Goodbye to China

Today is our last day, and while many people left early, we still had a couple of things to.  We went to get beef noodle soup at some famous restaurant in Taipei.  It was full of tendons and fat, so I guess it was as good as it could get considering we were in China.  Our next activity was a pineapple cake factory which was our place to buy up snacks for home.  It was a very funny shop which was almost a pineapple theme park.  You ride up this escalator which resembles the inside of a pineapple, and then you play pineapple related games, watch a pineapple related movie, and then taste the cakes... then you go buy.  We all thought it was pretty hilarious.

Overall, this trip flew by for me.  I was really happy that I had the opportunity to partake in this great adventure and am sad to have it end.  I am sure that there will be more great adventures to be had in the future.

Last full day of adventures

Today, we got an early start after a late night, and headed east, out of the city to a rural and touristy area where you can see a lot of the coastline, shop at many small food stores, and also climb a mountain to get a 360 view of the entire area.

For snacks, drink, and relaxation, we went to a tea shop to learn how to make tea the "correct" way.  It was a pretty nice little rest point during the day and gave us a chance to enjoy the fresh air and look around the area.  After that time, a couple of us decided to head up to the top of the nearby mountain, which was quite a steep hike and took about 45 minutes.  At the top, I got some great pictures of the view, and enjoyed the area with a couple of other adventurous souls.

On the way back, the bus went down a very windy one and a half lane road, which was quite impressive.  It looked like Lombard street in San Francisco, yet the bus was a full sized vehicle.  

The early evening event was the one that many people were looking forward too for most of the trip.  We went to some hot springs, which basically consisted of an outdoor pool, with separated partitions, each filled with water of varying temperatures.  I just sat and relaxed in the medium to warm pool most of the time.  We had a chance for showers and then dinner, which was about average.  It was our last time to get get together as a large group, so we did some thank yous to the organizers for workings so hard to make this trip happen.

Our hotel tonight is the Grand Hotel, which is a famous and old building in Taipei.  The hallways were large, and the beds were rock hard, but it was still a fun place to be.  Our group stayed there because it is a landmark, but I think most people thought the previous hotel was better.

The last event of today was getting shaved ice.  Allen and I killed a mango shaved ice and then half a strawberry one.  It was delicious.

Karaoke

Tonight after changing out of our business clothes and another huge meal that we couldn’t finish, we went to Karaoke.   It was perhaps the best night of the trip.   The karaoke was fun, and the company was awesome.   We got there early and closed the place down.  

Company visits

Our lunch today was at the only Michelin star rated restaurant in Taipei.  It was a dumpling house which had at least 15 workers in a glass room churning out dumplings as fast as humanly possible.   I thought that the restaurant was good, but perhaps not Michelin worthy.  I do like dumplings though, so it was one of the better restaurant experiences on the trip.

In the afternoon, we went to HTC to get a company presentation and tour of the headquarters.   The office was very magnificent, all white marble tile on the bottom floor and a lot of glass rooms on many stories.  The gym was huge, but not a single person was using it even though it was open 24 hours a day.   We had a chance to hear about HTC's camera innovations and talk to the president, who spoke to us a bit about vague nothings and corporate indirection.  The visit was still worth it though. 

After this visit, we went to Taipei 101, and while the group had a short break, I checked out the Google office on the 73rd floor where you can see the entire city.   The Google office was pretty much the same as other Google offices, and of course it was located in the best location in the city, the tallest building.  

After that visit, the group went to L'Oréal for another visit.   Compared to Google, the office space was cluttered and messy.   It was 90 percent women in sales and marketing and everyone there seemed pretty happy to work there.   We met with the head of HR and the site manager, but who were very nice and informative.   I learned a lot about the different brands L'Oréal manages and some of there efforts in Asia.   One of our group members had worked there for a while so that was our hook up.

Vice President

This morning was unique. It's not every day that you get to visit a VIP, and today we got to see the Vice President of Taiwan.  They seated us in a large room filled with flowers and bonsai trees, and served us tea while we sat and waited in a large circle.   The vice president came in and shook each of our hands and then gave a short speech.   Then he answered 2 questions that a couple of us prepared beforehand.  The conversation was slow because there was a translator.   They presented us with a souvenir and led us on a tour of the building where we learned a bit about rhe history of Taiwan.  

Day 2 in Taiwan

Today, after about 5 hours of sleep, we got up and running and headed to see the national palace museum, which holds some of China's best treasures from the civil war.  Our English speaking guide took us around on a whirlwind tour of the place and told us a bit about a couple of items in each area.  

The most famous items there were this jade sculpture of a cabbage that had 2 insects on it and a little boat carved in ivory.  The cabbage quickly became a hot topic of discussion and funny comments since it was so popular that you had to wait to see it for about 15 minutes.   I thought the ivory items were very neat though it was sad that the animals were killed for such vain reasons.

Lunch was a great time to relax since we were all so tired.  After the museum, we headed back to Taipei to visit a mall owned by one of our alumni. We got a little tour of some of the shops and learned about her efforts in building up the mall and helping the stores do marketing.   The mall was only a basement mall which catered to women.  The building also had 140 residential units on the upper floors. I wonder if there were only women that lived there.

Later, for dinner, we hit up the famous night market bazaar where we grabbed different types of food from various street vendors and looked around at all the small stores. It was a bustling and very popular place to visit. 

Tonight was supposed to be a karaoke night but the group made a good decision and rescheduled for the next night considering that we were meeting the vice president tomorrow.

First night in Taiwan

Tonight was our first night in Taipei.  We checked in to our hotel for the next 3 days, United Hotel, which was extremely spacious compared to the tiny living quarters of Hong Kong.  After grabbing some noodle soup, we went to Luxy night club with the entire group.   We had two rooms to ourselves and were able to take over the upper floor pretty well.   The club was pretty packed, and the dancing was lots of fun, however there were perhaps more guys there than there should have been to keep a good ratio.   It was a fun time though and a great start to Taiwan.   I am liking this place a lot better than the other places I visited.  It might be the lower stress level that I perceive here, or simply the culture of the place.   Whatever it is, I am happy to get a chance to visit Taiwan.

Group dynamics

Overall, I am really impressed with the organization on this trip and I can't figure out why anyone would voluntarily sign up to keep track of 60 people for so long.   MBA students are a very demanding group when it comes to travel, and people aren't afraid to speak up and make demands.   The organizers are extremely accommodating as well.   Also, it's great that everyone is so interested in taking advantage of every opportunity to go out and also they all communicate well on our new favorite chat application wechat.   If only it let you group chat with more than 40 people.  (update: it does, since we had some sort of connection to TenCent, the makers of wechat)

Visit with Carrie in Hong Kong

Last night was an early night since there wasn't much organized for the entire group.   A lot of people went out but it was sort of a mess to figure out where they were and I wanted to rest up for tonight which is at Luxy, one of the best nightclubs in Taipei apparently.

Today, I had the chance to meet up with Carrie, our roommate for about 3 years back at home.   She just had a baby and it was fun to visit her and her husband for lunch, if only for a short time.   The baby is 6 months old and not that I am an expert but he is a big baby and looks just like Kenneth.   Carrie, I am looking forward to your next bay area visit.  

Boat ride to Cheng Huang

Today, we got up early for a dim sum breakfast and then a boat ride to Cheng Huang island. The boat ride was a lot of fun with our huge group taking over a really nice party boat.   During our stay at the island, we walked along the beach and then up to a look out point.  

Today was very low key.  Lunch was on our own on the island, and there was a ton of free time to hang out and enjoy the area.

Hong Kong peak tram

Today, we were supposed to get up early for a company visit with Cathay Pacific, but a few of us stayed up way too late last night to do that.   Also, after the Dianping disappointment, I didn't really want to go.  

The afternoon was spent at the top of the HK peak tram where we saw the views, took some nice pictures, and got some food.  

Later, there was an alumni mixer where I met the leader of Sun Microsystems office in China.   He was working for Sun for 22 years so we shared some stories about it.  

At 8, there was a light show on the harbor where many of the buildings had lasers or some kind of lights synchronized to music.   The Hong Kong skyline is pretty amazing at night.  

After this, we went to a bar called Ozone which is supposedly the highest bar in the world on the 118 floor if one of the skyscrapers.   The drinks are 20 each though so after one drink, we went to wan chai for another bar.   That bar kind of sucked so I called it a night.  

Day three in Shanghai

We got up early for a visit with Dianping, which is the yelp of mainland China.  The company visit was  simply a powerpoint presentation and Q&A session, so it was hardly worth the visit.  Also, we could barely hear the speaker.  Still, it was nice to learn a bit more about the company, which I previously knew nothing about. The rest of today was not too stressful as we had some free time to go around and try to get something to eat and then head for Hong Kong.  Being in Hong Kong, and away from the great firewall of China was a breath of fresh air (literally as well) from the other places we visited.

For the nighttime activity, a couple of us headed out to a famous Hong Kong neighborhood to check out the bars and clubs.  We were hardly prepared for it, and got to the area really late, so we mostly just talked and hung out.  We grabbed some food in the wee hours and headed home way to late.

Day two in Shanghai

Today, we ventured away from Shanghai to a place called Hangzhou, which is said to be a paradise on earth.  The tour guide told us about all folklore about the women who live here, who are pampered by their men and live a pretty good life.  All women want to come to this city for a posh lifestyle.  The tour guide was wearing a wedding ring, but I didn't ask her any questions about her own experience.

Hangzhou was much prettier than Shanghai.  We took a boat ride across a large man made lake and walked around on the other side which had a nice little park.  It was pretty rainy and cold today, but the good experience made up for it.  After lunch, we went to the top of a tall pagoda overlooking the city, but only had about 20 minutes to roam around before heading back.  There was an alumni dinner which was our first taste of American food in a really long time.  It was wonderful and sorely missed, since we get the same sort of food on almost every meal.

First day in Shanghai

Today, we went to a temple called Chenghuang, which was very picturesque.  The weather was pretty cold and foggy, or smoggy (no idea which one), but I still got some nice pictures.  I didn't get much detail from the history about the place since the tour guide was mostly in a different place than I was, but that was okay.  For lunch, the place was a famous restaurant in Lv Bo Lang with a ton of plates again.  Most of our meals take place in really fancy restaurants where they bring like 25 plates or so for about 8-10 people.  There is way too much food for anyone to eat, but at least there is enough variety that I can find something that I don't mind eating.

Later, we had some free time to shop around and then went to see the Shanghai skyline.  The skyline was impressive, but unfortunately it was really foggy, and we couldn't really see all the buildings clearly.  Dinner was at a place with a view, but they sat us in a place where we couldn't see it.  I went for vegetarian fare this time, and was sort of glad that I did, since I got to miss the turtle stew, squab, and other lovely dishes that came out.

The fun nighttime activity here was karaoke, which was awesome because they fit the whole group into one large karaoke room.  I got the chance to see who the most outgoing singers are in the group and listen to some of their signature songs.  One or two were good, but the microphones were crappy and you couldn't really hear them very well.  Still, this was a really fun night.

Day 4

We got to sleep in a bit today so I got up at 8, packed, and had a nice leisurely breakfast. 

We are off to Shanghai on the new high speed train which can go up to 240 mph.  

The train ride was super quick and after checking in to the hotel, we went to an acrobatics show.   They decided to seat our group in the worst possible part of the theater despite not selling very many tickets, so we all moved to a different section.  One thing about a 60 person group of MBAs is that they don't take any crap.   The show was pretty awesome though.   They had gymnastics and motorcycles in the ball of death, as well as balancing acts and flexibility acts.

Day 3

So far, this is the best day of the trip.  We were told to prepare for the worst weather and it has been very pleasant so far.   The Great Wall was very pretty and the view was incredible.  There is a gondola to the wall and then you start walking along it from tower to tower.   We went from tower 14 to 23 and the last stretch has hundreds of very steep steps, which were killer.   I got a chance to bond a bit with the group I hung out with as we climbed, took pictures, and scrambled on the ice
. 

Lunch was pretty tasty to. I got kicked out of the veggie table  because of space but that was just fine since the food was good.  

After lunch, we got a taste of Beijing traffic, the largest parking lot in the world.   It was over 3 hours to get back to where we were going.   I opted for visiting the fake market at this point to see what kinds of fake goods are made in China.   There were all kinds of items that start out at normal American prices but you can get them for one tenth the cost after a bargain.   I picked up a few items for a low price here.  I think that there will be more opportunities to get things in Shanghai as well.

The bus picked us up and took us to dinner at a hot pot place.   This food wasn't as great, perhaps because I don't like hot pot that much. I can't really figure out how to make it tasty.

After dinner, we started the night life part of our day at Mix Club.   The group had 2 tables and we got bottle service.  It took about a half hour but the bumbling waiters brought us a fruit dish and tons of alcohol.   Clubbing at the beginning mostly involved sitting around and listening to ridiculously loud music.   After a little while though our group took over the dance floor and we had some fun.   The staff gave us props, not compliments on our dancing style, but rather light sticks and glowing items to get other people on the floor. It was a really fun time and good to see other members of the group in this light.

Day 2

This morning was spent at the temple of heaven.  It wasn't as long a tour as yesterday and the weather was slightly warmer, but since I had to dress up today, I couldn't wear as much warm stuff.   The temples were very nice but the fun part was seeing all of the people in the park around the temple.   There were many elderly people who came to the park to meet up with friends, play mahjong, or exercise.  There were people playing hacky sack and doing dance classes.   Also, there were people riding skate boards and partner dancing, all in the freezing cold.   People here retire in there 50s so this is how they spend there newly acquired free time.

Later, we had a big lunch and went to see the Olympic stadium. There are some pretty impressive buildings here in Beijing.  One of the hotels next to the stadium looks like a dragon.  

After that, we went to Baidu headquarters to learn about the company.   We met with a Haas alumni from '88 there who took us around and told us a little bit about the search product and the founding of the company.   Robin Lee, the founder apparently got a page ranking algorithm patent on using link citations for increasing page rank prior to Larry and Sergey.   I'll have to check out the history of this when I get home.   I got the feeling that Baidu is very proud of being an innovative company that caters to its user base and innovates quickly, but from what I saw it was completely similar to Google.  The unique pieces were its applications, which loaded within the search results, and the Chinese natural language search, because there are no spaces between characters in Chinese.   Another interesting piece was that there was a full music search with mp3s for download for free.   Our guide said that we should download all the music that we want while we are on this trip while it is legal and legitimate.   Baidu has partnered with many music labels apparently.

The next interesting part of the tour was that our guide was happy to directly address the question of censorship.  It seemed like he was very against censorship and the current regime but that the company was happy to operate within the rules to do business.  I wonder how much work they do to enforce censorship and how much the government actually supports them and actively keeps Google away.

Tonight was an alumni dinner where we had a couple of people who happened to be in Beijing on business.   There was one guy who was the president of the Asian alumni association and another girl from the class of 03.

After dinner was the Chinese style foot massage which was pretty fun.   I went in with a group of 5 other guys and we were all adamant about having girls do the massages rather than guys, which led to a bunch of laughs and jokes.   The foot massage includes a bit of a back massage as well and lasted and hour and a half.   It was very relaxing.

Day 1 in Beijing

Today, we started off the day after a rough and short 3 hour sleep.  We had a hearty breakfast and met up with the rest of the group. There are 60 people on this trip and it is pretty crazy to meet everyone.

After getting organized, we headed to the Forbidden City as our first stop, where we really got a feel for the below freezing weather.   Seeing Tiananmen Square was neat.   We were bombarded by street merchants and everyone stocked up on the warm clothing they didn't have or the ones that weren't adequate enough for this cold.   Allen got a Panda hat which was hilarious.  The Forbidden City was nice. Luckily, I was in the group with the English speaking guide, though she was pretty hard to understand.  Two hours of the Forbidden City is quite enough and every section began to look the same.   The view from the top of a hill behind the city was breathtaking though and well worth the hike to the top.

Then we got a great lunch.   I opted for vegetarian and got to meet some of the people I'll probably be eating a lot of meals with.   It was definitely nice to get to know them though.There is a frozen lake in the area and everyone is out on it playing and sledding.

Later,  we went for a bike tour of Houhai (sic) to see some of the neighborhood.   This was followed by some relaxation at a bar and then dinner at a famous peking duck restaurant.   I tried the duck but was still pretty full from lunch.

I was so tired by that time that I just went home and crashed.

Trip to China

Straight from a short night's sleep after Jen's wedding, I started the journey.  It was 15 hours to Hong Kong and another 3.5 to Beijing.   I didn't start meeting anyone until Hong Kong, but there are 60 people on the trip with 9 EWMBAs and a few spouses.   Should be fun.