Originally written March 28, 2011
Day 2, back to work I go. So the day started out bright and early at 4:30 am thanks to jet lag. Breakfast doesn’t get served until 7:00 am so I walked around the river again this morning with my dress shoes (this is important information for later). For breakfast, there was an all you can eat buffet that wasn’t like something you would find in Canada. The only familiar items were Bacon and eggs. To sum up my breakfast I just took a picture because there’s just so much crazy stuff in there I didn’t know how to describe it. My one interesting discovery here was the dragon fruit. I had no idea dragonfruit was a white kiwi looking fruit (at least on the inside). So I asked the servers what that fruit was, obviously, they didn’t know the English word for it and just kind of laughed nervously and talked amongst each other in Chinese calling other waiters to help them out. I had no idea what was going on so I just smiled and waited…wondering if I had asked something ridiculous. A few moments later the manager comes up to me asking if there was a problem. “Ummm no, I just want to know what this is.” He spoke pretty good English and was very nice. Quite helpful. Another interesting bit I noticed that morning walking around the hotel is that the maids wear actual maid outfits (black dress with white apron). I think I might ask one to take a picture with her :p. Maybe on the last day so I don’t come across as creepy lol.
8:30 and we’re off to visit my host, Huawei. Traffic in Shanghai is surprisingly mild considering there are 20million habitants. There are tons of public buses all driving one behind another in almost a massive convoy. There are also bikes and scooters littered all over the place, plus they get their own bike lane. Very different feeling from home. So we finally arrive at the Huawei headquarters and wow….their building is massive! What I did there throughout the day isn’t all that interesting for this blog but let me talk about how they receive their guests. In short I felt like a king. At their major entrances they seem to have a guard that just stands there and opens the door for you (not armed). The receptionists stand up whenever you walk by their desk (even if it’s from afar). During all our meetings we had 2 “tea girls” who would come in the room every 15 mins and go around the table serving us tea. That was pretty enjoyable. They also delivered a pretty tasty snack in the morning consisting of dragonfruit, pineapple, melon and some kind of cake. I won’t be starving here anytime soon.
On the topic of food, I seem to have survived digesting last night’s ordeal with little consequence. Let’s hope my luck holds out for the rest of the week. I’m pretty proud of my stomach so far :). Tonight’s supper was a bit more western style, we went to a steak house and the meal consisted of cream of broccoli, a salad and a juicy tender piece of filet mignon served on a skillet plate (pics to come). Once they serve you your plate they ask you if you’d like peppercorn or mushroom sauce on your steak. After you pick you have to hold the tablecloth in front of you and they pour it onto the steak causing the whole thing to sizzle and turn into awesomeness before your eyes. The whole thing was ended with a chocolate or cheesecake. I like the size of their deserts, it’s just a nice small portion that takes about 3-5 bites to finish. Not like the huge deserts they give out in North America that you can never finish (at least I can’t).
After supper, the activity for the night was riding one of Shanghai’s ferries. We went around the river to see the night skyline of both old and new Shanghai. On one side of the river is the older part of Shanghai with century-old buildings and the other side is completely modern and new. Both sides were lit up in very impressive ways. I took pictures but they don’t do the light show justice.
And now it’s time to call it a night. Of course, I’m wide awake now…grumble.
Stay tuned for day 3, coming tomorrow 🙂
