My trip to Shanghai Nov 2004


Who would have ever thought messing around with Linux in my college dorm would end up paying off later in life in the form of travel? :) I've been an instructor at Intel for quite a while teaching a class called "Post-Silicon Debug in a Linux Environment". A few groups in Shanghai China and Penang Malaysia requested the classes be taught at their sites. Lo and behold, I was chosen to go teach the classes to the kiddies halfway around the world.

I learned that a lot of folks traveling to Asia at Intel do so with the help of Singapore Airlines. If you or your company can afford it, I highly recommend it. The seats for the overseas flights are roomy. The food kicks butt, and is served often. You have your own personal LCD screen, with access to about 60 channels of movies and other programming, pausable, rewindable, etc. They also have a little snack galley in the back of the plane where you can stand up and stretch your legs, talk with passengers, or the lovely stewardesses. Wow... the stewardesses are something else. Most of them wore a wonderful smelling perfume that was so strong and noticable, you could smell them comming before you saw them. :P And while most of them wore too much makeup to my taste, quite a few of them could get away without makeup and still look great. One thing I did notice tho is that most of the stewardesses had larger-than-average butts (well, for good-looking ladies that is). Most likely due to sitting on large flights. I didn't mind... in the wise words of Sir Mix-A-Lot, "I like big butts and I cannot lie". :) Oh, another great perk of Singapore Airlines is the hot towels they give you at the beginning and the end of the flight. For whatever reason those little puppies make me feel so good after rubbing my face in them. Maybe they're laced with something. Who knows. Anyways, no, I wasn't paid to say any of that, it's just that damn good.

I left for Shanghai on Monday Nov. 1st, and after a transfer in LA and Singapore, I arrived in the Pudong airport on Wednesday afternoon. Crossing the international date line was a little trippy, but surprisingly I didn't have jetlag (although I needed a shower pretty badly). I went straight from the airport to the Pudong Intel site, to verify the training room. Immediately thereafter the Intel driver took me to the corporate apartment I was put up in. Wow, that place was nice. I then went to the "Shanghai Mart" Intel site to meet a few of the folks there. Afterwards I had dinner with Euan Wu, the training coordinator there, who is a pretty cool guy. After dinner, I went back to the apartment, only to find that the water was off (denying me a shower). After talking to one of the hosting managers, she arranged me to stay at a hotel that night, since the water wouldn't be on until the next day. At this point it was 10PM, and I had to be up veeery early the next morning to get to the classroom before the students did and to set up. Plus I was tired for being awake for longer than what probably amounted to be a little over 18 hours. So needless to say after I checked into the hotel and showered, I slept like a rock (but somehow still woke up on time the next morning!).

Without boring you readers to tears, the next day's class was very cool. The class was very attentive and asked LOTS of questions. It was a very enjoyable teaching experience. I had dinner that night with Harold and Jin Feng. Harold is slated to be a "local trainer" for the debug class. Jin Feng's manager was another "host manager", he took it on himself to show me around in the following days.

So Friday and Saturday I had to trapse around Shanghai. I pretty much only explored the Puxi (kinda pronounced like poo-she, it means the west part of the city). It was a lot of fun! The following photos document a little of my sightseeing experience. The timestamps aren't Central Standard Time, they're the China localtime.

I was messing around with the night shot capability of my camera here. Either I focused wrong or I moved the camera when I hit the shutter. Either way if you squint real hard it looks cool. This was a view from the corporate apartment that I was put up in. 14th floor, pretty neato.

Picture taken on : Thu Nov 4 22:14:16 CST 2004
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apt night
Another night shot. This was looking in a south-east direction from the apartment.

Picture taken on : Thu Nov 4 22:17:04 CST 2004
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apt night 2
Same shot as above but taken "long".

Picture taken on : Thu Nov 4 22:19:22 CST 2004
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apt night 3
A shot of the interior of the corporate apartment, the dining room.

Picture taken on : Thu Nov 4 22:23:24 CST 2004
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apt interior
A shot of the apartment's kitchen. Very cool.

Picture taken on : Thu Nov 4 22:25:12 CST 2004
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apt kitchen
The apartment's living room. It had a huge TV! It had DSL! It had water for almost every day I was there! :P

Picture taken on : Thu Nov 4 22:26:10 CST 2004
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apt livingroom
Bullfrog! Yes, it does taste a little like chicken. It was fried up with orange zest, plus the veggies you see there (I think onion, peppers, etc) and a sweet tangy sauce. Very yummy. The place Jin Feng and I had it at was a 5 minute walk away from the Shanghai Mart Intel site, it was part of some sort of shopping mall.

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 12:48:54 CST 2004
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bullfrog
This is a shot of Jin Feng and I in front of SH Mart. Jin Feng is a cool guy, he took time out of his busy schedule to show me around and tell me what is cool and not-so-cool to do. Hopefully some day he'll be able to come to California so I can return the favor.

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 14:24:24 CST 2004
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shanghai mart
This is a shot of a tree-lined street very close to the Yu Yuan garden. I thought it looked pretty cool. Although you can't see it in this picture, the apartments of this area have the nastiest looking electrical system I've ever seen. It looks like a rats nest of wires is sticking out of the sides of the buildings. I'd hate to be the electrician working on it!

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 15:17:38 CST 2004
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tree street
A shot from a park next to the Yu Yuan garden. In the distance on the left you can see the Orient Pearl TV tower. In the distance on the right is Shanghai's tallest building, the Grand Hayatt Shanghai. You can sort of get a feel for how much pollution is there from this picture.

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 15:20:48 CST 2004
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skyline
In the shopping area close to the Yu Yuan garden they were having a music art festival. I figured I'd take a video of one of the performers.

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 15:51:56 CST 2004
singer
The Yu Yuan garden contains an old stage where plays were put on a long time ago.

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 16:21:26 CST 2004
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stage
A shot of a pond inside the Yu Yuan garden.

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 16:24:36 CST 2004
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yu yuan pond
A shot of one of the buildings on the stream in the Yu Yuan garden.

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 16:45:48 CST 2004
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yu yuan stream
A footbridge across the stream in the Yu Yuan garden.

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 16:46:44 CST 2004
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yu yuan footbridge
A pond in the Yu Yuan garden.

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 16:53:34 CST 2004
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yu yuan pond
This is the same shot in the park next to Yu Yuan, only at night. The Pearl TV tower isn't fully lit up yet, that happens later that night (don't worry, there's a picture of it).

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 18:08:56 CST 2004
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skyline-night
Another shot of the Pearl TV tower, this time at the Huangpu river. This particular stretch of land I walked along is called "The Bund". It's known for it's colonial buildings, and being well-lit at night.

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 18:27:26 CST 2004
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huangpu riverfront
A shot of the Bund buildings. Apologies for the lack of focus.

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 18:33:42 CST 2004
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huangpu riverfront
Another shot of the Pearl TV tower. Only now it's fully lit up. Neato, huh?

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 19:01:06 CST 2004
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huangpu riverfront
"Honey, do I look fat in this dress?"
"Why of course you do dear, it's an elephant dress!"
Quite a few Chinese people were staring at me when I took this photograph. It was along a busy shopping street. I thought it was pretty funny that someone would name a dress company after something as big as an elephant. But I'm sure stranger things have happened. And I'm sure the humor was lost on all the Chinese around me. Ah well.

Picture taken on : Fri Nov 5 20:25:56 CST 2004
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elephant dress
A shot of me in the "new territory". This area is full of buildings built in the 1930's. It's a touristy spot, mainly filled with bars that young people, both western and asian visit.

Picture taken on : Sat Nov 6 12:46:40 CST 2004
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new territory
Jin Feng and I.

Picture taken on : Sat Nov 6 12:47:42 CST 2004
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new territory
Bona and I. Bona is also a cool guy I met (through a friend of Jing and Lin) who agreed to show me around. He's into hiking too, so we had a bit in common.

Picture taken on : Sat Nov 6 12:50:50 CST 2004
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new territory
Bells at the Shanghai Museum. These puppies were played like a musical instrument a loooooong time ago.

Picture taken on : Sat Nov 6 15:31:46 CST 2004
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museum bells
A huge vessel made of bronze. If I remember right, the audio tour said this thing weighed in at 160lbs. Yup, reeeeeely old.

Picture taken on : Sat Nov 6 15:38:36 CST 2004
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large vessel
This figurine, made out of porcelain, was put in homes to ward away evil spirits. The way it looks to me, it's probably attracting evil mischeif! Seriously tho, the statue depicts a warrior crushing a supposedly evil spirit.

Picture taken on : Sat Nov 6 16:38:42 CST 2004
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evil spirits

OK, now on to my trip to Malaysia. Click here to continue to the next segment of my journey.


Album generated by Chris Fester on Sun Nov 21 18:54:12 CST 2004