My “other” blog

Although I hadn’t written much on my other blog in about a year, I started up again this January.  I’m still working on defining it, but check it out if you get a chance.  I’d love to have more people follow it, put it in their feed readers, comment on it, whatever.  Thanks everybody!

Here’s the link  Jen Loves Free Stuff

Emerging Markets: Shanghai

Pudong District from the Bund

Our Tour guide likened Beijing to Washington DC with it's plethora of cultural and historical sites, and Shanghai to New York City - being the big bustling city, the center of Asian commerce.

Business Visits:

While in Shanghai we did visit some american businesses setup and doing business in China. First we visited a Valspar facility. Valspar makes coatings, most people are familiar with their paints and varnishes. We discussed with them the challenges and opportunities of operating in China with the corporate headquarters being in the US. They gave us a tour of their facility there, but it was mostly a look from the outside in as the production of metal coatings requires significant ventilation and when inside the facility workers must wear respirators. They did mention that while they strive to stress safety many of their employees don't like to wear the respirators, and just deal with the fumes. Dealing with the fumes usually results in significantly lowered white blood cell counts... I'd wear a respirator.

We also visited with JP Morgan in Shanghai. While not a full retail bank as they operate in the US. JP Morgan took us into their conference room on the 40th floor of the building with a terrific view out of the windows and discussed with us the challenges and opportunities of banking in China. China has 6 major banks that serve a majority of the 1.3 billion people. These banks are state owned and are definitely too big to fail.

Cultural Visits

In Shanghai the cultural visits were interesting but not nearly on the same magnitude as they were in Beijing.

Jade Buddah Temple:

According to our tour guide, 80% of China is atheist, of the remaining 20% the majority are Buddhist. There are some Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Having an understanding of the Buddhist culture is important in understanding the Chinese culture. We went to visit the Jade Buddha Temple which was founded in 1882 with 2 Jade Buddha statues imported from Burma. We saw those, but photography was not allowed. However, I did capture some pictures of many of the other statues of Buddha and others.

Main Courtyard, with worshipers burning incense and praying.

One of the Three Golden Buddha's.

This one is Bhaisajyaguru.

Silk Factory/Market was an interesting place where we were educated on silk worms and China's rich silk history. What was most fascinating was watching the silk fibers being extracted from silkworm cocoons and spun into tiny silk thread. Mostly when I think of silk I think of the elegant silk fabric that is ... silky... But we learned of the insulating properties of silk and how they compare to other materials. This factory made silk comforters. Just as a down comforter is filled with goose down, a silk comforter is filled with Silk. I had never heard of this before. But when we saw that the silkworm cocoons were used to create layers in a silk comforter I was impressed. No need to 'fluff' the comforter to redistribute the stuff inside.

individual silk fibers being extracted from silkworm cocoons and spun into silk thread

stretching & pulling silkworm cocoons into layers of a silk comforter

Following the tour we were 'sold' comforters, then later 'sold' other silk goods. I am sure that our tour operators take a cut from bringing all these american tourists to come and buy their goods. This didn't seem to be a public market. And the prices were more reflective of what I would expect in the US rather than the bargains that were very plentiful in China. So, while put off by the sell job, I appreciate the education.

Shanghai's Urban Planning Museum is a four story museum that culminates in a giant scale model of Shanghai 2020 master plan. This model had all the buildings in this giant city, present and future. The detail was spectacular.

Shanghai City 2020 master plan model

The Yuyuan Garden was created in 1559 by a son to honor his father (a high ranking official in the Ming dynasty) and took 20 years to build. This lavish garden, consisting of architecture, rock formations, water features, and plants has a long history of various owners and occupants and falling into repair and restoration many times. The most recent restoration was in the 1961. The garden is about 5 acres, and I ditched the tour and just spent an hour exploring this amazing space and marveled how this was constructed over 400 years ago with out modern engineering, and power tools and has (with some maintenance and restoration) lasted so long.

Inside the Yuyuan Garden

Shanghai is known for it's spectacular skyline. One of the best places to see it is on a cruise along the Hunagpu River. Often times the visibility in Shanghai isn't very good because the air pollution is very bad. But on the night we went to the river the sky was pretty clear and we were very impressed with all the lights. Shanghai puts on quite the light show until about 10:00 or 11:00PM each night.

Pudong District from the Hunagpu River

The Bund from the Hunagpu River

On our free day myself and some of my classmates wanted to ride the fastest commercially operated train in the world today. The Maglev train runs from just outside Shanghai out to the airport and back. 19 miles each way. The Trip takes about 7 minutes. You do the math. Okay, you don't have to. The top speed of this train is 431 km/h. Translates into 268 mph. We had no reason to go to the airport, other than to ride the train. It felt fast, but not jarringly so. It reaches 200 mph in the first 2 minutes. Needless to say it was a fun ride. I took some video, but it didn't turn out.

The Shanghai Maglev (Magnetic Levitation) train.

After we went on the fast train, we went up into the tall building. The Shanghai World Financial Center is currently the 3rd tallest building in the world. The 94th, 97th and 100th floors all have observation decks. The birds eye view of Shanghai was awesome. I especially enjoyed looking down on the Jin Mao Tower next door.

Shanghai World Financial Center

World's 3rd Tallest Building.

From the 100th Floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center

Looking down on the World's 9th Tallest Building - Jin Mao tower

I walked from the Yuyuan Garden back to my hotel and found my to the Pedestrian Street at Nanjing Road. Which, among this post of tallest, fastest etc, is considered one of the longest shopping districts over 6km long. I was really taken back by how many people there were. There were no special events. It wasn't Christmas shopping. It was just a regular Saturday in Shanghai.

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The Pedestrian Street (our hotel is in the background with the dome/needle on top)

Overall, my impression of China is that there are a lot of people there, and that while they try to make their world appear very western, their culture and values are very different than those I have known in the USA. Understanding those values and cultures will be key to an undeniable future than we'll experience with an increasingly Chinese influence.

Emerging Markets: Beijing

Travel:
I will spare all the grueling details, but as the highlights are as follows. Because our flight was delayed out of Newark, I was able to spend some time visiting with my generous brother and sister-in-lawI in Jersey City. Also, I never really experienced new years eve in 2010. As the date changed for us as we traveled over the north pole/international date line, but who knows what time that was, as I was likely asleep. I over-prepared for the 14hour long haul flgiht from Newark NJ, over the North Pole, and into Beijing China. Instead of reading, or playing video games, I took advantage of the extensive movie collection available on these long haul flights.

Free Day:
Because of our travel delays our free time in Beijing was cut short. We didn't make it to the pearl street market, or the summer palace, but we did venture out into the Beijing subway to make our way to the Olympic park to see the Olympic Stadium (Birds nest) and Water-cube. Two things stood out to me: 1. They were using the birdsnest as a winter festival. for about $2.50 USD (15 Chinese Yuan) one could enter the gigantic stadium for their snow festival. Using snow machines they had built a small ski hill and tubing hill, provided facilities for snowball fights, snow laser tag, snowmen etc. Seems like an odd use of such an amazing facility. 2. The facilities seemed run down a bit. Some of the buildings looked like they had closed their doors after the Olympics and nobody had touched them since. Closed up, unused and in general disrepair. Still it was interesting to see.

Later that evening a group of us went to visit one of the "5 Treasures of Beijing" the Peking Opera. We were warned that this production is unlike western opera. The style if singing is ... not what we are used to. I understand that this form of entertainment was developed in the late 18th century, and I respect it for what it is, but still I found the story to be boring, and the singing annoying at best. But we were allowed to see the performers applying their makeup before the show. Also, there were some entertaining 'acrobatics' in the second half that kept me from falling asleep. (Why did I think that going to stay awake in an opera after waking up at 2AM two days in a row to travel around the world.... not to mention the jet lag.)

Cultural Visits:
As standard 'must-see' sites in Beijing, our group of 72 people ventured out on a cold day to visit Tienamen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall of China. Note, in January, Beijing is VERY cold. The mote surrounding the forbidden city is completely frozen over. Up on the Great Wall, it was much much colder.

Chinese City Gate at Tienanmen Square

visiting the Forbidden City

on the Great Wall of China - Badaling Section

Business Visits:
Because of the size of our group, not everyone visted each business. The group I was with visited Sinopec RIPP (Research Institute of Petroleum Processing).

At Sinopec, #7 on the Fortunes Global 500 list, we were warmly greeted by a team of their Research Executives and were given a summary presentation of Sinopec, and then guided on a tour of their research facility in Beijing. This Chinese state owned oil company employs 600,000 (ExxonMobil employes 100,000) and seemed to me to be about 30 years behind the times. While making good progress since the 1980s they still lack effeciency and quality/safety standards that we come to expect in the US. While some of the equipment we saw was new, the facilities were delapidated, and not safe as open containers of chemicals and fuel feedstock were openly stored.

While in Beijing we also visited Beijing Hyaundai. This joint venture between the State Owned Enterprise and Korean Hyaundai Motors produces automobiles solely for the Chinese automobile market which continues to grow. We took a tour of the factory that produces Sonota's, Elantra's, and SUV's. This factory was a modern marvel. The automation and process engineering were facinating. A new car rolled off the assembly line every 66 seconds and from start to finish only took 7 hours to build a single car.

I will post later about my adventures in Shanghai.

New years resolutions?

Do 1 year olds make new years resolutions?

If so, I'm pretty sure Christian, who is currently 14 months old, made resolutions which were something like this:

1. Learn to talk in 2011
2. Try to learn everything I can by getting into everything I see and trying to destroy it.
3. Figure out what drives my mom crazy and learn to push her buttons.
4. Be as mischievous as possible.
5. Try to keep mom off the computer as much as I can.

Ok, so I jest, but he really is getting crazier and getting into more and more trouble. While I wrote this he tried to turn my laptop off, pulled the blanket covering me off the couch, dragged it around the living room then began banging on the wall with a block.

I began composing this post in my head last night and took some pictures to go along with it.



Right before I took this picture he emptied my dirty clothes hamper and dragged my dirty clothes around the house while I put on my makeup for a church activity. Then he found this package of gum and this pen and was just walking around with it. Once I took them away from him he cried like I was the meanest mommy around.



But then he found the TV remote for our bedroom TV. He not only carried it around and tried to eat it, but then began using it as a phone. I guess I talk on the phone a lot because EVERYTHING becomes a phone to him and he can be seen with calculators, remotes, cars, blocks, etc up to his ear jabbering away all day.



And in case you think I'm complaining about him too much. He naps super easy, I just have to lay him down in his crib. He eats everything I give him. He loves to cuddle, especially right after he wakes up. He gives the best smiles. He's fabulous and I'm so glad he's mine!

I survived!

As most everyone knows, Paul is getting his MBA from Rice. He only has one more semester to go thankfully. Like most MBA programs he had the opportunity to have an international experience. He was given 3 choices and decided to go to China. So for the past 10 days, I've been a single mom.

I have lots of friends whose husbands travel for work...often. I've been very lucky that Paul has only had to go out of town for business 2 or 3 times, for a day or two each the entire 8 years we've been married. I'm just not used to having him be gone. In fact these 10 days has been the longest time we've ever been apart since we started dating!

We knew we wouldn't be able to call each other and thought we'd be completely out of communication, but at the last minute he decided to bring his laptop and we were able to not only e-mail each other, or chat with each other, but see each other via Google Video Chat usually twice a day. It was wonderful to get to see and talk to him morning and night most days. It made the distance seem not so far.

The kids drove me a little crazy and I am very glad I'm not a single mom for real. Aaron and Brian each started school again, we hung out with my mom for her birthday, and I only had to call poison control once (seriously, the story is not worth telling). Everyone is happy and healthy and I can't complain at all about him being gone.

He gets back in just a few hours and I've very excited to see him in person though. I look forward to seeing all his pictures (he took over 1,000) and I'm sure he'll write a blog post or 2 about his trip.

Happy New Years!

So I really like having all my blog posts be chronological...I'm hopeful that someday I'll print this into a book and I want it to all make sense...but, it seems unlikely that I'll get from September through December done anytime soon and I wanted to start the new year with a new post, so here I am anyway. I'll get to those old post eventually.

2010 has gone and we are here at the beginning of 2011 with a lot going on of course. Paul is in China for his MBA program and will be home in a little over a week. There were flight problems getting over there, but he's in Beijing now and will be doing all the fun touristy stuff today like seeing the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and Tienemen Square. We've gotten to e-mail each other a little, but I don't really expect to get to hear from him while he's in China.

I'm a single mom for another week and we're doing just fine. My mom is even coming over tomorrow to help me with the boys during church. I can't believe they go back to school already next Wednesday and Thursday. I've been having a lot of fun with them and I feel pretty blessed. We've had a great Christmas and today for New Years we relaxed, played the Wii, rode bikes and had a great time. Of course I wish Paul were here, but he'll be here soon enough.

Well, it's time to get Christian into bed. I'll work on blogging more, but I'm thinking I'll use my other blog for more of this rambling stuff and keep this one documenting family stuff as much as I can.

Here's 2 pics of my cute boys from Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Aren't I lucky!