Packing

I have lived in my condo for a little over 8 years now. While I do occasionally go through periods where I clean and throw out excess items that I have gathered, I still have a lot of stuff to throw out. It's amazing how much stuff I have gathered over the years that I don't need anymore.

Anyhow, I have been packing up my things in preparation for my move to storage this weekend. I have learned that I am very bad at estimating the number of boxes that I need. And I know unpacking will be a nightmare (I'm lucky if I marked the room the box goes into... I know, not my usual obsessive-compulsive behavior).

So, for those of you who have packed and moved more regularly. What do you do with the extra stuff that just doesn't fit into any of the boxes?

32 Days Later

It has been 32 days since I last was in the office. This morning, when I was driving to work, the route seemed as foreign as it felt familar. Which hopefully explains why I missed my exit. As I was passing the exit, I was thinking "Hmmn, I think I need to get off the freeway soon". I didn't think 32 days was enough to forget something that was on "auto-pilot" before, but add some jetlag in and anything is possible.

The wrong turn ended up ok because I found a gas station. I prepared myself for the $80 it would cost to fill up my tank, but when I tried my credit card, it was rejected. Why? Because I spent Monday changing the address on all of my accounts and I couldn't figure out which ZIP code I was supposed to use. Sigh. I did eventually get gas. Just had to use a different credit card.

Once in the office, I knew it was going to be a rough day. Having people chase you down at 8:30 in the morning is never a good sign for the rest of the day. And the day just went downhill from there. Luckily, my patience held out and tomorrow should be a bit better.

So good to be home

It is good to be home finally. I'm exhuasted and my sleep schedule is totally screwed up, but I'm home. I'm in the process of packing to move, so I probably won't be writing much over the next week or so. Have a good week!

HOME

The day has finally come!!!

I

GET

TO

GO

HOME

TODAY!!!!!

Tighter Borders

When I was in China a couple of weeks ago, the borders were pretty open. Clearing customs and immigrations was relatively easy. I went back and forth between China and Hong Kong multiple times without any issue. Since then, apparently they have tightened the borders.

Today, when I tried to cross the Hong Kong to China border, our van was "chosen" to be screened. This included a couple of customs agents going through my suitcase/bags as well as the rest of the car. I love having strangers going through my dirty clothes... Anyhow, about an hour into the inspection, I had the driver call another driver on the China side to pick me up. I have no idea how long the other driver had to sit there while his car was being searched and x-rayed.

In China, they also have internal borders, between "regions". To get from the factory to the hotel, we have to pass through one of these borders. Usually there is a guard standing there, but I've never actually seen a car stopped. Today, they were stopping almost every car/van with passengers in it and again, I was stopped. My coworker and I were asked to exit the van and they took us into a small room and asked us to wait. After some jokes that we were going to end up in jail, they gave us back our passports and we were allowed to leave. Not sure what they did with our passports, but I sure am glad I am heading home tomorrow.

We think they have stepped up their border controls in China in a response to the trouble the Olympic torch relay has experienced. Also, we think it's going to get more and more difficult to get through the borders as we get closer to the summer games... I just hope I'm allowed to exit the country tomorrow.

In Room Check-In

What is with in-room check-in?

I guess I have stayed enough nights in Intercontinental and Crowne Plaza hotels that I have reached "platinum" status in their frequent guest program. This means upgrades to slightly nicer rooms (I'm in a very nice room tonight) and in-room check-in on arrival. I think it's just weird to have someone follow you up to your room, fill out paperwork there and check you in.

How about I just use the front desk to check-in from now on?

I'm gonna tell them to add that into my profile... no in-room check-in.

Change of Itinerary

I had to change my travel plans today. I need to head into China "on the way home". After a few calls to/from our travel service (one was at 4AM), I am finally set. No stop in the Tokyo airport to eat sushi, but I'll get home around the same time as I had planned.

Here's what is left of my trip:

-Fly from Malaysia to Singapore Wednesday
-Spend 12 hours in Singapore (overnight) Wednesday
-Fly from Singapore to Hong Kong Thursday
-Spend 24 hours between Hong Kong and China Thursday/Friday
-Fly from Hong Kong to SFO Friday (This is when I will officially return from the future)

I can't wait to get home!

Eating like a local

Just so you guys don't forget what I look like, this is a picture of me eating lunch at a very local shop. I think I'm eating the tofu since I had already eaten my noodles at that point. I have tons of great scenery pictures from the Penang island tour on Sunday, but thought you would enjoy seeing my smiling face more... Oh, and the picture is all foggy because it really is THAT humid here.

Don’t Thunderstorm on My Parade

Today started with breakfast, answering some work e-mails and lounging by the pool. About 2 hours into lounging, the clouds changed from puffy white clouds to dark thunderstorm clouds. So, it was back to the room to wait out the storm. Luckily, it did not last long.

There are wave runner rentals on the beach, so that was the next activity. I had never been on one before, but it was so much fun. I almost flew off a few times, but managed to stay on. Totally worth the $40 US dollars for an hour on the wave runner!

Next was supposed to be parasailing, but with lightning in the area, they postponed the parasailing until the storm cleared. To pass the time until they would start the parasailing again, we wandered along the beach. Right on the beach, there was a massage place, so it was time for some relaxation. I had an hour foot massage and a 30-minute back/shoulder massage. That cost me $25 US dollars including tip!

By this time, it was way past lunch, so we wandered into town for some food. Passed a food stall selling fried bananas and that was a great snack on the way back to the hotel. It felt good to get out of the humid air and I was pretty tired, so it was time for a nap.

For dinner, we went to the local hawker stall area. Sort of like a food court at a fair with all the little stands selling all different kinds of foods. To order, you go to the food stand, tell them your table number and what you want. When it is finished, they bring it to your table and you pay then. Pretty fun and the food was good and cheap. We had 5 dishes for about $8 US dollars. And there was a lot of food left over.

Right nearby was the night market where you can find all kinds of “faux” items. Purses, copy DVDs, shoes, t-shirts, etc. I picked up a few illegal DVDs. Nothing else was of good quality.

To get back to the hotel, we strolled along the beach and stopped to watch the lightning storm in the distance. What a great day!!!

Weekends

Business travel is not all bad. I appreciate being able to see places that I would likely never get to if the company weren't paying for it. And I feel quite lucky lots of the time.

This weekend will definitely be one of those times. Instead of staying in the industrial part of Penang, I am moving to a hotel on the north side of the island. A beach resort to be exact.



I'll be spending the weekend at the Shangri-la's Rasa Sayang resort. I'm looking forward to relaxing in a lounge chair on the beach and/or sitting by the pool. And if I feel up to it, I may visit the spa.

I'm hoping the change of scenery will recharge me for the last week of my trip!

Stowaway

I have a stowaway... This was given to me this weekend in hopes it would make me feel better. And you know what? It did.

Singapore

On Friday, I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with my stomach. I felt fine when I landed in Singapore late on Friday night, but by Saturday morning, I wasn’t feeling so great. I ate breakfast and went back to sleep.

By early afternoon, I was feeling a bit better, but not good enough to leave the controlled environment of the hotel. My friend, who is an ex-pat living in Singapore came over to hang out with me. We walked around the mall that is attached to the hotel and decided to see a movie. It was a Chinese movie called “Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon”. It was subtitled, but I got tired of reading after about 20 minutes, so I decided to listen to the Chinese instead.

By the end of the movie, my stomach wasn’t happy again (who thought popcorn was a good idea?), so I sent my friend to find bland food for dinner and I headed back to the hotel.

On Sunday, my friend and I walked around town a bit. It was really hot outside... Oppressively hot in some areas of town. We stopped in Chinatown and had foot reflexology massages. I know I’ve mentioned how painful foot massages can be in Asia and this one was no different.

Anyhow, after the massages we wandered around Chinatown some more and had a bite to eat. My stomach seemed ok with this, but I didn’t eat much just in case. Then it was back to the hotel.


That was about it for my weekend. It was a bit boring (not nearly as boring as this blog entry… congrats on reading this far), but the quiet weekend was good. Hopefully my friend wasn’t too bored.

Skymap

I'll write about my weekend in Singapore when I get a chance. For now, here is a cool picture from when I went from Chicago to Hong Kong. Up and over the North Pole. I've been meaning to post this for a while now, but just got around to it.

Speaking of planes, I need to head to the airport for my flight to Malaysia.

View of America

At lunch last week, I was asked if I own a gun. I told them that I did not own a gun and asked why they would ask a question like that. They said they believe that everyone in America owns a gun so we can go around shooting each other and protecting our money. One engineer said that he had heard you could shoot someone if they enter your house.

I did my best to explain that I did not own a gun and that none of my friends own guns... that I know of. And that it had to be extreme circumstances in order to shoot someone that breaks into your home. But, they said this is all they see in the news in China.

So there it is, that’s what people think of America. Of course, they never see the good stuff, because that’s not considered “news”.

Mr. Better

I saw this sign on the way to the airport on Friday. I’m not sure what they are advertising here, I think it might be for the mass transit system in Hong Kong, but I thought it was funny.

Mr. Better is a few signs away from Ms. Caring.

Too Good to Pass Up

Now, I normally don't post stuff like this in my blog, but this was too good to pass up. Check out this outfit... It's not a very clear picture because I had to be stealthy when taking it, but you get the idea.

Far From Home

So this morning, as I was sitting by myself (again), in the back of the 9-passenger van on the way to work, I realized how far I am from home. I guess this shouldn’t be a surprise since I am almost 7000 miles away at the moment.

Today completes 2 weeks away from home and marks the halfway point of my trip. This feeling usually comes around day 10 of a trip because I miss the comforts and freedoms I have at home. But since early January, my condo has not felt like home because it has been staged and on the market. It is difficult to be comfortable when people are coming through your house every day.

And I can usually get used to or manage the loss of freedom. Even though it sounds glamorous, depending on a driver to get into work every morning or a taxi to get to the store really isn’t that much fun. But like I said, I’ve learned to manage that.

What I have the hardest time with is being on my own for so long. It is a strange existence to be surrounded by so many people, but be completely alone. And even though I usually work with the same people, the role of customer (me) and supplier (them) needs to stay intact.

Being alone here reminded me of how lucky and grateful I am to be surrounded by friends and family when I am home. Of course, this made me miss home more, but you get what I mean.


I hope flying to Singapore tonight will help suppress the feeling some. A change of scenery usually helps for a little while!

Hong Kong

This past weekend, I had planned to go to Hong Kong Disneyland with a friend from Singapore, but those plans fell through. Instead, I had a fun weekend in Hong Kong with a friend-of-a- friend who had just moved to Hong Kong from the US.

We had dinner and drinks on Friday night, then on Saturday, we met at the MTR (metro) station and went to see the big Buddha (Tian Tan Buddha). I was told today that this is the biggest Buddha statue in the world, but the internet says it’s not.

To get to it, it required riding in a gondola up and over some mountain peaks....


Once at the top, there is a little tourist village fully equipped with a Starbucks!


A short walk later and you are at the base of the steps to the statue.
268 steps later, we were rewarded with some great views of the statue, the surrounding mountains and the sea. And I had 268 reminders of how out-of-shape I have gotten…

MSG

I went to the store yesterday to try to find chips. I looked at all of them and all of them had MSG on the ingredients list. Although I wasn’t able to find any chips, I did see lots of interesting flavor chips. Here are some of them. Comment and vote on your favorite!

Lay’s Brand
-Classic American Flavor
-Sizzling Beef flavor
-Chili Beef flavor
-Prawn flavor
-Cool Cucumber flavor
-Italian Red Meat flavor
-Mexican Chicken Fiesta
-French Chicken

Cheetos
-Peanut and cheese flavor
-Vegetable flavor

Remind me to bring chips in my suitcase next time I go on one of these business trips…

Countdown

In honor of the signs they have posted for the countdown to the Olympics... My own countdowns:

17 days

until...

I go home

(I shouldn't have counted... this seems like forever from now)

---------------------

28 days

until...

I am homeless

(Assuming escrow goes well)

---------------------

45 days

until...

My towhouse is finished

(Yay!)

Olympics

These signs are all over China and Hong Kong. It's the countdown to the start of the Olympic games in Bejing on 8-8-08.

One Weekend Behind

I just realized I never wrote about my weekend on the east coast, so here it is… a bit late, but hopefully still worth reading.

For the last weekend in March, I headed to Washington, D.C. for the Madness of March weekend. This was the 2nd annual gathering, but I wasn’t at the first one, so it was new to me. In total, there were 6 of us in Lecia’s one bedroom and (more importantly) one bathroom apartment.

Whitney flew in from Atlanta, Colleen and Brian flew in from Boston, Julie took the bus in from NY, and I flew in from San Francisco. I got in quite late because of flight delays and everyone was tired from their travels, so we didn’t do much the first night.

On Saturday morning, we headed out to tour around D.C. The first stop was the Zoo then the National Mall. There were thousands of kites in the air around the Washington Monument. There were kites shaped like pirate ships, space ships, fighter jets, and even dragons. We kept looking to buy a kite, but no one was selling them.

Next we headed towards the Lincoln Memorial and joined the mobs of people trying to get pictures.

Then we went to see the cherry blossoms. They were beautiful and they were everywhere! It was just the beginning of the Cherry Blossom Festival. After a ton of walking, we enjoyed a late lunch before taking the metro back to Lecia’s place to rest for a bit.

That evening, we went to the Cleveland Park Bar and Grill to watch some basketball. After drinks, food, and lots of laughs, we wandered across the street to an Irish pub and ate the best nachos ever! After more fun and laughs, it was time to call it a night.

Sunday was a lazy day. Colleen, Brian, and Whitney needed to catch flights that afternoon and Julie needed to catch the bus back to New York. I flew out on Monday morning and that was the end of the Madness of March weekend. I can’t wait until next year!

Oh, and for those of you wondering, we survived just fine with one bathroom!

Contract

After way too many days on the market, my condo is in escrow. Finally.

I’m sure it wasn’t the best offer I could have gotten, but after taking everything into consideration, it was enough.

There is no doubt that the past few months have been very stressful. Sitting back and waiting has never been a strength of mine. Since I wasn’t able to actively work towards a solution, I was actively worrying. And there was always a level of anxiety that I just couldn’t get rid of. The stress isn’t gone, but it’s better.

Assuming everything goes well with escrow, I’ll need to be out of my condo in early May. The next step will be bridging the time until I can move into my new townhouse. At least that is something I can actively plan for.

Monkey Arms

When I buy shirts in US stores, the sleeves are never long enough. For example, the sleeves on some of my work shirts are close to 3 inches short when my arms are at my sides. They barely reach to the middle of my forearm when I'm lifting my arms or pointing at something.

So, today, I did one of the things I've wanted to do for a while. I went to a tailor in Hong Kong and am having some work shirts made to fit me. I flipped through the fabric sample books and picked some that I liked. And for those of you who know me, it won't be a surprise that 3 of the 5 shirts will be white.

We bargained over price, they measured me, and they are in the process of making one shirt for me. I will try it on tomorrow to ensure the measurements are correct, then they will make the others for me. I should be able to pick up the 5 shirts on Tuesday!

Of course, this presents some other issues for me. First is how to get back into Hong Kong on Tuesday before the shop closes (I need to be in China for work). And second is where to pack them since I didn't leave any space in my suitcase.

Holiday

Today is a national holiday in China. Directly translated, it is called "Tomb Sweeping Day". This is the first year they are celebrating the holiday in China. A sign of the changing times here.

Most people are spending the day paying respect to their ancestors. I will be shopping. I am headed into Hong Kong and will return on Sunday evening.

Cherry Blossoms

I don't feel like writing today. Day one has not gone well for one of my projects. In fact, I may not even need to be here at all this week. Sigh.

Well, please enjoy this pretty picture until I feel like writing.

April Fools Day

Today is April Fools Day. I spent the day on a flight so long that seemed like it had to be a cruel hoax.

We boarded the plane in Chicago during a thunderstorm. There was lightning, so they had to stop loading the baggage (to protect the ground staff). 30 minutes later, they started loading the baggage again. We left the gate just over an hour after our scheduled departure time. Then, we lined up behind 8 other jumbo jets for take-off. Finally, we were on our way.

Once in the air, we had our lunch service. I watched a movie while eating and finished the movie ~2 hours later. I then checked the sky map to see how much progress we had made. 13.5 hours left until arrival. So, I started reading my new book and took a 1/2 dose of a sleeping pill. 10 chapters later, I decided to go to sleep, but first I checked the sky map... 12 hours until arrival. Hmmn. Time seems to be moving slowly. I managed to sleep for what seemed like a long time. Unfortunately, I was only asleep for 4 hours. 8 hours to go until landing. Sigh. At this point, I started to get frustrated. I played video games on my PSP until the battery died (2.5 hours), read some more (2 hours), and listened to music. Still over 3 hours to go. Back to my book. With about 2 hours left, I couldn't stand reading anymore. All I wanted was to get off the plane. I didn't care that we were over the middle of China somewhere.

I managed to make it without jumping out of the plane, but it was tough. 12-13 hours is the longest flight I'm used to and the extra 3 hours and delay at Chicago made this a hard flight to make it through.