The Office Day Two

I'm up early. Didn't sleep well last night. Worked too late I guess, but at 5:45 I'm up for the duration. Eat breakfast, turn in my laundry, and decide to head to the office.

The excitement may come later today, but for now, this is a pretty mundane work day. Being up early did give me the chance to call Janie about 8:00 to get some 'stuff' on a couple of purchases worked ouit and to catch up on the local(Durham) news, and that is a good thing. Very good. But right after that I'm polishing up my morning presentation. Testing Process and Procedure Overview. When I give the presentation I'm long winded and cut into the lunch hour. They forgive me.

Lunch is back on the Sogo Food Court. Today they take me to eat an American meal. I choose spaghetti. Actually quite tasty.

In the afternoon I meet with Alfred, the general manager of the office here, and hold a one on one meeting with Lily. I will hold these one on one meetings with all the staff before I leave. I also work on my presentation for tomorrow.

Late in the afternoon, I'm presented with my schedule for the coming week or so. It is as follows:


2007-10-23(Tue) 6:30PM Dinner at Tasty Jere, Lana, Lily, Jason

2007-10-24(Wed) 6:30PM Dinner at MaLaYouHuo Jere, Eric, Terry, Tina

2007-10-25(Thu) 6:30PM Dinner at Barbecue Jere and whole Team

2007-10-26(Fri) No plan

2007-10-27(SAT) 9:00AM Summer Palace Trip Jere and Team
Jason will pick up Jere at front of MarcoPolo Hotel at 9:00am

2007-10-28(SUN) 9:00AM Forbidden City Trip or Shopping Jere and Lana

2007-10-29(Mon) 6:00PM Dinner with Alfred and Managers Alfred and Managers

2007-10-30(Tue) 6:30PM Acrobatic performance at Tian qiao theater Jere and terry

2007-10-31(Wed) 6:00PM Dinner at WangPin Jere and terry

2007-11-1(Thur) No plan


Looks like I'm going to be a busy boy.

The one thing I hate about the 12 hour time difference between Cary and Beijing is that as I'm closing out my day here in Beijing, for work anyway, Cary is starting to crank up. That means that if I don't work tonight I'll have 200 email mesages to process in the morning. It stinks. But I don't think I'll work tonight. Too tired. Back to the hotel after dinner (they've promised ot have me home by 8:30) and then relax. I worked hard yesterday and today.

Dinner tonight is interesting. We're going to a restaurant called 'Tasty.' It serves Western food. My take on the term Western is that they probably meant Western Beijing as opposed to Western culture. First problem - there is no English Menu. No sweat. I have three people that speak Chniese with me. But the translation is more than they can handle. We find a a waitress who can explain it to me.



You pay one price and get an appetizer, soup, entree, dessert, and beverage. "One from section one, one from section two...." I order based on what I heard the waitress saying. What I get is sometimes different. Appetizer. have no clue what that was except it had a duck egg included. I pass on the duck egg. Soup is fine. A bit greasy but basically the Chinese version of chicken noodle soup. The "Tasty Steak", the house specialty, is excellent. Dessert is Black Forest cake. Not as 'black' as I remember it back home, but good. I'll say I batted .500 on this meal. At least they use forks in this restaurant.



I am dead. Head off to bed as soon as I hit the room.



Good night Beijing.