Today I went to the bank to pick up my Olympics Tickets
This is a picture of the envelope.
This is one of the tickets.
Tags: beijing 2008, olympics, tickets
Archive for the “Commentary” CategoryToday I went to the bank to pick up my Olympics Tickets This is a picture of the envelope. This is one of the tickets. Tags: beijing 2008, olympics, tickets
Jun
03
2008
Everyone loves flying out of ShanghaiPosted by: Chris in China, Commentary, Life, TravelI went to Shanghai this weekend to attend a Toastmasters conference (District 85P Spring Conference), and of course, to cheer on 2 of my club’s members who competed in the District-level Evaluation and Speaking contests. Sadly, they didn’t place. As a good friend of mine recently move from Beijing to Shanghai, I decided to extend my trip by one day to spend Sunday with him (I was originally supposed to return to Beijing Saturday night). Shanghai is nice! This was my 4th time to Shanghai, and for some reason, I hated it the previous times I went. This time was different, but I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s that I’m getting tired of Beijing after 5 years? My return flight was scheduled to depart from Shanghai Hongqiao airport at 9:05PM Sunday night. I get to the airport on time, we board on time. Then the perser came on the intercom and told us our flight would be delayed 1 hour “due to bad weather in Beijing”. Everyone sighs. People start getting up to get their books or music players from their overhead luggage. Air China was nice enough to put on a movie (in English) that kept me busy… After about an hour, the perser came on the intercom again, and regretted to inform us “that due to deteriorating weather in Beijing, we’ll be delayed even longer”! I then decdied to check out just how much the weather in Beijing was deterioratin by SMSing friends in Beijing. Pretty much, my friends thought I was nutts because the weather was actually fine. It rained a bit earlier, but it was dry now. These guys are pulling something! I remember hearing from someone a while ago that there’s a law in China that if a plane is delayed more than X (I forgot what X was), then the airline would need to compensate the passengers. Clearly, this is a pro-passenger law. But there are rumors that airlines, regardless of the problem, claim the delay is weather related so they can get out of compensating the passengers. This allows time for the pilots to sober up or the engines to be fixed or whatever the case may be. Any way, maybe half an hour later, the perser comes on again and says we’ll take off around 11:15PM. Finally! Some good news! We were pretty close to that estimate - we touched down around 1AM into the new Beijing Airport Terminal 3. An improvement, but I wasn’t about to ooo and ahh at that hour (this was my first time actually traveling through this terminal). Ok, story done. Tags: air china, beijing, China, delays, planes, terminal 3, TravelI should have posted about this 2 weeks ago, but… As you see from the photo, Fred, Pockey, and I are sporting the brand new face masks brought to China by the BLUG’s very own Pollution Expert, Julien. If you’re interested in getting one, check out his Website at http://www.pollution-china.com! (specifically here) For the 3 or so weeks I’ve been using it, I have already noticed a great improvement in my breathing and less irritation in my lungs. Tags: China, facemasks, health, masks, pollutionI’m hitting myself for not taking a picture, but, oh well. In my office building, there’s a sort-of cafeteria where there are many different kinds of food stalls, and you put money on a charge card. Well, apparently, the landlord is kicking these guys out (the whole operation) because they claim they haven’t paid rent since moving in. After getting off the elevator, the landlord posted a big A2-sized notice stating what’s going on and how today is the last day! They are also making announcements every 5 minutes or so informing the patrons to hurry up and get their money back. I can tell the landlord is damn pissed! Of course, the cafeteria management is claiming otherwise, but nonetheless, there was a mad dash to reclaim the stored money - big mash up of people at the counter, tempers flaring, kind of an interesting situation. I got my RMB 103 back, so I’m happy. So, now, 100+ people don’t have a job to go to tomorrow, and my colleagues and I will have to find alternative ways of getting lunch (along with the rest of the building occupants). All around ma fan, no? Tags: anger, beijing, closures, food, lunch, office building
Mar
07
2008
Hey you! China has laws! You’d best follow them!Posted by: Chris in China, Commentary, Life, ToastmastersI was “Toastmaster” at my Toastmaster’s meeting last night, which means, I lead the meeting. And one of the responsibilities of Toastmaster is to give an opening speech. This is the 2nd time this year I have had this role - 2 speeches that could have been used towards my Competent Communicator manual, but, oh well… I’m also working on the Competent Leader manual, so at least one requirement was fulfilled!
Expats take note! If you’re like me who has to do a lot of the “admin” stuff yourself (because your not a delegated expat executive with a staff), such as registering at the local police station when you move, don’t delay. It’s only going to get more mafan, and cops don’t like to smile too much. I was talking to one of the members of my TM club last night after the meeting and she made a few good points (the commentary is mine, the general ideas are hers):
Originally uploaded by chrisdrum Walking along the street last night around 10pm, the city sounds like a war zone - people are taking full advantage of this being the last night of the Chinese Spring Festival - they’re setting off every last firework they can get a hold of. What’s left is these cardboard boxes with cylinder tubes used to launch the fireworks into the sky. I’m impressed the city organized these “we do everything from haul garbage to moving household appliances” cyclists to help with the massive clean up effort, in real time. This photo is of one such cyclist was crossing the intersection in front of me. Well, sort of. I’ve got an S60 mobile phone (the Nokia N82). This application, JoikuSpot, when installed on my S60 device, creates a WIFI Hotspot which shares the GPRS connection. I can then connect to this hotspot using my iPod Touch while, oh, sitting in Beijing traffic! This solves the only real complaint I had with the iPod Touch (no bluetooth for internet connection sharing). Rocking! Buy Data! Those of you in China, be sure to buy a data plan from China Mobile or China Unicom! Otherwise you’ll be surprised with a rather large bill at the end of the month (or your employer will be surprised, which ever the case may be). I have the 100RMB a month for 800 MB of data. I’ll monitor this to see how it goes. I hope this is enough… Some Initial Concerns As this is “beta”, there are some deficiencies worth mentioning. First, the hotspot it creates doesn’t have any security yet. Yikes! Joiku, the software maker, states future versions will add security. Let’s hope this becomes a reality sooner rather than later. Second, I am curious what the battery consumption on my N82 will be after a 30 minute cab ride. I’ll report back if I notice any excessive consumption. What’s probably more of a concern is me hitting, and then bypassing my monthly limit of 800Megs. GigaOm suggested not to use this application unless you had a nice 3G service for your phone. But in actuality, now that China Mobile has Edge, the speeds are acceptable, at least for the time being. Here are some screenshots I created from my S60 device: It was a very small download and quick install. It automatically placed the icon in the Applications folder. After running the application, it first asks whether you want to share your connection. When you select “yes” it will ask what connection to share. For me, I shared the “CMNET” connection (note, this is only valid for China Mobile). Now, you can see the Wifi Hotspot is connected and available for your device(s) to access. After selecting the JaikuSpot Wifi hotspot on my iPod Touch, I can began accessing Websites. On the phone, it shows you how much data is being sent in both directions. You can also see what devices are connected - a useful feature, at least until security is added to the app. Tags: EDGE, GPRS, ipod touch, N82, WIFII’ve been back in Beijing for a few days and have had a chance to play with my new gadget, the iPod Touch. Here are some observations:
Well folks, I think I have out done myself this time. Really… As some of you may know, I had to make an unexpected trip to the U.S. for a funeral. Well, I am currently on my way back to China - I am at the Minneapolis airport waiting for my flight to Narita. Well, on the way to the lounge, I found this neet ZoomSystems vending machine selling ipods, among other things. Here’s a photo I borrowed from anoither website, click on the image to go to that Website. Just for fun, I went to it and played around with the touch screen interface. Hmm, they have iPod Touch’s. It sure would be nice to watch my videos on that nice 3.5″ screen instead of the smaller 2.5″, or whatever it is, that I have on my 5G iPod Video… Hmm, the 8GB model is US$279.99… I figured I could transfer my videos over between the two iPods during my almost 3 hour layover. The plan was perfect! A quick impulsive credit card swipe later, I was the new proud owner of the iPod Touch. And because it wasn’t an iPhone, it wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) have any nasty activation issues. Ha!! It turns out that this bloody thing REQUIRES you to “activate”, or initialize it using iTunes. And, of course, iTunes runs only on Windows and Mac. The world is not fair for us freedom loving trouble makers… Here’s a picture of my currently useless iPod Touch plugged into my old Appe PowerBook G4 running Ubuntu. Oh, the irony. I just had to have Linux on this thing, huh? As you can see, it requests a connection to iTunes. Grrr… So, I’m stuck not being able to use my new toy until AFTER my long flight - which was the main reason I bought it in the first place! And here’s a random tidbit… For fun, I decided to scan the lounge for open bluetooth devices. Here’s a screenshot:
Steve is my phone, but it’s interesting to note the 3 computers with bluetooth and the 2 BlackBerrys. Is it normal for BlackBerry to have Bluetooth open? Maybe it’s those people with the stupid bluetooth ear pieces with the annoying “I’m Cool, But Not Really” blinking blue light… Oh well, time to go to my plane… Tags: Apple is Gay, impulse, ipod, Linux, media, omg, TravelFolks, If you’re like me, you have a sidecar motorbike, you like to drive year round. And if you’re like me, it’s because you hate taxis for a multitude of reasons - those of which I will not go into now. But, I have a small word of advice: During the winter, check the damn weather report for current conditions before driving to work. Today, I didn’t. Oh my god… Pain. Pain all over my body. When I finally got to my office (lucky I didn’t freeze to death), I checked the weather on CNN’s website, and this is what I found:
New rule: no driving in below freezing with wind more than 5mph. Tags: beijing, cj750, cold, freezing, Motorbike, stupid, weather |