Made it back to Shanghai from Xiangtan on Sunday, and have spent the last few days getting prepared for my holiday! Yes, I'm off to the USA for a month - going to South Carolina (beach week with relatives, two weddings to attend), then Maine and New York (visiting relatives and sightseeing), then back to South Carolina (my brother Daniel's 30th birthday), and then finally to Las Vegas to finish the trip.
So, I probably won't be blogging very much over the next month as a result. Of course, given my track record, that's no surprise :)
USA baby, yeah!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Steel plants, Facebook and stir-fried dog
As I mentioned yesterday, I'm stuck in the small city of Xiangtan at the moment doing some troubleshooting work at a steel plant here. Xiangtan is about 1000km southwest of Shanghai, and is in the Hunan province. It's only got about 1 million residents, so is quite small compared to the other cities I've visited during my travels here.
I spent most of my trips to China in 2006 and 2007 working at the Jigang steel plant in Jinan, and I'd forgotten what it was like. I've been here for only two days, and it's all coming back to me. Getting to work at 8am and leaving at 7pm, everything is dirty, dusty and hot hot hot (you can tell I'm a sheltered programmer used to working in air-conditioned comfort, can't you?). I'm staying here until at least Friday night - the way things are going I'll be here for part of the weekend as well, as they've got a lot of problems to sort through. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but as I'm heading off to the USA on one months holiday next week, I'd kind of like to get back to Shanghai to prepare for my trip.
I'm here with a couple of other engineers from the company that I'm working for. It's funny coming to places like this because unless you can speak Chinese very well, you're basically coddled. I get picked up in a taxi each morning, taken out to a nice restaurant for lunch, taken to exactly the same restaurant for dinner, and then dropped off back at my hotel in a taxi afterwards. Yes, there seems to be only one restaurant they're willing to take me to, and don't trust me to be able to get a taxi from one place to another even though I have a card with my hotel written in Chinese on it.
I shouldn't complain too much about the food here, because it is very tasty (although eating at a different place before I leave might be nice). Hunan is a spicy-food province, and lots of the dishes I have eaten have been covered in different peppers and chillis, which I love. One thing I didn't love was the option to eat 'stir fried dog with potato and green peppers', pointed out in the menu this evening. I politely declined, though I promised my colleagues that I'd happily eat some donkey the next time it was on the menu (I had that back in 2007 and found it was actually pretty good).
On a completely unrelated note, Facebook has been blocked here in China due to the civil unrest going on in Xinjiang (I'm sure you've seen it on the news). Surprisingly, it's on the news here as well - normally the authorities like to sweep this sort of stuff under the rug as much as possible (by ushering out foreign journalists) but in this instance they don't seem to be doing that. It's mentioned on the local news, although I'm getting most of my details from the BBC, who have pretty good coverage thanks to their reporters being allowed to stay near the action. At any rate, even with my special program to bypass the dodgy Chinese firewall, access to both Blogger and Facebook is extremely slow/suspect for the time being.
I spent most of my trips to China in 2006 and 2007 working at the Jigang steel plant in Jinan, and I'd forgotten what it was like. I've been here for only two days, and it's all coming back to me. Getting to work at 8am and leaving at 7pm, everything is dirty, dusty and hot hot hot (you can tell I'm a sheltered programmer used to working in air-conditioned comfort, can't you?). I'm staying here until at least Friday night - the way things are going I'll be here for part of the weekend as well, as they've got a lot of problems to sort through. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but as I'm heading off to the USA on one months holiday next week, I'd kind of like to get back to Shanghai to prepare for my trip.
I'm here with a couple of other engineers from the company that I'm working for. It's funny coming to places like this because unless you can speak Chinese very well, you're basically coddled. I get picked up in a taxi each morning, taken out to a nice restaurant for lunch, taken to exactly the same restaurant for dinner, and then dropped off back at my hotel in a taxi afterwards. Yes, there seems to be only one restaurant they're willing to take me to, and don't trust me to be able to get a taxi from one place to another even though I have a card with my hotel written in Chinese on it.
I shouldn't complain too much about the food here, because it is very tasty (although eating at a different place before I leave might be nice). Hunan is a spicy-food province, and lots of the dishes I have eaten have been covered in different peppers and chillis, which I love. One thing I didn't love was the option to eat 'stir fried dog with potato and green peppers', pointed out in the menu this evening. I politely declined, though I promised my colleagues that I'd happily eat some donkey the next time it was on the menu (I had that back in 2007 and found it was actually pretty good).
On a completely unrelated note, Facebook has been blocked here in China due to the civil unrest going on in Xinjiang (I'm sure you've seen it on the news). Surprisingly, it's on the news here as well - normally the authorities like to sweep this sort of stuff under the rug as much as possible (by ushering out foreign journalists) but in this instance they don't seem to be doing that. It's mentioned on the local news, although I'm getting most of my details from the BBC, who have pretty good coverage thanks to their reporters being allowed to stay near the action. At any rate, even with my special program to bypass the dodgy Chinese firewall, access to both Blogger and Facebook is extremely slow/suspect for the time being.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
A distinct lack of posts
Yes, I've been slack. It's been a month since my last post, which is appalling. However, I did spend 8 days in Australia during that time (no way I was going to be posting then due to all the eating/drinking/catching up with people that was happening) and have just finished a stint where I had some visitors stay with me in Shanghai for 11 days. So there are legitimate reasons.
Anyway, I'm currently in the city of Xiangtan in a hotel with little to do in the evening other than blog about things, so look out for the final updates to the Shotty/Cookie mayhem visit, and a start on the more recent fun including another trip to Beijing and one to Xi'an, the home of the Terracotta Warriors.
Anyway, I'm currently in the city of Xiangtan in a hotel with little to do in the evening other than blog about things, so look out for the final updates to the Shotty/Cookie mayhem visit, and a start on the more recent fun including another trip to Beijing and one to Xi'an, the home of the Terracotta Warriors.
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