Taiwan Blogging, part 1

Lot of picture dumps coming. So we dook a three day trip to Taiwan right at the start of the (Western) New Year. We landed in the afternoon, checked in and went right to Taipei 101, the big landmark in the city.

We first ate dinner at the food court in the basement of the building, which was a 4-story mall. The boys saw a Subway and insisted on that. I ordered noodle/soup dishes from two other stands in the food court. Janice wasn't that hungry, so she touched maybe 1/3 of hers.

Of course, so I ended up eating mine and most of the rest of hers.

As Julia Roberts said..."That's a mistake. Big Mistake". I could see people running around our dinner tale with red flags, yelling "Warning! Warning! Don't eat too much!".

Of course, I got sick that night.

Went to the conveinence store to get something - anything - to try to settle my stomach down. My first thought was: "Shasta....what I wouldn't give for a Shasta right now!"

And lo and behold, my prayers were answered!

Super Bowl XLV

Well, as you can guess, I am very, very happy in the result of the Super Bowl. The thought of the Steelers winning another ring and their fans becoming that much more arrogant.....ugh.

Also, this is the second year in a row where I did have a winning wager on the player to score the first TD. Thanks, Jordy! I don't think I will hit another one of those for the next 20 years.....

It was nice to watch the Super Bowl in the morning. Super Bowl Sunday usually is interminable - the pregame shows are unwatchable, and you just want for 6:30 to come around. Not here - I went to sleep, set the alarm for 6:45, got ready and went to the Sports Bar with the boys to watch the game.

The bar was about 90% Packers fans - or, I should say, 90% of the people there were rooting for the Packers.

We did not have the Fox feed - Freddie was disappointed that we couldn't see the commericials. We had the feed from the "ASN" network, which took the NFL network feed. The annoucners were Bob Papa and - wait for it - Joe Theisman. Argh.



However, at half time and at the end of each quarter, a trio of Chinese broadcasters would pop up and provide some analysis. To my knowledge, there is no NFL equivalent of a "Chien-Ming Wang", so these were not ex-players. The guy in the middle seemed to be asleep and completely disinterested in commenting. Picture a blackjack table with me on one side, Don on the other side and Layup in the middle - and Don and I recounting, in great detail, our golf from earlier that day. Layup's look in that conversation mirrored what our middle commentator looked like all game.

Hello from Boracay

As I said in the last post, we are vacationing this week in the Philippine Island of Boracay. This is an island about in the middle of the Philippine chain, and is about 6 miles long and 1-2 miles wide. The main part of "town" is a pedestrian mall that is attached to a boardwalk-type of walkway that runs parellel to the beach. There is no "boardwalk", however, the path is just a trample path of sand. This part of town, obviously built for tourists, is very much like a miniature version of the Ocean City boardwalk.

Many different types of cultures here - a lot of Koreans and Japanese, a healthy dose of American ex-pat families, and a surprising amount of Germans.

The Philippine people are very nice - but service may not be there strong point. There are people everywhere eager to help, but nothing gets down. It took 6 people behind a bar a total of 5 minutes to get a Sprite. And I was the only customer.

Walking on the sand, there are boys - maybe 7-12 years old - that make these works of art in the sand, obviously hoping to attract the eye of tourists and to get a donation. A sand bowl is made next to the drawing (sometimes labeled, "Tip") for these donations.



Warren tried a similar tactic with his sand drawing of a fish - but no money appeared. I wonder why.

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Hello there! Happy New Year! I've had to go to work for three weeks in 2011, and now it's time for another holiday - Chinese New Year! The whole country pretty much shuts down for 5-7 days; we've been advised to get out of the country. So, right now, I am blogging from Boracay Island in the Phillipines. 85 degrees every day. More blogging on that to come.

When we get back, we have to hand out red envelopes to people that wish us Happy New Year. These people include:
- driver and nanny (of course)
- doormen
- the girls that work in the conveinence store in the building
- direct reports/secretaries
- any unmarried people
- children

The amount in the envelope will vary; before we left on vacation, I had the chore of filling about 150 envelopes with various amounts of cash. We bought these envelopes from a department store; some of the envelopes had a acetyl-alcohol kind of smell. I was feeling very much like Susan in "Seinfeld". She dies before the wedding with George because George bought the cheapo-envelopes. I felt I would suffer the same fate with the fumes I was inhaling.

Anyway, I'm so behind on blogging - got a lot to talk about, especially reporting about Taiwan and our 3-day adventure there. But one more item about life in China - we are living in an apartment complex with about 90% Chinese and 10% foreigners. They try to translate all apartment complex notices into English - but it looks like they need help. This is an actual sign posted by the elevator going to our apartment. The general idea is conveyed, I guess.....

Nice 2 Meat You

Steve, I expect a full review this summer of this burger that will be sold at Canal Park. Canal Park is in Akron, home of the Akron Aeros (the AA-affiliate of the Tribe).

"1 ¼ lb. hamburger, stuffed with a ½ lb. hot dog, and ¼ lb. of bacon, cheese, and onions.". That makes a good jingle.


It looks so bad...but I want one.

US Geography lessons needed

So the main airline I fly here is China Southern. It's a partner of Delta's, so I get to rack of the miles flying from Guangzhou to Taiwan, or Guangzhou to Beijing, etc. The miles are actually being credited, so that's good!

I was flipping through the route maps in the back of the airline magazine on one trip. One purpose was to figure out all the cities in China that I have heard in conversations, but have no clue where the location is. (Urumqi? Ha'erbin?)

I stopped at the section where it showed all the internation flights - especially the flights from China/Asia to North America. As usual, it showed two "colors" of flights - one in blue that were actual China Southern flights; the other was in red, which were codeshare flights. Apparently, Delta and Continental hubs were included.

The one "blue" flight was the non-stop from Guangzhou to LA.

There were a few reds to the middle of the US - to Atlanta, to Cincinnati, and to Cleveland - all hubs for Delta (the first two) and Continental.

The map had no borders - it was just a picture of the North American continent but with no countries shown.

So, now picture yourself as the person that needs to put the city dots on this map. How would you describe where Atlanta is?
"Just north of that peninsula in the lower quadrant of that mass in the north".

Done -Atlanta was pretty well placed.

Cincinnati? "Well, just kind of north of Atlanta"
Cincinnati looked like a suburb of Atlanta on the map, but ok.

Cleveland? "Well, it's on the south shore of the Great lake."

Well, unfortunately, the Great Lakes did not appear on this map. So Cleveland, on this map, is seen at the southern tip of Hudson Bay. At least 1200 miles north of the Cincinnati-Atlanta metroplex.

I'll have to get a picture of this to show it. I don't think I am doing the map justice.

Clothing Blogging

OK, trying to resume blogging after a layoff. I need to make sure I take my VPN login information when I travel so I can blog from hotel rooms in China (when I seem to have the time).

Two quick notes on clothing:

1. How much clothing should one pack when moving to another country?

Now, before answering...

How much clothing should you pack if you knew that your laundry would be done every day?!?!

The answer is that I packed way too much. Don't need to have 15 pairs of underwear when they are washed every day!

I have too many pants, dress shirts, golf shirts, etc......many haven't been touched yet. And why not? When you have a rotation of 5 favorite work outfits - why change if they are all clean and rady to go?

2. When did you all say: "Where's my winter coat?" for the first time this season? November 17th? December 2nd?

For me, it was last Sunday - and that's only because I had to travel to the north of China. It's nice living in the tropics! It may get to 70 next week! :)

The first of many?

I wonder if next year, at this time, I will be freaking out....

I'm celebrating by going over a friend's house tomorrow morning (still technically my birthday in the US) and watch the National Championship game. I'll be munching on a bag full of Sausage McMuffins with Egg.

Game Time beverage

During our trip to Taiwan, I needed to get a pop out of the vending machine.

Here was one of the multitude of choices in that machine. It was hard, but I had to pass on "Root SARS".

By the way, this is the beverage that most Browns fans drink every Sunday from 1999-preseny.

Let's not make any rash decisions

Hello everyone. It's been a while since the last post, and I have a ton of topics to cover. So there will be a big posting dump over the next 5-7 days or so.

Hope everyone had a good New Year's. My parents came in for Christmas, which was very nice. They left on New Year's Eve and got to the airport well ahead of their scheduled departure time. Dad was feeling a little queasy that morning, so we gave him some medicine before taking him to the airport.

As I was riding home after dropping them off, it occurred to me that they have no way to reach me! Dad's blackberry wasn't working, and his email stopped working for the last 2 days of the trip. The paranoid person in me started worrying - what if Dad gets sicker? How will they reach me? Do they even have my number written down?

I was playing with Martin in our apartment's children's area later that afternoon. I looked at my phone and I somehow missed a call 2 minutes ago - from an unknown number. Now I started to worry a bit more. Who is this? Did Dad grab a cell phone from an unknown Chinese person in the airport to get a hold of me?

I dialed the number back. It was a recording - all in Mandarin - and as I heard it, I could pick out a lot of numbers in the message. What exactly is this?

I texted our driver to see if he could call the number and tell me what the message is.

His response:
"Just harassing phone calls, promote gambling"

Hey now! Just wait a minute! Let's not rush to judgement on those recorded phone calls!

I may have to give that number another call once the NFL season is over!

Deli Sandwich

Went out Christmas shopping last week....stopped at a Deli to get some lunch. Yes, I will have the black pepper ham sandwich. It cost 30 yuan - just less than 5 dollars.

This is what I received.

That is one slice of meat on the sandwich.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from China! Yes, there is plenty of Christams decorations and music here in China. For about a month now, Christams carols - all in English - have been playing the malls. There have been many religious songs included in that collection. The Merry Christams theme is much more prominent here than in the US. There is no "Happy Holidays" sentiment here.

Of course, Christmas for most of the Chinese was a normal day. Our gas went out on Christmas morning - we apparently used up all our hot water and our account was at $0.00 on Dec 25. So our driver went out to the office, recharged our account, and gas was restored later that morning.

We are in the middle of a Monopoly phase here at the house - both boys love to play both the real board game version and the Wii version. They are starting to love the trading aspect and building up the hotels right away. There have been a few games that end in crying when one lands on New York, or Illinois, or even Park Place with a hotel.

It reminds me of years gone by with the Monopoly tournaments in the backyard and - more recently - a cut throat game 15 years ago when I was in Dayton when I held up the game for 10 minutes because I wanted Reading Railroad as part of a 3-way, 12-property trade instead of Short Line, which was being offered.

But I was right!

Learn English!

Found this book at a bookstore in Guangzhou.

Must.....resist......joke.....about......teleprompter.......

Sports Market

Went to the tourist shopping market today, called "Beijing Lu" - Beijing Street. Bought some Elmo's World DVDs for 25 yuan (about $4) each. Not bad.
One section of the market was dedicated to sports apparel/equipment - Nike, adidas, Converse, etc. No sign of Stadia, however.

Anyway, two questions for the group from this trip:


1. I need help from Craig, Mike, or others that have a vested interested in the EPL: Should I shop in this first store, or teach my sons to run away?

(and in the Venetian at Macau, there was the "Manchester United Experience" store in the plaza. Again, avoid or jump in?)




2. I would love to purchase multiple copies of this banner (the second picture) and give to our Univ of Maryland readers.....How profitable could I be if I bought 10,000 of these and marketed to every non-Duke ACC fan in the age range of 30-50? This would make a great background for rifle target practice, to put on a punching bag, in a urinal.....

Lost in translation

This sign appears near the entrance of the grocery/supermarket we visit. This is a European chain - Metro - so it's not a "real native" Chinese market. However, the translation here leaves something to be desired.

What was the real intent of this sign? To point out where the Electronics are? Auto Parts? Road Runners?

Now I understand how disasters occur.....

Some of you may have known that the 16th Asian Games were hosted by Guangzhou in November! The Asian Games are one step down from the Olympics - but it is still a huge production. 2 weeks of activities where the city almost shuts down - we got the Opening Ceremony day as a holiday. Fireworks and skylights galore.

I took the boys - with another father and their sone - to see the Track and Field events one night. I have to say, it was a lot of fun. The women's 10,000 m final was that night - you can see the action shot in the picture here! Can't you feel the excitement? The gun went off, the ladies started running - and then the boys asked how many laps there were.

25, I said.

"Oh....." they were disappointed. But it was clear that one of the ladies - in the final! - was much worse than the others. By lap 3, she was more than 1/2 lap behind. The boys were fascinated by the main runners "lapping" her - once, twice, three times.

The shot put and hammer throw were going on at the same time as well. We were all fascinated by - how do I put this - how amateur the participants were. At least 33% of the throws ended in foot faults. The hammer throw took place on the right of the picture - you can see the poles and the netting set up so hammers aren't thrown int the track. It's a good thing they were there, too - there were more than a few throws into the net, and sometimes we heard a loud "ping" - when the hammer hit the pole.

But I have to say our experience at the entrance of the stadium was the first time I felt in danger of physical harm. At the entrance on each side of the stadium, all spectators had to go through a metal detector and put any bags on a conveyor - exactly like an airport security check.

On our side of the stadium, there were about 25 or so detectors set up. But there were no lines.

We got there - and there were police standing about 30 feet in front of all the detectors. The policemen formed a human chain - and this chain was at least 300-400 feet long to cover all 25 detectors or so. Every once in a while, the police would open the chain at a position in front of the detector - let a few people in - and then close the human chain.

When we got there, there were people 15-20 deep along all 300 feet. So imagine a rectangle, 300 feet wide by about, oh 20-25 feet deep - and that rectangle was jammed full of people.

What happens when the police opens up the chain? Of course - a mass push to the opening. This was kind of fun when you are in the back - but once you are in the middle of the rectangle - holy hell.

This all occured outside, on blacktop - so even though it was not particulary hot out (maybe 70-75 degrees), just the heat coming from the blacktop was very noticeable. And I am about 6 feet tall. Freddie and Warren were really feeling it being 4 feet tall or so.

And we had to create room for them. They weren't getting much space at all. They were half amused and half confused.

As we got closer to the front, a grim thought hit my mind - what if Freddie or Warren - or I - tripped as we advanced to the front?

I ended letting them be ahead of me allowing me (and my larger-than-your-average-Chinese-person body) to try to force-create room by holding people back.

It was scary. We got through it in about 20-25 minutes, although it seemed a lot longer. Now I understand how people get seriously injured - or even killed - in stampedes. This was the qualification rounds of the Asian Games, for God's sake! What if it was something more important?

Coaching Rule #1: Know your players

Here's some more posts to bring everyone down from the high that was Jake Delhomme's first game winning drive this year (and what a drive it was! Veteran quaterback leadership to lead the Browns down the field to win, 13-10, at the gun):

I signed Freddie up for soccer this fall. The soccer is organized as a 7-on-7 matchup on a much smaller field than a regular soccer field. This is a great idea, as there is more action and all players feel like they are taking part.

I didn't sign up to coach initially, but at the first game (there were no practices! We were just thrown into games right away!), there was only one coach who just wanted to be an assistant. No one was thinking about positions, or how subs would work....so I decided to volunteer. I quickly realized that I was in the top 10% of the parents in coaching kids - with my track record back in the US - so I should have volunteered to begin with. (Freddie, by the way, is the only American on our team of 9). By week 2, I was the de facto head coach.

Anyway, it was time to meet all our players. The assistant coach and his son were English; we have two Korean kids that are twins (and I still get their names mixed up), two Taiwanese boys and an Indian boy.

On the side were two other kids on our team, one an Indian girl and another kid that had dark skin with afro-like hair pulled into a pony tail.

I went over and introduced myself to the girls.

"Hello ladies, I'm Coach Eric. What are your names?"

The Indian girl replied: "Hi, I'm Minu".

The other kid was silent. Alarm bells were ringing in my head.

"Um, hi - what is your name?"

"Ethan"

Of course it is. He looks like an 8 year old Yannick Noah. (That's Joakim's dad for all you youngsters out there). His father is Caucasian, his mother is African.

And it turns out Ethan is our best player on the team - a wicked left foot.

Our record is now 5-6-7 (I am not making that up) with 2 more games to go. Freddie is turning into a pretty good goalie.

Common sense translation

So - business question here - how do you create brand names in China? If you want to create a brand name for your product - and have it sound "non-Chinese" - how would you do that?

There's a lot of brands that take Western words, mush them together - and voila! You have a brand name.

For instance, there is a bottle water brand called "C'estbon". Literally, this means "It's good" in French. See? The water must be good!

There is another water brand called "Bonaqua". This is a French/Spanish mish-mash that means "Good water".

So I go into the 7-Eleven, and at the main counter by the cashier, I see a box with the brand name on it; the brand is:

"Jissbon"

I don't think I need to tell you the product that this brand name is associated with.

(and it's right next to the Mentos, too!)

Grocery shopping

You may have to click on the photo to enlarge, but here is proof that Beer is cheaper than Coca Cola in China.

The Hiatus is over!

Well, we are finally back. I have the external VPN set up at home so I can access blogspot, youtube, and many other sites without them being blocked.

So many things to talk about over the last 2 months. Things have gotten better since the last post on Sept 26 - that's the good news. The problem with not posting for that long is that the experiences that seem so fresh,so new at the time are not routine. For instance, listening to Ryan Seacrest in the car to soccer yesterday on a Beijing radio station - so what? But Layup thinks that is newsworthy. Oh well - there you go!

We'll start off with everyone's favorite topic - gambling! We got away for the weekend 2 weeks ago and took a trip to Macau for 2 nights. We stayed at the Venetian and it was great! Warren was crying the second night because "I don't want to leave! Can't we stay here forever??" Sounds like me on the Sunday night of the Vegas trip! (I'm getting him trained early).

First, let me just say that I spent more time doing "recreational" activities on this trip - like taking the canal ride, shopping, mini golf - than in the last 10 Vegas trips combined. I gambled for about 5 hours total over 2 days. Just enough to whet the appetite, but leave you hungry for more.

I mostly played craps. Some random notes about the craps experiences:

- Huge casino; at least, oh, 50 baccarat tables that were open (and 50 more that were not), 20 SicBo, 10 roulette, 30 blackjack - and 2 craps. Just not that popular.
- The minimums were $100 HK. The ratio is about 8 HK$ to 1 US$ - so it's just a tad more expensive than a $10 US craps table. But it plays with your mind! I have $120 on the 6 and 8 - I win a few times - now what? Press to..........$150? $210? ok. What do I win on those? Quick!
- The language spoken by most of the players there is Cantonese, not Mandarin. So that threw me at the beginning. I would be asking for a "liu" (6) and a "ba" (8) - and I was corrected by this older man who said the numbers were "lo" (6) and "bat" (8). I eventually also learned that "gong" is Cantonese for face card (handy at the blackjack table). So my three word vocabulary in Cantonese is solely because of gambling.
- The language got me in trouble later - I wanted to do my patented "Horn High Ace Deuce" bet on the come out. So I try to be nice and throw the $100 in and say "Horn High San", where San is Mandarin for 3. Well, that got them all confused. They don't know "san", and put the chip on the horn high 12. I said "no, no - san! San!" and there was all sorts of confusion. I finally said "3" - and they put in on the right spot.
The dealer then calmly said "next time, just say "Horn High Ace Deuce" - we understand that!"
- The betting behavior at the table was extremely odd. If there were 10 people at the table, you would have:
2 people betting on the pass line
all 10 on the numbers
5 of them betting on the numbers would have them working on the come out roll
0 people betting the come
0 people betting the hardways

and of those 10, 8 would not be at the table 20 minutes from now.

oh, and 15 people would crowd at each far end of the table to watch. It's a fascination to many Chinese casino attendees.

- That betting behavior led to this wild story. So there's like 4 people at the table - I think this was 8 in the morning or so, when I was pissed after the Browns 26-20 OT loss to the Jets. The table was choppy, and this man was constatnly betting the numbers - and they were always ON.
The dice came to him - and the dealers said that if he wants to roll, he has to put a pass line bet down. He grudgingly did.

First rolls - 8 - then several numbers, then an 8! Winner!
Next: 5 - more numbers, then a 5! Two points!
Next: 10 - more numbers, then a 10!
It was getting hot....I was winning the pass line and the 6 and 8, and he was winning a fortune on the numbers.
Next: 8 again - more numbers - then another 8! Woo hoo!

Next: 7 on the pass line - winner!
The shooter - of course - won his minimal $100 pass line, but lost his numbers. He was pressing a bit and had some money out there - maybe $500 on each number. But he had already made a very nice profit to that point.

He paused for about 10 seconds.

"Color up" he said.

I think I said, out loud - "You CAN'T COLOR UP NOW! You're hot!" He didn't hear or understand me.

I was dumbfounded. The dice - in the middle of a hot roll - passed to me. Of course, you know what happened. 6, 7 out.

I am still in shock that he picked up while rolling.

- If any of you ever come out here, I am sure we will have a mini golf competition. It is a 36 hole course that is wild - the holes are about 20-40 meters long; they do not have those stupid boards on the sides of the holes. The course is built on the roof of the casino. It took Freddie, Warren and I 1 full hour to play 18. And the greens are tough and undulating. I can't wait to go back. The only person I know that would have a chance to hit par on this course is Kermit.

The picture above is the approach to the 10th green, I think. You can see Freddie in the background - he hit his approach over the green; that's not where you want to be, as seen by the slope of the green.

All grass in that photo is artificial, by the way.