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Caroline's birthday part #1

This is part 1 from caroline's school...look how exicited she is

Meme reading to the grandkids

Meme is here and we are having fun. She actually arrived early and we scrambled a bit to rescue her from terminal 3. Today we will hangout with the kids and see how she feels

Hot as Hell

It has been really, really hot here.  Last week it reached 40C...which is well over 100F.  Combine it with some thick pollution and its pretty tough.  When I walk to work in the morning the weather is perfect, which means by noontime it will be unbearable.  I have been wearing these great underarmour undershirts that keep me much cooler than the cotton ones I used to wear (and they also don’t turn grey like all the cotton ones), but you still break a sweat.  I’ve commented on how the temperature in the office is a constant battle.  On a day last week where it was 38C outside literally someone had the windows open in the office because they were cold.  I tell you what.  If I ever lose my cool in china it will be about fucking losing my cool in china.

It was a busy week.  Amy’s CPAP finally showed up so now we both can get much better sleep (we left it in the car that took us to the airport - $180 in fedex later and 6 days clearing customs).  We had dinner with some friends from Wilmington on Friday night as they were in town doing the whole tourist thing.  We ate at Duck de Chine and had a really nice time.  They are only here for three days and had an action packed agenda, so I’m glad we got to see them.  With this crappy weather, I couldn’t help but think that they must believe this place sucks...it doesn’t, its just not very nice right now.

On Saturday, Amy and I bought the kids some new shoes (they are growing so fast), and after my Mandarin lesson we went to look at some more apartments.  Actually during part of my Mandarin lesson, we conducted an in-person interview for our second Ayi.  Her name is xiao zhou and we liked her very much.  We were haggling a little on price, so she was going to get back to us today.  I hope she accepts, we liked her very much.  She also seemed pretty mellow, which will hopefully be a good offset to Ivy’s manic personality traits.  If all goes as planned she will start on July 13th.

The apartment hunting was good.  We saw four more apartments, but still love the one I described last weekend.  I took some video that I’ll put at the bottom of this.  We are really happy with the options.  Also the Marriott people aren’t negotiating in good faith, so we will definitely not be living here after September.  With occupancy way, way down and expats leaving beijing in droves (the economy) its curious to take a hard line stance on rent when the marketplace is so competitive...oh well, their choice.

Las night, we had burgers and milkshakes with the kids at the All Star grill in Solana.  It was alot of fun.  Caroline had a huge milkshake and mom and dad had margaritas.  We walked back through the big open square at Solana and watched the kids play in the drop fountain.  Here is some video (check out Elizabeth’s evil move at the end):

This week will be a hard week for us as I am going on a long business trip...I leave tomorrow morning and spend two days each in Nanjing, Guangzhou and Chengdu.  I arrive home on Saturday evening around midnight and then I go to Zhengzhou for two more days starting the following Monday.   This doesn’t happen very often, so we will get by.  But its tough on Amy to have the kids all alone.  Its also tough on me if its going to have all the heavy drinking that the last trips had.  Lets cross our fingers.  On this trip I will be traveling with our local partner.  They have a slightly different travel policy than the JP Morgan one.  Now we are extremely cost conscious as a corporation, but our minimum standards are above what our partner’s max is...and to avoid the two different worlds issue and too keep team cohesion, I will be staying in hotels following their travel policy...I’m hoping for AC and a private non-squatty potty.  Yikes.  It does raise a common issue in hybrid organizations - pay/benefits disparity.  It’s just so VASTLY different, and it will always be a sensitive topic.  I wont give details here, but over a beer, I will explain it to you.

One thing I wanted to mention too is that I had a comprehensive medical exam this week.  I have always been bad about doing this, but with too many of my friends getting sick, I thought it was wise.  I bring it up because as I watch the healthcare debate in america I get very frustrated with how we settle for shitty, expensive and inefficient.  The care I got during the checkup was outstanding.  In 73 minutes (and the clock started when I walked in) i had the following done - medical history, full physical check, height, weight, mole survey, ekg, urine test, blood test, singulair prescription filled, prostate exam, breathing volume, japanese encephalitis vaccine, MRI scheduled (getting the aneurysm thing checked out based on family history) and a GI doctor referral (check out my 20 year battle with heartburn).  It was incredible efficient and Private.  Politically I am for comprehensive reform and think a public option is good, but the experience I had shows that you can have a private insurance program and receive high-quality and efficient care.  I don’t believe there is anywhere in America that I could get all of this done in 73 minutes - and the other thing...68RMB co-pay.  $10 for all of that.  Who is my insurance?  Cigna.  See, so it can happen.  Lets trade shitty, expensive and inefficient for good, cheap, and efficient.  Who wouldn’t want that?

Minor issue here this week with Google.  Its well understood that the Chinese government filters the internet.  So they wanted Google to improve some of their pornography blocking - Google didn’t respond they way that the Chinese government wanted, so they shut it down.  Now google is not the #1 search engine here (it actually has only a 5% market share)  BaiDu is #1.  Looks familiar huh?!  For searching it was no big deal while google was down because we just went to bing (I actually liked it, so it was nice to experiment with bing).  It was a problem for email since Amy and I both use gmail for personal boxes...oh well.  It came back a day later.  We used facebook and my work email to communicate during the outage.

Have a great week and hopefully this Michael Jackson things dies down (come on, he was a pedophile and the world is probably better off without him) and we move onto more meaningful issues like iran, iraq, north korea, the economy and things that actually impact our lives and our future.

Apartment Video (i did it at lower res than the one above - my video rule - only the kids get hi res)

Update and Happy Father's Day

Its 4:32pm on Sunday afternoon and everyone is asleep. We had a very fun father’s day. After a relaxing morning which included a swim with Caroline, we went to the JW Marriott for brunch. This is the same place we went for Easter brunch. They have an outstanding buffet with bottomless glasses of champagne and other adult drinks. They also have a great setup for kids - a big grassy area with toys, crafts, face painting, kids menu and ayis to watch-over them all. Amy and I had a great time, and the kids had to be pried away at 1:30. On the kids home we had to keep the kids awake because we knew a monumental nap was coming...and it did. Great Day! Here is some video

In general, things area going well here. Everyone is fully adjusted to Beijing time (except we are still missing Amy’s CPAP machine which we left in the car on the way to Newark - its here in China, just awaiting customs clearance). Work has been good, but very busy. We have alot of initiatives and too few people, but that is life. Two Fridays ago we went and had drinks at this new bar close to my work called Xiu. It was really nice. We then walked across the street and had a really great Cantonese Meal at Summer Palace. I had been there for a work luncheon before and knew it was great. I’m trying to get Amy to try some new chinese styles and she hadn’t done cantonese yet. We had vinegar soaked turnip that was sliced like the petals of a flower (and presented that way), braised pork rib (best meat dish in china so for for me), beef cheek and eggplant and the most perfectly cooked asparagus. 

This past friday night, we went to a new Hunan restaurant called Karaiya Spice House in Sanlitun. It is run be the same restauranteur that runs the great sushi place, Hatsune. We ordered the big bridge of pork, some shredded duck and ginger, some pea shoots and assorted mushrooms in garlic. The big bridge was delicious, but a little light on the meat. It was perfectly spicy and when washed down with a Riesling, was almost perfect. The shredded duck was frankly too hot and not very tasty. The mushrooms and pea shoots were great. This place was good, not great. Probably wouldn’t come back given the many great options we’ve found here in Beijing. We closed the evening with some drinks at Sureno. 

Amy has been busy. She enrolled elizabeth in an art class that meets once a week. Its Chinese language only, but thats no problem for Elizabeth - she can choose not to listen in any language she pleases. This is a good chance to get Elizabeth in a classroom setting preparing her for Eton after her third birthday this December. She is very proud of her backpack and gets very excited to go (she slept wearing it the first night). 

Amy is also planning all the logistics for Caroline’s upcoming 5th birthday. She will have some friends over for a party downstairs in the multipurpose room. She is working on all the details and it will be a great time. 

We also have been making progress on our potential move. We saw an apartment yesterday that was amazing. We really, really want it. Its not in Palm Springs, but next door at Park Avenue. So we don’t leave the neighborhood, but we do leave the apartment complex. Park Avenue has a courtyard that is not nearly as well manicured as Palm Springs, but it is much more kid friendly with a larger playground and open grassy spaces for kicking a ball around etc. The apartment is much bigger than what we have (423 sq m). Its on the 32nd floor, but the views are more southern and eastern (northern is the best and what we have now). Also the gym is outstanding and the kids indoor playroom is gigantic. I think we will move here, but there are many steps that need to happen before its official. 

We also worked out a deal with our current Ayi, Ivy, about securing a second Ayi. I know sitting in america is sounds obnoxious, but we need a second Ayi. Especially in this new apartment which is not serviced (no cleaning, sheets and towel), a second Ayi is required. Its also will make Amy less stressed during the 4-7pm time on weekdays and gives us coverage on Sunday. Basically Ivy works M-Th 7:30am-4:30pm and F-Sat 7:30am-10pm (focused on kids and their meals). The new ayi will work from something like 11am-8pm (focused on cleaning, laundry, our dinner) and all day on Sunday. We now need to find someone who will work with our situation. We were very lucky to find Ivy without much difficulty. We have no illusions about being that lucky twice. 

Weather here has been hot. It will be like this through August. We’ve also has some really bad pollution days. On twitter, I follow Beijing Air and it gives hourly updates on air quality. Usually the rating is “unhealthy.” There was one day last week that it acutally said “Hazardous” it was the first time I saw that rating. Yikes. This upcoming week we hope to make progress on the apartment and on Friday, we will have dinner with my friend Joe’s wife and two adult kids. They are visiting his oldest daughter who teaches English in Shanghai. Amy and I will take them out for some roast duck and amy will give them the lowdown on the best shopping places. 

Have a great week and happy father’s day to the dads out there.