I'm officially done with China. I really am. I have been there twice and I'm not impressed. I take that back. The Great Wall was pretty impressive. Snap judgement, you say? Jaded, just a little, you say? Ok, well I guess you're right and I should give that big ol' country another chance. But not this year!
Let's just start with the taxi ride to the hotel. So, I come out of immigration and I'm a wee bit tired. A guy approaches me and asks "taxi", I say "yes" and we head out to the parking garage. Wierd, but I don't care. Then out of the corner of my eye I see a big sign "TAXI" indicating that is where I should go to get a taxi. Wierd, but again, I don't care- I'm starting to get a little rancid after my long flight and I just want to hit the showers. So I follow Chuckles; I call him that because anytime he said anything, he automatically started to laugh. "Taxi, ok?" (insert giggles) "Yao Ming, ok?" (insert laughs). You get my point. So, despite my better judgement, I follow Chuckles and he signals his "partner" and he comes up. He's got a taxi sign on the roof, a meter in the car- I figure I'm set.
So, we get going and an hour passes and we circle the hotel like 5 times. It's in a wierd intersection with a lot of construction so I cut Chuckles a break. We finally arrive and they both "chuckle" and show me the meter. 890 RMB which is about 90 bucks, which, is about 400% higher than what I should have to pay. Lucky for Chuckles, I was educated before I got on the plane and knew that I should only have to pay about 140 RMB. First, I get all my luggage so they don't take off with it and then tell them no way. Chuckles, in his broken English, attempts to tell me this is not a taxi, but car service. I say now way, Chuckles, I know better and you'll be lucky if you get 100 out of me. He quickly drops to 700, no, then 500, no!, then 400, no Chuckles! 120 and no more! Chuckles and his friend aren't too happy, but they come to the realization that I didn't just walk off the boat and they are going to have to settle. I offer 140 as my final and they conceded- almost. They say they can't break the second 100 I have to give me 60 back and I say- Chuckles! Give me your change! In the end, I had them emptying their pockets and I walked away paying 140- not the 890 they wanted!
Anyway, moving on. Don't get me wrong- Shanghai is loads better than Beijing. The hotel I stayed in (the "tallest hotel in the world"- it was located on the 54-89 floors of the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai) was great. As my wife will attest, the fake bag shopping was great. However, what was not so great was the abrupt delay of the torch relay- just 30 minutes before my President landed. Gulp. "Guess what President, the torch relay you and the customers flew 17 hours to participate in just got cancelled."
What do you do?! In the end, our customers were able to run. I understand the circumstances for the delay in the torch relay (a government enforced 3 day mourning period for the earthquake trajedy). But, it certainly throws a wrench into the process when you are trying to host customers and keep them happy. In the end, they were able to run a few days later than planned and we made the best of it. Oh- and during this 3 days of mourning, the government turned off all TV channels deemed entertainment- only the news ran. And, all businesses associated with entertainment (karaoke, etc) had to shut down. It was a little crazy at the power they demonstrated.
So, I boarded my plane and headed home. I landed about 10 pm on Wednesday and finally made it home. The next morning it was go, go, go as we prepped for Koebe's birthday, headed to the party at 2:30, grabbed a bite to eat at McAlister's Deli, ran to his baseball game and then drove straight out to the airport to drop Aprille off for her mother's day/birthday suprise trip to Cali/Mexico with her best friend Paula. What was I thinking. I was so jetlagged and I had to drive back home with the kids in the car and take care of them by myself until the next TUESDAY!
Despite staying up until 2 and 3 in the morning, I made it through and welcomed Aprille back by picking her up at 4 pm on Tuesday, drove her straight home and turned around and drove back into Dallas to head to my 6 pm MBA class. Yeah- I need a break. Did someone say Father's Day? Oh, yeah, I can hardly wait....
Ok, I have to post this picture of Aprille. She's hot. She hasn't straightened her hair in a long time and while she is always smokin', she takes it to another level when she get's her hair done like this (shout out to Tiare for doing it for her!).
er to have dinner. We sent out invites and didn't bother to calculate how many people would actually come. One by one, each family accepted. As you can see from the pictures, we had a full house. How full? 17 adults and 28 kids, for a grand total of 45, that would be 4-5 people! Hello! It was great and everybody had plenty to eat, although nowhere to sit and eat it!
er to have dinner. We sent out invites and didn't bother to calculate how many people would actually come. One by one, each family accepted. As you can see from the pictures, we had a full house. How full? 17 adults and 28 kids, for a grand total of 45, that would be 4-5 people! Hello! It was great and everybody had plenty to eat, although nowhere to sit and eat it!
