Day 32 – 您好,上海!

Hello, Shanghai! 

Today is my first trip to Shanghai with the main reason being an evening poker match at a coworker’s place. I didn’t have much else going on today, so why not!

Getting there

Based on where I’m staying in Suzhou, getting to Shanghai is a bit of a process that involves three separate train systems:

  1. Suzhou subway to Suzhou rail station
  2. Bullet train from Suzhou rail station to Shanghai Hongqiao rail station (and airport)
  3. Shanghai subway from Hongqiao to final location

First, I hopped on the Suzhou subway to get from Moon Bay (月亮湾) to the Suzhou Rail Station (苏州火车站). Getting a ticket for the Suzhou subway is easy: You walk into the station and find one of the automated touchscreen kiosks. There’s an option for English, so no struggling with learning the Chinese characters of where you want to go. Put your money in the machine after selecting where you want to go and grab your ticket then walk to the security check. If you have a bag, place it on the conveyor belt so it can be scanned. Closed bottles of liquids are OK to bring on the subway but for open ones you may need to prove it’s not a dangerous item by taking a sip or using your fantastic Mandarin skills to explain what the liquid is; I just leave the liquids at home, unless I bought a bottle of wine or six… Once past security, tap your ticket at the gate, walk through, and make your way down to the subway platform.

Riding the subway is easy as almost all sinage is in both Chinese and English and there’s an LED display indicating which stop you’re at and where the next one is. There are also announcements in Mandarin and English. For getting to the rail station I opted to change from Line 2 to Line 4 to cut about 15 minutes off the trip. Both lines stop at the Rail Station, however, so I could’ve just stayed on Line 2 all they way.

Once at the Suzhou Rail Station (苏州火车站), I needed to pick up my train ticket from the ticket office that was prepurchased using the CTrip phone app. (It’s in English and accepts credit cards!) I went to the North Ticket Office which is outside and to the left of the security check point. That’s very important to know as when I first attempted to find the ticket office I passed through security and was completely lost! (Good thing I gave myself a a full hour to navigate the rail station before my train left…) 

After waiting in line for a bit, it was my turn at the ticket counter. I handed the clerk my passport and my phone which displayed the “ticket pickup information” from the CTrip app. The clerk handed both those back along with my ticket. Time to walk through security again.

The train station is pretty massive with many platform, restaurants, seating areas and signs. Sadly most of these signs, including the depatures board, are in Chinese. It took me a while to figure out that my train departure wasn’t listed on the departure board because I was there a bit too early. Phew, nervous energy gone. Twenty minutes later my departure gate was announced and so I went to the waiting area. A little bit later it was time to scan the ticket and walk down to the platform where I somehow needed to find carriage 15 before the train arrived. (Carriage spots are not marked on the platform…)

The train arrived and I took my seat in the first class car. Hey now, that ticket upgrade was an extra $0.80! So why not 🙂 Seating in first class is 2×2 vs 3×3, very similar to a USA-based airline flying a domestic route. There’s also more legroom in first. But don’t expect beverage or meal service. (Maybe on longer routes those items are offered, but not for this short hop.)

The train was very quiet and fast. Max speed was 244kph (about 150mph) on this trip. There was only one stop between Suzhou and Shanghai Hangqiao (上海虹桥) station and the entire train ride was less than 30 minutes including the one stop.

Shanghai Hangqiao rail station also connects to the Hangqiao airport (SHA) via one stop on the subway. Sadly that airport doesn’t have many international flights. The main international airport for Shanghai is the Pudong Airport (PVG) on the eastside of Shanghai. Anyway, I queued up for buying a ticket for the subway, entered the security line, and found my way to Subway Line 10 as that route will take me within a couple of blocks where I’m meeting my coworker and a number of her friends.

The trip to Shanghai was pretty easy, but a bit long. I left my place at 10:45am and made it to the Hongqiao rail station (ostensibly the westside of Shanghai) by 1:30pm. It took another 45 minutes or so to get to the Shanghai Library subway stop.

Thoughts

Traveling by train is pretty easy and far less boring — and cheaper — than taking a taxi. Not sure about the intercity or long distance bus routes as I’ll likely avoid those. 

While staring out the train windows I got my first glimpses of the Shanghai skyline, including the building that looks like a bottle opener and the completely massive Shanghai Tower.

With this huge metropolis less than two hours away (now that I know how to navigate the Suzhou Rail station), I’ll likely spend some weekends here taking it all in: the shopping, the nightlife, the food, the museums, and the people!

Day 31 – If you could only hear it …

Oh. My. God. It’s just after 8pm and I finished dinner not too long ago and made the mistake of ordering another beer at my usual restaurant. Why? I was having fun playing a Texas Hold ‘Em poker app on my phone and it’s not like I have anything better going on tonight. (Did I mention before that a beer here usually comes in 0.5L sizes only? I ordered the small one and it still came as a 0.5L size!)

Normally that would not be a problem as I can hold my beer, even after one litre of it. And Suzhou is a seriously safe city plus the place I’m staying at is maybe 300-400 meters away.

But none of that is the cause of my “OMG” outburst. You see, there are all these karaoke places near by and I know a bunch of my coworkers really enjoy singing. Like REALLY enjoy. I’m pretty sure they are all part owners in karaoke joints…It’s not just a myth that karaoke is popular over in this part of the world.

Anyway, it turns out tonight’s live music at this restaurant/bar is a guy with a CD collection of karaoke hits, an electronic keyboard, and a microphone. Apparently all he knows are codependency songs from the late 70s and early 80s…And he’s the only one singing. It feels like I’m stuck in a timewarp and no matter how hard I try and drain this beer, the bottom of the glass seems further and further away! It might be a night to leave a wounded soldier upon the field of battle …

Tomorrow’s agenda: My first trip to Shanghai! Yep, you guessed it; there’s a poker match to be had 🙂 And no faux karaoke!

Day 30 – Reflecting on differences

As the one month mark marched on by, I find my self comparing my old life in SF to my new life in Suzhou less and less. I don’t need to convert money exchange rates to determine how expensive something is and I can discuss distances in km instead of miles. I learned celsius along time ago so when I went running tonight after work with the running club I knew in advance the outside temperature of 36C rivaled that of New Orleans in the dog days of August, humidity and all! 

But what exactly are some big differences between SF and Suzhou?

  • Smoking indoors in Suzhou is normal, but not at work, medical clinic, grocery stores, shopping mall, or public transport options. (I’ve not been on one of the maglev trains yet, so I only am referring to city transport options.)
  • It is very clean here, except for the air. Exact opposite of San Francisco where you’d often be wondering if that pile of poop came from the human who’s in a drug induced daze or that humans pure bred dog that’s living on the streets with the owner but you never are concerned with the air or water quality.
  • In SF you will walk down the street any time during the day and need to be aware of your surroundings so not to get mugged or walk into the middle of a drug deal. In Suzhou you never worry about your personal safety except when crossing the street. As a coworker mentioned today, “The traffic lights are not safe here [when trying to cross in a crosswalk].”
  • Housing prices are expensive in both cities, though SF is on a whole separate level of obsurdity. 
  • Public transportation, while expansive in both places, is much more reliable and convenient in Suzhou … And way cheaper! A one-way bus fare in SF was $2.25 when I left; it’s about $0.30 in Suzhou.
  • Speaking about public transportation, while both systems start around the same time in the morning (6am), Suzhou’s system mostly ends between 9pm and 10pm. A few bus routes and the subway go until 11-11:30pm, but nothing passed then from what I can determine.
  • In Suzhou anything that requires manual labor is extremely cheap: twice a week house cleaning for a month is roughly $100 in Suzhou whereas $100 in SF *might* cover one cleaning a month for a small one-bedroom apt.
  • Food in Suzhou is still seasonal. In SF there are no seasons. 

Thats all I have for now. At some point this list will be appended. But I want to leave this post with one parting thought and something I really miss about SF apart from my friends & softball team: It’s nealy impossible to find a late night burrito stand in Suzhou!

Day 29 – Bank account & local phone number

If it weren’t for the help I received from the relocation company, I’d likely still be trying to obtain a local SIM card for my phone (which allows me to have a local phone number and use cellular data). It’s just as confusing in China as it is in the USA. The one difference, the company I went with, China Unicom, had only two plans to choose from. I paid for a few months up front (about $70 USD total for three months) and then the next bill will have to be paid online. Which means it’s time for the bank account.

The person I was working with suggested we go to ICBC (one of the three or four largest consumer banks in China). The staff there spoke fairly good English so setting up the account wasn’t difficult but there was a TON of paperwork involved. The account I opened is basically a savings account with a debit card attached to it and it came with this strange little random number generator I’m supposed to use when accessing the account online. At least I think that’s what it is for since I had to set up a six digit PIN as well.

Lots of paperwork, pictures of my passport — some of which I had to be holding as the picture included me in it — and a couple hours later add up to me being able to receive a paycheck at the end of the month! And once that happens it’s time to go apartment rental shopping!

Tonight is the weekly poker game at Ollie’s. Wish me luck!

Day 26 – First day at work!

The day finally came; after what feels like an eternity, I’m once again gainfully employed by a good company. In fact, after a four year absence, I’m back to being on the payroll for the first company I worked for out of college: Microsoft.

Yes, that’s right — the Microsoft. The one you’re thinking that is in Redmond/Seattle Washington. The one that makes Windows, Office, Xbox, and some pretty sweet Surface laptops.

But then you’re thinking “Why the heck is Richie in China if he’s working for Microsoft?” and what a great question that is! As it turns out, hiring really great software engineers is extremely difficult in the USA, especially when a lot of younger, fresh out of college students prefer to work at companies like Uber, Facebook, SnapChat (yeah, I don’t understand that app either), or Google. The old 1990s type companies similar to Microsoft, Oracle, and Cisco are fighting to get that new talent but it’s an uphill battle. Once you pass that hiring hurdle, you are faced with the issue there is a severe lack of graduates with STEM degrees (science, technology, engineering, math). And don’t get me started with the stupidness that is the visa process for hiring skilled overseas workers to legally enter the United  States. It all adds up to non-winning combination.

It turns out that in China Microsoft is one of the highly sought after companies for software engineers. With government friendly policies and offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzen, and Suzhou, Microsoft is getting those great engineers and the product development follows suit. This allows Microsoft to develop an increasing number of products solely in China, including the one I’m working on.

So what is that product? It’s a team collaboration product called SharePoint. It can easily act as a company’s internal website (or intranet, to use the technical term, not to be confused with internet) or a location where information, documents, and business logic/process can live and execute. It is employed by many Fotune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies as it fills a big need for organizations of many sizes. What’s also pretty freaking cool is that Microsoft’s intranet is powered by SharePoint! That means everyone in my company will be using the product I’m helping to develop! Pretty cool, huh?

My exact set of features that I’ll be helping to produce is still a bit in the air, but I’m sure it’ll be fun to work on as all my colleagues, Chinese & expat alike, are extremely nice and dedicated to making this product even better than it currently is.

Stay tuned!

Oh, before I forget, the blog might not be updated daily as now my M-F (or S-Th for those in the USA, due to the time zone difference) likely won’t be very interesting. But then again, I’m not quite sure how interesting this blog is to begin with! 

Day 9 – Back in Suzhou

Another short post today as I’m completely exhausted from the trip to Hangzhou! After learning about the Chinese tradition of the toast at dinner last night, I woke up early to go run with the running in from work. Six of us set out at 6:05am … Some faster than others … And some slow like me (since when is a 9 minute mile slow???). Well, turns out the loop we were doing was about 10km, well past my usual 6km limit. That limit was hot and the next 70 minutes were spent walking back to the hotel. THEN it was time for a full day of activities, which included picking vegetables and fishing out lunch out of the wetlands — literally. Don’t worry, tons of food pictures are coming tomorrow 🙂 And yes, it was all amazing once again! The ride back to Suzhou was long as we hit traffic, so yeah … Not much of a blog post today but plenty more coming tomorrow! 再见 // Good bye!

Day 8 – Team offsite

Today was a pretty special day. My team at work was having a two-day off-site in a nearby city called Hangzhou and they invited me to take part in it!

Needless to say there’ll be lots of food and nature/landscape pictures coming soon. Hangzhou is a beautiful city, and the food…OMG!

Day 7 – You chat, I chat, WeChat

Continuing yesterday’s post about VPNs and YouTube TV, today’s will be a bit more simple. As the Chinese government is rather strict about what information they allow their citizens and residents to access (aka, censorship), certain apps just won’t work without a VPN: Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Netflix, anything from Google, Microsoft’s OneDrive …

Even with a VPN, depending on your internet connection speed, trying to make VoIP calls (Voice over Internet Protocol) may be difficult as the audio may be choppy; video calling may be even worse!

Enter WeChat, an app from a Chinese company that works great for messaging and making voice or video calls without a VPN. The app is free for Android and iOS and is pretty easy to use, once you get it installed and configured. It’s been a while since I installed it so I don’t remember all the steps, but do be sure to connect WeChat with your mobile phone number as it’s required. Don’t worry, you can still do everything over WiFi!

wechat1

In China is seems pretty normal to use WeChat for everything communications related. That can be from sendings personal txts, conducting business, or continuing a conversation with someone you just share in a Didi ride. The app, once configured, gives you the ability to show a QR code on your screen that someone can scan using their phone to add you to their contacts list. Pretty simple, huh?

There’s another way to add people to your contacts list if you’re not physically located next to them: Find them via their username. Your username acts similarly as your email address or phone number in this case. And, if you’re truly a friend of mine, shoot me a message through email, txt, or FB messenger and I’ll send you over my WeChat username so you can add me and we can chat! (I’m not going to post such personal information that can easily be spammed on such a public forum…)

So, friends, go ahead already and install WeChat, add my username to your contacts list, and let’s txt/talk/video chat away!

Today’s word of the day: 手机 (手机), meaning cellphone.

Day 5 – The medical exam

It rained again this morning which, in itself wasn’t the issue, but the rain caused many people to take taxis (租车) to work and made it nearly impossible to hail one to take me 27km clear across Suzhou to get to the medical facility in time for my 9am appointment. You see, even though my physician in the US gave me a physical (which needed to include a chest x-ray and an EKG readout), China requires one done in country in order to obtain a work/residency permit. So yeah. Anyway. The taxi arrived at 8:50am, then got stuck in traffic, then dropped me off at the wrong location (about half a mile away) … The one good thing in all this is that there was no actual appointment that was missed; the facility seems to be a “drop in” type location.

The medical exam itself was quite interesting. My contact who’s helping direct what needs to be done for obtaining the work/residency permit did not mention I would have to bring 386rmb (~ $57) in cash with me, so … after registration and a visit with the cashier (payments up front, not after), the cashier kindly directed me to where the closest ATM was — a ten minute walk down the street! Now, walking 10 minutes is nothing for me, but where this medical facility was located made the walk quite interesting as it’s in a factory/industrial part of town. Also, the closest ATM was NOT on the same street. Thankfully Google Maps (hello downloaded offline areas!)  was able to point me in the right direction.

With cash in hand, I walked back into the medical facility, paid for my exam, and proceeded up to the second floor to begin the process. There were different rooms that you had to enter and each room had a specialist that was going to poke and prod you in a different manner. Height/Weight/BMI and blood pressure in one room, blood sample & urine analysis in the next, stomach ultrasound in the third, eye exam and EKG in the fourth, and then chest x-ray in the fifth — which happened to be back on the first floor.

The eye exam was rather interesting as unlike in the USA where you read a line of letters back to the medical professional administering the exam, in China you specify which way the character 山 is facing. They also test your color blindness, which apparently they weren’t as thorough in that category because I know that’s one exam that I will fail.

Once all the exams were finished it was time to tender my document showing stamps from each of the rooms. I thought it was time to head home, but no … I needed to get a copy of my passport to turn into the facility and get my photo taken to attach to my medical exam. No idea why that photo was required as they scanned my passport and used that photo to add to the printed document that I carried around to the various rooms.

At this point in the day I was getting hangry as I hadn’t eaten since the night before — fasting was required for the exams — and quite thirsty as I violated one of my rules for living in China: I didn’t have a bottle of water with me and man was I thirsty! Fortunately I was able to hail a cab with no trouble and made my way back to the apartment. Thursday there’ll be similar fun as I need to return to the medical facility to pick up my “certificate”, whatever that means. (Why can’t they just fax it to the hotel? Oh yeah, original copies of things are big here.)

Today’s word of the day: 出租车 (chūzū chē), meaning taxi.

Day 4 – Exploring Times Square

Day 4 – Exploring Times Square

The rains stopped and the pollution dropped to the lowest level since moving here…which means it’s a great day for a long urban hike and exploring a new part of Suzhou!

20170611.jpg

The view across Dushu Lake (独墅湖)without pollution, just normal, fluffy clouds!

According to the map, it would be a 4.5mi/7.2km walk from my apartment to Times Square, almost a straight shot up Xinghu Street (星湖街), which is a pretty major thoroughfare but it does have separated sidewalks. So why not!

Along the way there was some nice public art installations, including a tribute to Albert Einstein which proves that math *is* the universal language!

Einstein.jpg

Times Square is a fairly nice, if not bougie, part of the city. Lots of restaurants and cafes of varying prices, an art museum, events center, iMax movie theater, and both an indoor and outdoor mall with tons of shops. I even found a pair of hair clippers in the mall for 460rmb, which was twice the price I’d expect to pay so I passed them by.

This area of Suzhou features what I would call the iconic building of the city. You can see it in the picture after a few more paragraphs below. Apparently it may be called East Door Exhibition Center (东门展览中心, though a few characters are missing from that translation). As it’s across the Jinji Lake (金鸡湖), and it’ll be explored another day.

Overall impressions of Times Square:

  • Seems to attract a lot of tourists, but not nearly as many as the NYC version
  • Plenty of restaurants and shops to keep one busy
  • Being a subway stop is nice
  • Would be a long commute, ~ 1 hour, to get to work each way via bus (a transfer would be involved) or subway (at least one transfer)

I’d love to see this place at night as I have a feeling it will be lit up beautifully! Also, once it’s open, I’d love to visit that new W hotel near the East Door Exhibition Center; I do love me some W hotness! (It’s the smallest of the three “stair step” looking buildings over my right shoulder.)

East Door Convention Center.jpg

Today’s word of the day is what will help me get home from here: 地铁 (dìtiě), meaning subway.