Sugah's Trip to China

Only I would learn to cha-cha in Shanghai

We started the day with an interesting meeting with FedEx. We learned about FedEx's strategy in the Asian market and enjoyed the fabulous view of Shanghai from our meeting. Then we came back for lunch near the hotel to kill some time. Everyone was craving something non-Chinese so we headed to Micky D's. They have this thing called the Mega Mac over here. Four hambuger patties - they should give you a free coupon for a bypass too (sorry gmsott). The value meal is automatically a large drink and a large fry too. Amazing to watch people eat these all around us. They have a purple pie, we all got one to split and tried it. They still deep fry the pies, I forgot they used to do that. As we were sitting we realized there were a crap load of bikes parked outside. The bikes were in perfect row, now how do you get that many people to park their bikes like that? With parking attendant of course! I shit-you-not, they have a parking attendant for the bikes - they give you a ticket and everything.


Sean, Fraizer and I then headed to Carre Four - the French version of Wal-Mart. This place was a huge supermarket, very clean and nice, it was in the basement of the shopping mall. We were just there to look around and compare it to the US (and to kill time). Holy shnikes (speaking of Nikes - I bought new shoes yesterday...anyway), we see this huge fish tank. This woman grabs a fish with her bare hand (huge things) and chops the head right off. :O Then she lays all the parts on the table in front of her station, cleans off her cutting board (the water is red - like a Jaws movie) and goes for another one.


Then we walk a bit and come across all these crates of live animals. Sea Turtles, box (looked like) turtles, Eels, crabs, etc. I guess you just pick one out and you either take it live or they kill it for you. After seeing that, makes me glad I didn't eat the turtle they ordered the other night. (I couldn't eat it, it came out with part of the shell on, it reminded me of the box turtle we had in Arkansas. So sweet and my mom put it outside to clean its water - well a little bit of water and the sun will boil a turtle - sorry mom).


We decide to check out the meat department to see if they sell dog (just for shits-n-giggles). Well I have never seen anything like this in my life! The meat counters are just like the US, but the meat is not in packages, its in huge piles in the fridge cases (no glass). People are touching and pointing to what they want and its bagged up. I spin on my heels to turn around and there it is. The most bizzare thing I've seen in the store yet (hard to top the live chopping of the fish!), there is a giant box on a stand, it's made of ice. Inside are tons of pieces of beef. There are half a dozen people digging in this box - digging through it like women dig through the Semi-Annual Sale at Victoria Secret (or the clearance bin at Wal-Mart). It's like a train wreck - I don't want to watch but I can't pull my eyes away from it. (I didn't want to be weird and take a picture of the chaos.) Totally grossed out I see a woman in the next aisle with half of her finger up her nose picking it. I think about that and people not washing their hands in the bathroom and I become very ill. If I lived here I could never have beef any less than well-done if I could eat beef at all!!

We then went to meet with the Cisco R&D office. We got a tour of their lab and talked with the #2 guy. Very interesting stuff, I really enjoy these meetings. I picked this guy's brain about challenges he faces when communicating with the HQ in San Jose. I'm really trying to get different views so I can get as much good stuff for my paper for Charles' class and for our Board discussion in August.

We met a IUPUI - Kelley SOB grad for dinner. His name is Gilbert and he was a great guy! He finished his MBA in 2000 (he was in Indy for four years - his family stayed behind in China while he went to school). He now works for a Japanese firm, he is highly regarded in his company for his Western MBA and his Chinese know-how. He talked about his experiences and even gave everyone a Chinese CD so we could take home some of the music. After dinner we took cabs to his house where we met his son and wife. They had a wonderful fruit spread (the fruit here is amazing) and lots of rice wine and beer. He even brought out the cigars - Sean and I had small ones.

Here's Fraizer and Jose talking to him - he used to work at Cummins (where Jose and Fraizer work).


It was very nice of him to open his apartment to us. He has so much IU school pride, it's lovely to see.

After we got back we went to the bar in the hotel. One our way in we had to wade through a sea of teenage girls. Apparently some huge Korean pop star is in our hotel so there have been teenage girls camped out all day. This bar has what I now realize is the typical Chinese live entertainment in international bars - women with chorographed dances that sing all English songs (and some spanish).

John secretly loves to sing, they bring him the mic and he belts it out! He's made a debut there the last three nights and they all know him. He's even made it on stage (it's not a karaoke bar!).


They played a Spanish song and one of the guitar players came up to me to dance. He said come dance with me. I said no, but he dragged me out. I told him I don't know how to cha-cha so he tought me! I picked it up pretty quickly and before I knew it we were dancing away. Only I would learn how to cha-cha in Shanghai. It made me want to look into dance lessons in Indy. I think that would be a fun thing to do.


Tomorrow's our last round of business meetings. We're going to have dinner at the Grand Hyatt, the tallest building in Shanghai. The restaurant is on the 88th floor (I believe). It will be a nice cap to the experience. Then Sean, Erin and I (and a few others) will have Saturday and part of Sunday to finish exploring and experiencing all that Shanghai has to offer - we've got some exciting stuff planned.

Jessica is about to deliver baby Allie - hope the delivery goes well!!

Here's a few answers to some questions:
-No I'm not leaving AKPsi - that's not what I meant about life changes. I will eventually, but not any time soon.
-This trip is a lot of work. I'd say it's about 30% vacation (or less), but it hasn't felt like work.
-Yes, I'm learning a ton.
-No, I'm not buying anymore purses.
-Yes, I'm ready to go home.
-Yes, I'm sick of Chinese food.

:-)

posted by Chrissy @ 1:26 PM