Sick in Bed

Well it finally happened, I am officially sick in Shanghai. It is probably just a 24 hour thing as that is usually what happens to me, so keep your fingers crossed. Last night myself, one of the Lars's, and Vanessa (a Frenchie) went to a bar on the Bund. Well I guess I should start at the beginning of the evening, we started out at Lars's place, with a ten dollar bottle of vodka. Vanessa doesn't drink vodka (which Lars and myself find odd), so she stuck with her bottle of Chinese wine. Myself and the Swede put a really good dent in the bottle as we kept listening to awesome music from our home countries. Eventually Henrik (the Lars) played something that I recognized, and I was wishing Pete and Laura could have been here to hear it. The artist's name is Gunther, and I think he might be the President of Sweden, if you have never heard of him before, some of my friends started a fan club for him on Facebook years ago www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=223109839 . He has to be the most talented singer I have heard from Sweden since Ace of Base, no seriously give it a listen, it is AWESOME. After we got to the bar I realized that all drinks were 50 rmb, or about $9 Cdn, this price was so crazy expensive, but after a couple I realized why. Im a double size glass they filled it with opposite proportions to bars back home. Here it was 95% booze and 5% mix. They were fabulous, it was a great night of conversation. I finally headed home because I was realizing that my stomach was upset, and it wasn't from the booze. Well this basically gets you caught up in the life of me, so until next time.

Tie Domi still Sucks,

Derek

Introducing Skinny Derek

I thought that title might get some attention. Ok, the truth I am still a little above average, but since I have been in China I have dropped almost 7 kg. It is so much that the two pairs of jeans I brought here with me now look silly, so I had to go out and buy some new ones. When I left Canada I was a big 36 in the waist, but now I am a very slim 34, and hoping to get down a couple more inches. I know I will never be skinny like the good ol' days, but I can dream. The reason I have lost all this weight is probably to do with the amount of walking we do here. As I stated in the last blog, long walks are not uncommon, and this country is made of stairs as well. When I was living in Saint John last year, I believed I was being punished for some past misdeed by living in a fourth floor walk up. Now I realize that apartment was only training for me to get used to living in a fifth floor walk up in residence here. It is not very fun when you come home at 4 am after a night out on the town. I was thinking about making a suggestion that the put rest beds at each floor, so the tired could take breaks. I am sure there is some Chinese saying about how walking many stairs each day is good for your health.

On that note I have come to the realization that the Chinese have a famous saying for almost every situation. Most centre around living a good life, or being healthy, but my Chinese friend starts almost every sentence in a conversation by stating, "There is a famous Chinese saying about.....", sometimes I think it must lose something in the translation.

The other day one of the Lars and myself joined many of the Chinese students from the GLMBA for a bbq in a park in the North East of Shanghai. This park was quite unique to be in as it is completely man made, so all the trees are in nice rows, it is weird being in nature that just doesn't seem that natural. The park was actually quite nice and it surprisingly had some amusement park rides. My brother in-law once managed a ride called the "Fireball" back in his days with Conklin, and I was amazed to see something very similar to it here. Lars and myself were not too enthusiastic about going on the rides but we decided to give the "big" roller coaster a shot. It was a single loop, with an additional barrel roll in it. It had probably only a 50 foot drop so the loop was the first thing you hit. It was a fun short coaster,  I really was afraid for some reason. I would say it was more scary than doing the "Doppel" in the back row with no lap bar. The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful, so I will make this a short post. I hope everyone back home is enjoying the spring air in whatever city they may be in.

To infinity and beyond.....

Derek

I could walk 500 Miles....

Well today I went on my longest exploring trip to date! Myself and the two Swedes (Lars and Lars) (it is really Chris and Henrik, but Lars and Lars sounds so much funnier in my head) went on a walk of epic proportions. It started out at their apartment which is located at Hanzhong Rd which is just a couple of kms away from the centre of the city. We decided to head down to Jinan Temple which was a good distance walk away. When had almost arrived at the temple we realized that we were all hungry, so it being St. Patty's day we stopped in at a pub called Malone's. If you are ever in Shanghai and are jonesing for a burger, Malone's is the place all expats recommend! For the really adventurous you can tell them how you want your meat cooked, me being an Albertan took a medium patty, I am not crazy enough to go rare. I ordered the four cheese burger, and it may have been the greatest thing ever to touch my tongue. It was like being at home and having a burger at Red Robin's.

After lunch we went to the temple, as everyone knows I do not have a religious bone in my body, but this temple just seemed to have this great sense of peace to it, it was really neat to see how Buddhists  pay their respects.

After the temple we decided to just keep walking and eventually we ended up in front of a hair salon that offered a "shampoo, cut, and massage" for only 2o rmb, that is less than $4 Cdn. Chris and I decided this sounded like something two brave guys must investigate, and after a little arm twisting we were able to convince Henrik to go through with it as well. It turned out to be an ok haircut. While I was having my head massaged I started thinking how a haircut was great way to judge the cost of living in a country. In most countries I have visited hairdressers or barbers have always been able to make a livable wage. This I would presume comes from the fact that it is a skilled position, somewhat similar to the trades. Well it takes about 15 minutes to cut a man's hair and probably closer to 45 minutes for a women. So let's say the average hair cut takes half an hour. This means that the hairdresser is able to "bill" about 4o rmb an hour. The salon would take approximately half of that so the hairdresser now makes 20 rmb an hour, or a little less than $4 Cdn. an hour. Before anyone says that is so little, you must understand the cost of living, even in a major city like Shanghai can be much less than back in Canada, and I believe I could live here on that wage, not at the standards I am used to, but could survive. If you calculate it out saying the average hairdresser cuts 100 heads a week, that would work out to around $4000 rmb a month, which I have been told by friends would be more than enough to live. I wonder if anyone has ever done studies on this, if anyone has ever heard of anything like this it would be great to hear from you, (we could call it the barber index). Now that I am done my brain fart for the day, lets get back to the intersting stuff (me).  All three of us looked better after the cuts then when we walked in, and the head massage you get in a shampoo here is better than anything back home. Well after that we continued our long walk and eventually made it home. When we got back to their apartment it was time for our push ups. Chris and I have started a program called 100 pushups http://hundredpushups.com , and trust me it is not easy, but I think by the end of the six weeks I will be able to do 100 pushups in a row again. The last time I was able to do that was when I was 21 and still a member of the Young Canadians.

Well I should go get some laundry going as I do not want to run out of socks, as that would be gross.

Keep your feet dry,

D.

Executive Economics

I am still wondering if this sign wants me to look out first and then knock my head second!
Well I am now involved in my second course in Shanghai, it is Executive Economics. Everyone who knows me can tell you that my graphing skills are on par with an elephant on PCP, so this might be a challenge. It doesn't seem so bad, and I have it for only three more days. 

This weekend I have been signed up for singles night featuring only people with either their MBA's or MBA students. I am hoping no one realizes that I am a hack, or it could be embarrassing. This could be fun as I have never gone to a singles night before in my life, let alone one in Chinese. I have learned a lot of good sayings that will either get me a second date, or a slap in the face. So it won't be any different from back home.

I am really getting tired of living in residence, I miss having a kitchen, and a tub, but it will do until I go home in July. I finally picked up my entire suit and jacket from Indochino, and it is fantastic. I really recommend this company for online suits http://indochino.com  . They are a first class organization all the way. As soon as I have photos of my new gear, I will post them here.

All in all it has been a good first 6 weeks here in Shanghai, I just need you guys to give me some suggestions of what I should do, I won't promise I will do them, but they are at least half adventurous it will be considered, and you could be immortalized in my blog forever.

Until Jupiter aligns with Mars,

Derek

Suzhou

Last week a large group of students (both foreign and Chinese) went on a day trip to the city of Suzhou. It is about two hours west of Shanghai, so I had to be up and ready to go at 6 am. I did not know that time existed over here as well. After I threw back two cups of Nescafe coffee (tastes like dirt), I trudged out into the pouring rain to go on this journey. After all the people were rounded up we headed out to Suzhou. This trip was planned by Fred and Tom, and they did a very good job. 

Tours in China are lead by a professional tour guide, and ours was all about business, she must have known everything about everywhere we went because she did not stop speaking for 11 hours. The only problem was that she only spoke in Chinese, so the international students tuned her out pretty quickly. Suzhou is famous for its gardens, and for the fact that it is about 60% water. It had stopped raining, but it was still pretty cool, so it made sense to keep moving. The gardens were really neat, but the rocks were very slippery, and I almost bailed on more than one occasion. That would have been epic, if I was able to break my other ankle while here.

Soon we went to a silk factory, which was amazing to see, but it was also a little bit creepy to watch cocoons getting unravelled, so they could make fabric. But the process was really neat.

I walked through the gift shop promising myself I would not buy anything,  and who knew I actually have will power.

The next stop was lunch which could be a whole post on its own. Lets just say tour guides probably get a cut from the restaurants that they take you to. We ended up eating Mc Donald's in a temple, which probably wasn't the PC thing to do but we were so hungry.

The next night the whole crew went out to some pretty Club Love, and let me state that this bar had the worst service of any club I have ever been to in the world. We waited for over an hour for drinks, and when we got them they were so watered down, mormons wouldn't have even gotten a buzz.

The next night the boys all decide it was time to go KTVing (karaoke). We decide it would be smart to drink a bottle of vodka beforehand as we would only buy one bottle there. Well we drank better than we sang, but I still think that the frenchman has a duty to sing Celine Dion. 

That is all that is really new here, I am off to listen to a CFA speak about the financial crisis, and how it is effecting this part of the world so that should be quite interesting, and after that we might go grab a burger at the Blue Frog.

Keep on Rockin........

Derek

Final Exam

Well I write my first final here tomorrow morning, and I guess I am ready. I studied on two separate days so that is about double my norm. I have found Starbucks to be the international studying locale as I have seemed to study in them all over the place in my life. I know the Economist has a Big Mac Index


, but there should be a Starbucks index as my Caramel Machiato is more expensive here than it is back home. I was hoping for $1 Lattes, but I guess that was just a pipe dream.  The treats in the photo are not from Starbucks, but I just wanted to show something that is delicous. I have no idea what they are made of, but the "chocolate" one tastes kida like chocolate, so it isn't so bad.

I am studying and living at Shanghia University, at the Yanchang campus. It is well located, only about 5 stops away from People's Square which is basically the centre of the city. Riding the subway here is super cheap, but sometimes you are sardined into a car which must have 5 times too many people on it. It is almost scary.

My MBA program here is called a GLMBA which stands for Global Local MBA. It has been so interesting to hear different views, and it has really opened my eyes to the fact that there are successful business practices that do not start in either Europe or North America.

I am really starting to miss certain things from back home, little things, weird things. I miss Mythbusters the most for some reason. I do not know why as I have seen every epsiode like a 100 times, but I miss watching geeks almost killing themselves on a weekly basis. There is no Chinese version of it yet that I can find. But when it starts I will let everyone know where to find it.

Well I should get back to the book, as I need more prep. Have a good one!

D-Rex