experimentation

day after thanksgiving

2009-11-26T16:21:00.000-08:00

I ended up taking the day off. As it was still a day off in the US, but not in China, it was sort of the worst of both worlds: I couldn't really do anything different with Julie and Hannah still in work and school, but also didn't really go out for dinner, nor cook anything at home.

But time off is time off, and I used the time to catch up on sleep. Definitely feel better.

So weatherwise, its about a 1 mile day, and looks like it will be sunny. Cold, around 30 degrees or so.

Plans for the day: Chinese, running, get the H1N1 flu shot, and maybe some work. we'll see how it goes.

2009-11-24T11:57:00.000-08:00

just checking in with the blog after a few months away........

Packing and Reflecting

2009-05-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

By the way, special shout-outs to Morgan, Jack, Gina and poor Andrew, who patiently listened to my stories about China.

So i'm in Nashua to pack. I've lived in Nashua for a long time (almost 20 years), too long actually. I felt the need to move, and finally i'm doing so. Not sure what to do about the final days; Morgan suggested a mini celebration with me taking pictures of myself in the empty house. I do like the picture idea in that I remember what the house looked like when I first moved in (Ugly beige color outside, with no shutters, and paneling on the walls on the inside. Great if it's 1979 or 1982 or so). The guy I bought the house from updated the bathroom (kudos) including replacing the bathtub and vanity, but then buried the cast iron bathtub in the backyard to use as a planter. One of the pleasures that I had after the Camaro was stolen and I bought the Toyota 4x4 was digging up that bathtub (thanks Brad!!), putting it in the truck bed and taking it to the landfill.

I had help with improving the house and painting (Thanks Tarsha, Brad, Morgan, Mr. Jones, and the entire SPADOC program office), and had a few parties. The house went from being a single-dude house to the house with a family in it. We're selling it to a single guy to start the process again. Maybe i'll take a picture after all. Maybe even smoke a cigar to boot. Too bad I didn't buy those Cuban cigars for sale and the Beijing Holiday Inn Lido, this would be a good time to try a Cuban cigar.

Back in the US...

2009-05-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

after one of the best flights ever from Beijing to Boston. This was going to be the first time that I went to the airport since we moved here. It wasn't that hard when I left back in 2006, but with the new terminal, I suspected that I would have to tell the taxi driver something different than "take me to the airport" as Beijing now has 3 major league terminals, and a taxi driver is sure to ask you which terminal you want, as one of them is on a completely different exit from the others. I spent about 5 minutes with Xiao Ma poring over the map of Beijing that Julie bought, and it looks like the gorgeous new terminal is where I want to go, and with her help, I learned how to ask for Terminal 3. Since it was around 1pm on a saturday in the middle of a major holiday (May 1), I end up getting to the new terminal in about 15 minutes door to door.

Terminal 3 is what you'd expect with a new Airport Terminal in the 21st century: a shopping mall with runways. There's plenty of shopping; duty free, restaurants, bookstores, clothing stores, and then there's this stereotypical chinese stuff. Figurines of the terracotta warriors, big and little. Silken fabrics, shirts, dresses. Ahus and pipas playing in the background. I spend most of my time looking at the airport itself, and comparing the number of 777s at the terminal to A300s or A330s. Boeing has a real winner with that airplane, there are about 9 777s at the terminal, and 1 A300.

I'm flying on United 850 from Beijing to Chicago. United was flying a 777 this time. Having flown this route a number of times, I was expecting to get to Chicago around 4pm, but the captain says the trusty flight computer is going to drop us off at O'hare around 1.5 hours early! And it turns out that the flight computer was correct, and our captain got us to O'hare so early that i was able to make the early flight to Boston. No weather delays for once.

Hannah's first full day of school...

2009-04-29T04:28:00.000-07:00

was like a vacation for me! I now understand why parents put their kids into summer camp. Three weeks of me watching after Hannah, trying to keep her occupied with activities, taking her for walks, creating and forcing her into my "mini-school", letting her run around the apartment tearing things up, and doing all this for 8 hours a day is really draining. Rewarding in that you do spend quality time with your kid in those daily 8 hours, but still draining.

I had so much time, I almost didn't know what to do. I ended up delving a bit more into Chinese studies. I'm determined to make sure that I actually know some Chinese as a result of this stay in China.

The past weekend

2009-04-26T07:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the first time that we had at least a little bit of time for all of us to spend together not looking for schools, ayis or apartments. and since it was a nice day, we went to Chaoyang Park on saturday.

Interesting place. struck me as at mix of central park with amusement rides as well. well laid out, and also has the Olympic Beach Volleyball venue still there.

we spent our time wandering around, letting hannah do her thing, and flying kits.

Afterward, we went to a xingjiang restaurant. It's interesting that in the US, there don't tend to be any Xingjiang restaurants at all there, so you know you're definitely in China when you eat at one. Xinjiang refers to the western Chinese province of Xinjiang. It is predominately a rural and muslim area.

Sunday, Julie's cold that had been brewing since her return from Suzhou for business flared up. She went to a local chinese doctor for medicine, and one of the many massage places for a massage. This left Hannah, Maiya and I with some time on our hands, which we spent at the 798 Art Zone. It turns out that this place is about a long city block north of our apartment, and has an interesting little history.

If I was made of money....

2009-04-24T09:38:00.000-07:00

Beijing, with its 13 million or so people, is definitely an interesting city. I'm looking at it right now, and with the smog lifted, the city skyline shows clearly. At night, the view is of miles and miles of buildings, the halogen lights cast a slight golden sheen to everything, and plenty of flashing red, green, blue, and every other color. There aren't a lot of sirens here, or at least I tend not to hear them here on the 25th floor, but there is the usual honking of taxis and traffic, as the corner we live on is pretty busy. Because we like this area for its easy access to schools, stores and other necessities of big city life, Julie and I talked of buying an apartment here, as an investment as well as a home.

A quick search of The Beijinger website put the brakes on that. It wasn't that we were coming up against listings for villas in the $1 million plus range (the villas usually end up being in the deep Beijing suburbs, because that's where the land is), but more that even at the low end, small 2 bedroom/1 bathroom apartments in the nicer neighborhoods are running around $400,000. This would not be surprising for most big cities (and New Yorkers, San Franciscans and others are probably going "that's so cheap!"), but it's definitely more that what we wanted to pay.

So this has left us with renting. Just a quick update on the rental front: we've found an apartment we like, for a price we like. Conveniently, it's in the building next door, which is part of the same complex here. So moving expenses can be pretty low; just Julie, our Ayi (we call her Xiao Ma) and me hauling suitcases down one elevator, and up another to the new apartment. Unfortunately, this is all happening while i'm likely to be in the US wrapping up the sale of the house in NH, or attending a conference in Las Vegas. (It's worth mentioning that today, we all got our passports back from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.) So it looks like Julie and Xiao Ma will have to do the heavy lifting (literally and figuratively) for the move, which is expected to occur around early May.

Oh, and as a cute little aside, we were informed at the last minute that Hannah needed a health exam for entry into the preschool in which we are enrolling her. The school has a special form that they want completed by the doctor, and this exam includes a blood test. Of course, this exam has to be completed by next wednesday, when Hannah is expected to start full time. After cursing out the school, we by some alchemy end up getting an appointment with a Dr at the Beijing United Family clinic. This place is staffed by western doctors, and Chinese doctors with strong english skills, just what a english speaking dad needs to get his daughter examined, and blood drawn for the first time. So we ended up with the exam requirement just about completed, with only the completed form a necessity. The clinic says that they will call us when the form is ready, which is expected to be tomorrow, or monday at the latest.

i'm told the house husband thing is more prevalent these days....

2009-04-20T05:37:00.000-07:00

So we came here because J's job was heading up a small office here. Well, 3 weeks into it, Julie's job is getting really busy right away. lThe weekend was busy as usual, but we ended up having lunch with Markus and Xiaoshan (long time friends of Julie's going back to her days in the 1990s in Beijing) at some Tex-Mex place. Then the following day, we end up having lunch at a place called Annie's, which caters to foreigners wanting some Italian food. I had a pretty decent pepperoni pizza. After lunch, we looked for bikes, and it turns out that there is a Giant bike dealer here not too far from the apartment. Julie definitely wants a bike, and I was thinking that if I could get a mountain bike for cheap, I might use it for exercise here. Though there aren't even many small hills here, we are thinking that carrying Hannah to school on a bike would make for some good exercise. I can certainly use another crosstraining exercise. And it turns out that some of these bikes are actually decent for around $300-$400. But we'll put the bikes on the back burner, as we need money for getting the apartment, and buying stuff to furnish it.

So here we are on monday. Julie had a big meeting for which she had to work on giving a presentation. She's been working on it for the past week or so, and spent much of last night rehearsing it. I figured that today, after work, she'd return home around 6pm or so, tired but happy that the briefing is over. But after I go for a run, I return to shower and find out that she has to attend a reception for a UN Undersecretary General at the Great Hall of the People as I write this, and I'm here at home getting the kids in bed. And to think that some of you thought I was sexist......

on a clear day....

2009-04-15T04:07:00.000-07:00

so I woke up to find a nice clear day here in Beijing. Beijing is much like Los Angeles, in that when you see thick smog over the city, it's very depressing. Smog limits the visibility sometimes down to about 3000-5000 feet, and turns everything a light grey. On days when it's really thick, you can smell a charcoal smell in the air. I remember when i first got to LA, that i was in our yard, and then ended up seeing the neighborhood, and thinking this was Southern California. But then a week or two later, the Santa Ana winds started blowing, and I could actually see the mountains to the north of the metropolitan LA area. Its on a day like that that I remember thinking, this is why people come to LA; the mountains provided a nice backdrop to the rolling hills leading up to their base, and the hills themselves were peppered with houses and building and trees and green space.

Beijing is similar in that we're deep in the city, and see more 25-40 story buildings. The green space is far smaller, and I can see trees sprinkled here and there. There are mountains to the north and west of the city, about 20 miles away. You can certainly see airplanes on final approach into Beijing Capital airport. The entire scene makes you optimistic about your time in China.

Running, or in my case, jogging

2009-04-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

I ran 5 miles earlier today. This isn't particularly interesting in itself, but in the context of my knee surgery about 3 weeks ago, it's somewhat interesting.

This surgery happened on March 18, 9 days before we flew to China. Knee surgery is a bit of an overstatement anyway. The surgeon removed the loose body that was floating around in the knee joint these past 5 years or so, and removed some "debris" from the underside of my kneecap in an arthroscopic procedure lasting about 30 minutes. As the surgeon described it, he was just going to make 2 incisions in the front of the knee, just below the kneecap, one incision on the left, the other on the right. He would then put his trusty camera in one incision and the grabbing/cleaning device in the other. Really easy, he's done this 000s of times over the past few decades. I guess that experience paid off, because the day before we flew, I was in his office for a post-surgery checkup, and he said that I was having a great recovery. He said keep walking around on the airplane when you fly to China, then as you spend the first week getting over jet lag, maybe take a brisk walk, then do a little run. But there should be no problems with it thereafter.

And to his credit, there haven't been many problems. The good news is today's is the 4th run i've done since i've been in China. I ran out from the hotel/apartment where we're staying and back. It turns out that east of us is dozens of industrial parks, not hutongs as I wrote earlier. One of those industrial parks is even an artist colony. If you're on google maps, i run from Star City Landmark International hotel, to the China Rail Museum. Lots of dust, power lines, construction and sewer smells along the route.

Every once in awhile, I find amusement with people when I run, as I guess not many foreigners run along this route. People wonder where I am from. I overheard a few guys talking as I passed. One dude apparently thinks i'm French. Maybe he knows my last name for some reason.

settling in, part two

2009-04-12T02:55:00.000-07:00

the past week has been dominated by the search for a school for Hannah, and a search for more permanent living arrangements.

On the school front, we have a specific set of choices. We've looked at 2 pre-schools. the first is the Ivy International school. It's about a quarter mile from where Julie works. It's very western, and the English on their website is native speaker American. Visiting the school confirms what you suspect, that English is the primary language of the staff, but many speak Chinese. When we showed up at the school, we were ushered to a room plastered with pictures of the students, and they were a mix of Asian, and European kids. There was even an dark-skinned girl; I would have ordinarily said she was African American, but there are plenty enough Africans in Beijing, and she might be a child of someone from an African embassy. The principal that came to discuss enrolling Hannah was a young guy, maybe about 32 or so. He was Chinese, but spoke English with a British accent. Around the school, the design reminded me of some European views; furniture that was functional, simple faces to cabinets; lots of signs, drawings and pictures in both Chinese and English.

The other school was distinctly Chinese. The signs, drawings, pictures were in English only. This place was, we found out, basically used by Chinese people that were familiar with the Chinese school system, and wanted that for their kids, but with a lot more English instruction. The school itself was in one of the Chinese neighborhoods northeast of downtown Beijing. While all the kids had English names, they had Chinese faces to their pictures. The staff was very friendly, and they had a enormous playground with lots of space to run and jump, and also the largest slides, tallest swings and biggest tubes for kids to play than any other playground i've seen.

It's clear that both offer advantages and disadvantages. The Chinese school would give Hannah strong foundation in spoken and written Mandarin, but the initial period would be a big change for Hannah. The Chinese school's staff was also primarily only Chinese speakers, including the principal, so the only communication would have to be between Julie and the staff. The Westernized school would be more familiar to Hannah, less of a transition for her in terms of communication, but her written and spoken Mandarin is not going to be as good. Interesting set of compromises. we'll see what we end up doing.

Meanwhile, on the apartment front, we've seen a mix of 4 bedroom apartments. Some are fantastic, but we don't want to pay that much for an apartment, and others are only so-so, and they're in your price range. I am hoping that we should be able to pin down a place soon; I'm having to go back to the US on May 2 for various reasons, including closing on the house.

Settling In.....

2009-04-06T08:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, about a week and a half since the last post. Here's where we stand:

1. gotten our bearings here at the Star City Landmark International Apartments. We're somewhere around halfway between the airport and the heart of the city near 3rd ring road. This particular building has quite a few foreigners, but we're about a 3 blocks away from the Lido section of town, which has foreigners crawling over it like an ant colony. Europeans, Americans, even a few Africans. And where there are foreigners, there's foreign food, including the $4 lattes to be had at Starbucks.

2. Started shopping at the local Lotte Mart. Think of it as a grocery store on one floor with a department store on the other floor. Cut rate department store, but with decent merchandise. We've started furnishing our new place.

3. Noticed that Beijing is definitely smoggy. I estimated that visibility was around 3000 yards when I first arrived in Beijing, but a couple of days later, smog had lifted significantly, and now I could see airplanes on final approach to Beijing Capital Airport, around 5 miles away. I could even make out that there is another town about 20 miles to the east, mountains to the north about 20 miles, and mountains to the west about 20 miles.

4. Gotten our residence permits from the government. These are the official little documents that say we can live in the building. Flimsy little doc, i'm afraid i might have actually lost mine already.

Wherever You Go, There You Are

2009-03-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

Julie picked up the visas on wednesday!!! After an uneventful drive to NYC, I get a text message while i'm in an analyst event saying that she had the visas. Later that day, when I get home, I start packing in earnest.

Thursday comes and goes. I had wanted to clear my calendar of work events, but meetings and calls got scheduled and held anyway. I ended up finishing my packing around 11pm or so, and this was prior to the 5am wake-up call we were giving ourselves to get ourselves and the girls ready to head to the airport.

The airport ride was as uneventful as we'd hoped. The skies were overcast, but no snow, sleet, rain or hail was in the forecast. We got to Logan Airport in about 55 minutes, which was fast. Check-in at Air Canada in Terminal 2 was no problem, and we ended up with 2.5 hours to kill. Kill them we did, chasing Hannah and Maiya around the terminal, and then heading to gate. Finally got on the airplane with no problems, and got into sunny Toronto on time.

More time to kill at Pearson Airport. Spent it walking around, feeding the girls, hearing them complain, run around, chase each other and other kids, then finally boarded the Airplane. The captain, an affable guy, tells us that we're going to fly over Greenland, then the Artic, which is apparently pretty difficult, because he then warns us that he's a trained professional, and we shouldn't try flying over the Artic at home.

So, after an uneventful flight from Boston and Toronto, and Toronto to Beijing, we landed at Beijing amidst some pretty light smog. Getting through customs was not a problem, but getting our 8 bags out of baggage claim was just plenty of work. Qingtian was their to meet us as we left baggage claim. He's one of Julie's new coworkers. He graciously came to the airport (on a saturday afternoon!!), and then came with us to the temporary apartment to make sure that we were checked in ok.

So here we are in Beijing. Beijing is definitely the city that sleeps, at least on this side of town. We're in the northeast corner of Beijing, about 6 miles or so as the crow flies from Tiananmen Square, and other well known Chinese landmarks. A street scene here is pretty dull; much of the immediate area is industrial park mixed in with huotong, the small Chinese neighborhoods that house many local Beijingers. Huotongs remind me of the village back near Tianshui where Julie did her research. No indoor plumbing, and heat in the entire 1 bedroom/living room and kitchen consists of a single small coal fired stove. Hopefully the outhouse is nearby.

2009-03-26T20:12:00.000-07:00

T- 11 hours....

today, Julie sold the Mazda. I ended up working from home. I took Hannah to the launching pad (the preschool she attends). at the end of the day, I pick her up. Even though I've never met the staff, it was bittersweet seeing Hannah say goodbye to one of the teachers there. Interesting that it seems that it might be starting to hit me that I'm leaving the area....

I'm packing very late. not quite what I had planned on doing, but that's ok.

Because I like flying, I wanted to talk a bit about the flight. We're flying Air Canada Flight 359 from Boston to Toronto, and Air Canada flight 31 from Toronto to Beijing. Here's the flight plan (thanks to flightaware) for Canada 359:

Embraer 175 (twin-jet) (E170/Q)
Origin	Boston Logan Intl (KBOS - track or info)
Destination	Lester B. Pearson Intl (CYYZ - track or info)
	Other flights between these airports
Route	MHT SYR BUF YOUTH2
Date	Friday, Mar 27, 2009
Duration	1 hours 24 minutes
Status	Scheduled
	Scheduled	Actual/Estimated
Departure	11:05AM EDT	11:05AM EDT
Arrival	12:29PM EDT	12:29PM EDT

and for Canada 31:

Boeing 777-300ER (twin-jet) (B77W/Q)
Origin	Lester B. Pearson Intl (CYYZ - track or info)
Destination	Beijing Capital (ZBAA - track or info)
	Other flights between these airports
Route	TONNY V34 YEE J556 YYB YVO YFM 5600N 07246W 5800N 07151W 6100N 07013W YFB 6630N 07000W 7000N 07000W 7500N 06800W 8000N 06000W 8500N 05000W ABERI B934 UOHH B934 MX B155 TUNIR A45 USONA G490 SERNA M520 POLHO G218 TMR B458 TZH A596 KM KM02A
Date	Friday, Mar 27, 2009
Duration	12 hours 1 minutes
Status	Scheduled
	Scheduled	Actual/Estimated
Departure	03:51PM EDT	03:51PM EDT
Arrival	03:52AM EDT	03:52AM EDT

looks like the Toronto/Beijing leg will take us to within 5 degrees of the North pole.

Nearing the Event Horizon

2009-03-25T19:36:00.002-07:00

-2 days.....

this was an eventful day. On the professional side, i've just completed 2 busy days at the HP Industry Analyst Summit down in Boston. 2 days of briefings and meetings with HP senior executives. Always informative and productive. I ended up telling more coworkers that i'm moving to China, but will be working east coast hours. I also met a colleague from the Asia/Pacific office whom I might end up collaborating with on projects.

Personally, it was more interesting. With the house being under agreement effective monday, we only needed the visas from the Chinese Consulate to top off a productive week, let alone allow us to enter China. Julie got the call from the consulate first thing monday morning, and she decided to drive down on wednesday to pick them up. And today she did so, driving down with her friend Elda. The good news was indeed, the visas were successfully picked up. However, the bad news was that the Mazda she's in the middle of selling got hit by a large heavy piece of debris from the road while driving back. Shook up Julie pretty bad, as the pipe or whatever it was that was thrown off from the car in front of her hit her windshield in front of her, and created a pretty significant crack in the windshield. She can still see though it, but the windshield will definitely need replacing. And the hood received a healthy 4 inch scratch as well. But Julie is fine. Now hopefully, the young couple interested in the car on monday are still interested in buying it now.

As an aside, I was expecting diplomatic visas to be something grander than what it is: a plain jane visa with a different letter in the spot for "type of visa". Something like a gold stamp that took up a couple of passport pages. Maybe something that had trumpets blaring whenever you opened up the passport. This looks like the plain visa I had when I was traveling as a tourist.

2009-03-22T19:12:00.001-07:00

today, we apparently negotiated to completion the sale of the house. I'm happy to have done that. I've been in this house for 19 years, 4 months and about 7 days. This is after consistently moving to different locations every 4 years for the first 26 years of my life.

Julie is selling the 1998 Mazda she bought a few years ago. She's close to getting a deal with someone. So this is also a positive.

The only remaining major milestone is the visas we need from the Chinese consulate. we are supposedly flying friday to Beijing, but we go nowhere without those visas. And Julie has to go to NYC to boot. 250 miles from Nashua; about a 4-5 hour drive.

march 21, 2009

2009-03-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

let's think about a countdown. -7. decided to go to best buy to get a dvd player for the flight. Hope to keep the girls occupied with it during the 13 hour Toronto-Beijing leg. will buy some cheap movies later.

A young guy came up to me at the checkout line at Best Buy. It turns out that he and I took martial arts together at the Martial Arts school on Amherst St in Nashua. His name is Brian, and he also knows Foster Haskell, another student from the school. I left the school around 2004, just as I attained a black belt, and also as Master Adams took over the school from Sifu Cambpell. Said that the school was not for him, and he ended up continuing his wushu training from Donnie Chen's mother in Melrose. Interesting how i've ended up seeing multiple people from that school around. There were a few more people that i met through the school, and most notably, Jonathan Eunice, who it turns out has his on market research and analysis firm in Nashua.

I started packing in earnest. It turns out that I might need two suitcases after all; one for casual clothes, and one for the kinds of business casual things I need to work. Collared shirts, suits, blazer and so on.

An offer came in on the house today that I might actually consider. Interesting the entire home selling process. After being in this house for almost 20 years, and going through buyer's remorse, being underwater on the mortgage for about 8 years, then being ahead only in the past 6 or so years, financially this has been an interesting experience. But on the life front, this is a whole different matter. A number of relationships have happened and ended in this house, and i've gone from being an Air Force officer to being an analyst. In between, I went to business school, and worked for a civilian contractor for the Air Force.

Here we start: March 20, 2009, Nashua NH

2009-03-20T19:59:00.001-07:00

Somehow, I didn't really think i'd end up blogging. And here I am anyway. But we'll see how this goes.....

It is good to start thinking about the impending move to China. When the family and I were in Lanzhou back in 2005/2006, there were actually a number of times that I wished that I had written more down somewhere about what we did day to day. like the conversations with WX. Meeting WQ's family in his small cramped apartment that he shared with his parents, and being able to have dinner with them. Having WQ's dad offer me bijiu. Being grateful that Julie warned me about how Chinese men tend to gang up on foreigners so that the poor foreigner ends up drinking way too much. Going to JinChang and having the company sponsors (all guys) goad me into drinking. Fun stuff, memorable stuff.

More stories to come. I just came back from a Baha'i function. Julie's parents are here.
The girls are in bed.