small. But when you looked in those eyes, you saw the potential for the hugeness of his heart.

Here -- try it for yourself. Look in those eyes and tell me you don't see great things.


Isn't he cute? And teeny? That's my hand holding him, and I have small hands.

Marty came to us via the Burbank Animal Shelter kitten foster program. Cim's a foster parent there, and with two of her own cats, and a foster that thinks she owns the joint, taking on two baby kittens seemed like a lot, especially when one of the new kittens picked on Marty incessantly. We decided to give him (and Cim) and break and invited him over to our house.

He was already a little bit sick, but what kitten wouldn't be, when torn from his mama at such an early age? We did the best we could as surrogate mothers. We fed him, bathed him, made sure he knew how to use the litter box, and above all, made sure to let him know how much we loved him.

Unfortunately, the amount of love you get can't always take care of every problem, especially when there are unseen and undetected internal ones.

Little Marty passed away on August 16 in the early morning hours. He didn't leave without a fight, but he left because his body just wasn't big enough to handle what the world had thrown at him in such a short amount of time.

Regardless of his short time here, I have no doubt that he did what he came here to do: open our hearts a little bit more to loving and being loved in turn, and teaching compassion as only a sweet little kitten can.

I have no doubt that he is happily running around in heaven with all the other kitties, especially my Siren, and free of earthly pain, can now begin enjoying his life as a kitten.

God speed, Marty. See you soon.

60 Years

This past weekend I went to Utah to celebrate my parents' 60th wedding anniversary. Yes, sixty years. Six zero. Six decades. A silver anniversary plus another 10 years. We didn't make a huge deal out of it by inviting the whole world, but we did want to have as many of their children there as possible. All six of their children were there, several grandchildren, and about half of their great-grandchildren.

Even though all six of us were there, we were only all together for one evening, so we had to make the best of it and make sure we captured that moment on film. The meeting point was the rest home where my sister lives.

60th_027_9

And that, friends, was the most formal part of the whole shebang. I mean, that was really the only thing on the agenda. After that the weekend was pretty much a free-for-all. People got together when they could, various children and grandchildren showed up, and we just basically hung out together as much as we could. We got reacquainted with each other, and in some cases, met relatives we hadn't yet. I met my nephew's wife and their 6 (extremely intelligent, and it goes without saying, somewhat precosious) children and was charmed by their family. I got to know another a niece-in-law better and grew to appreciate her more. I hung out with another niece who I love but who lives too far away from me to for my liking. She's only a few years younger than I am, and she's just fantastic. And I hung out with my sisters as much as I could and we all grew to love each other more. At least, I think we did. I know I did, and I hope they did.

Family. Not the people you necessarily choose to be with during your mortal life, but they're what you've been given. It's taken me awhile to figure out that mine's better than most, so I'd better make the best of it while I can.

Seven

7 Things I want to Do Before I Die

1. Explore England (all British Isles)
2. Go to Australia
3. Go back to Chile. I think. Maybe. Not sure about this one.
4. Fly an airplane.
5. Learn to ride a motorcycle
6. Own another Jeep. Tour backwoods America in it.
7. Hang glide

7 Things I Cannot Do

1. Lick my elbow
2. Sing a solo
3. Read lips. Very well. Almost never.
4. Go into management
5. Run a marthon.
6. Get married (apparently).
7. Lower my standards just to get married.

7 Things That Attracted Me to My Spouse

1. His long eyelashes.
2. His fastidiousness.
3. The fact that he greets me every day when I get home from work
4. He never leaves the toilet seat up.
5. His adoring attention to me.
6. His beautiful coat of fur.
7. Huh? Oh, "spouse." I thought you said "cat."

7 Things I Say Often

1. Oh my Helena Montana!
2. Uhhh.....
3. Huh?
4. What'd she say?
5. What are you saying?
6. Oh, for crying in the night!
7. Whoops

7 Books I Could Read Over and Over

1. The Book of Mormon
2. The Old Testament
3. The Harry Potter series (there's six right there!)
4. Cheaper By the Dozen
5. Ella Enchanted
6. I read all the time. I don't know why I can't think of more.
7. But I'll come back to this.

7 Movies I Could Watch Over and Over

1. A League of Their Own
2. Ever After
3. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
4. Pirates of the Caribbean
5. Mean Girls
6. 13 Going on 30
7. Sliding Doors

7 People I Think Should do "7"

1. I'd say her, but she's already done it.
2. I'd say Linda, but she probably won't.
3. QWK, but I'll wait for her to post her results.
4. And after that, I run out of friends.
5.
6.

Ren Faire

(Because I'm not quite sure how to spell "renaissaince," and am too busy to look it up.)

We went to the Ren Faire on Saturday. It's always fun to see people dressed up, even though many of the costumes make me shake my head in wonder. Some people think it's an excuse for a big costume party regardless of era, so there's all sorts of different things that shouldn't be there. Those are the ones who started off for the SciFi/Fantasty convention and made a wrong turn.

It was bigger this year than it has been in the past, or at least, it was less circular, so the beginning to end route took longer because you either went all the way and saw everything, then saw it again on the way back, or .... you didn't. We found that out the hard way when we wanted to go see the Queen's jousting tournament at 2:00. It took us about 20 minutes to make it through the crowds of people all the way to the end, because of course the jousting arena was at the very END of the whole thing.

My purchases that day include a puzzle ring, a puzzle box and a cool custom-made medallion with the tree of life on one side and a representation of the north star from the Chumash tribe on the other. Yes, it was a costly day, but those were things I've been wanting, and I haven't been to a Ren Faire in a long time, so .... there.

We went to go see Ashes and Snow the other day (that's a story for another entry), and I brought my camera with me. On the way back to the car, we stopped to play on some adult-sized playground equipment. It was an opportune photo op. What I didn't realize was that my white balances were all out of whack from playing with the camera before. It was disappointing when I was uploading them to my laptop to see how washed out everything was, but I decided to see if I could salvage any of them, and this is what I came up with:


Not too shabby, eh? The original was awful, but by adjusting the brightness and contrast, I was pleasantly surprised at some of the effects I got. I love how it looks like she's walking on air. And I love how she's so unselfconscious about being photographed.