China !

by Chris

Very sorry for the long lapse between posts, but Kelly has been catching up from her trip to Moldova (more posts coming soon) and I'm in China !

So much to tell, I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll start from the beginning.

I arrived in Beijing last Tuesday morning and was met at the airport by my new co-workers/bosses/roommates Brian & Tom.

After a half day at the office including a lovely welcome lunch, Brian took me back to the apartment so I could get settled and rest.

Our apartment is very nice and in a nice, secure development near the CBD (central business district)

our courtyard (above)

For those of you who didn't know I came to Beijing to start working for Brian's new company which is developing new lacrosse equipment sale world wide.

Tom from Canada, Brian from Texas

China is very different from any other place I have ever been, and I've been to a few places.

I especially get a kick out of their signs.

Our apartment is on the 11th floor, from which I can watch the older people do Tai Chi in the early morning.

Now to business ! After a month or so talking on the phone to Brian & Tom, I finally am here, able to roll up my sleeves and get to work.

I'm here to help develop a company strategy involving Europe, but i also get input into other areas like product development. Look at this, our new stick !

As soon as the final design tweaks are made, we'll be able to mass produce them and start getting them into the hands of some lacrosse players !

Working and getting to work are two different things. On day 3 I was sent to the local bike rental joint (pictured below) so that I could bike the 15-20 minutes to work with Brian.

I don't have any pictures of the bike route to work because it is an obstacle course of cars, people, mopeds, bikes etc...imagine biking to work in Manhattan, but with no rules of the road and twice as many people.

I've really been enjoying the food. I'm adventurous when it comes to tasting new things, and China is only happy to oblige.

We played in a big tournament this weekend (more on that later), which opened with a welcome dinner at a fancy Chinese restaraunt (as opposed to a dirty noodle place in an alley...more on that later as well)

Pictured above you can see all the tournament participants listening to the opening speeches and waiting for the food to come out.

Here comes the first course !

Ok lets see...some Fried Tongue, Stomach, Hoof or Claw, and some other who knows what.

Wooooohoooo second course, coming right up !

Some pork items, whole fish, fried this and that, and everyones favorite Donkey !

As you can see below, the young American Team from California was really, really into the menu.

Beijing is really interesting. They are building EVERYWHERE, including the wacky looking CCTV tower near my office pictured below...if you can see it through the permanent layer of smog that blankets Beijing.

Anyway, so far so good. I'm enjoying myself immensely. I promise to make regular blogposts now that I'm all settled.

So far the #1 thing about China is :

Going to lacrosse practice, having beer afterwards, then hitting dirty nasty noodle alley for some late night food...for $1...beer included

Chris, Brian and teammate Tong destroying some piping hot bowls of noodles

More to come soon.