Why am i here?!

Day 56


So many of you readers are probably wanting to ask me, “Did you go to Shanghai to play ultimate Frisbee?” Yes…yes I did. Just kidding Po Po. This past week at work has been great, except that it was a very long week. Getting into Shanghai on Monday at 6am didn’t help the week go faster, but the work is getting better. I just recently helped to design a consulate and my co-designers loved some of my ideas. Work has also been getting better because I can see vast improvement to my skill level with many of the key software programs that I will need in the future. Look at you sofa cushion. I can make that on the computer. Wrinkles and all. Yeah, I’m that good. So I don’t just go to ultimate tournaments and have fun, I do have work, and I know that I’m meant to do this job.

Bangkok?!?! oh yeah!!!

Day 49-53

Ever been to Bangkok? Well I was just there. My flight was Friday at 5:20pm so I left work early, and it felt so good to leave work early. It usually takes about 1 hour to get to the airport from my place by taxi and can cost about 100 kuai, so instead of a taxi, I decided on the Maglev Train. The Maglev is a direct connection from downtown shanghai to the Pudong International Airport. I took exactly 7 minutes and 55 seconds, and was traveling about 200mph. I flew with Thai Airways, and I have to say that Thai Airways was probably one of the best airlines that I have ever flown on. Their slogan is Thai Airways: smooth as silk. And they were not lying. It was so smooth that I didn’t even feel the takeoff. The seats were even slightly pre-inclined, so you didn’t feel like you were sitting on a right angle wooden bench. Along with the non-existent take-off the service was non-stop. For those of you that are interested in the alcoholic beverages, they are free of charge on Thai Airways. There was even a point in the flight when they came around with shots of Courvoisier! I started off with orange juice, then they gave us hot towels, and then the meal came: chicken and fried rice, a buttered roll, chocolate raspberry cake, smoked salmon, Chinese tea and I was offered red wine. The meal was actually better than I have had in Shanghai. The movie was Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, which was actually not that bad of a movie. I land into Bangkok around 8:50pm and immediately the heat hits me. Shanghai was about 5°C and Bangkok was 34°C.

I flew with my friend Jeff and Sherry and we all met up with Milan. We catch a cab and head to the registration party because none of us have a place to stay in Bangkok yet. You might be asking yourself, “Why doesn’t he have a place?” and I can explain. My credit card has been temporarily disabled and so I was unable to book a room at a hostel. None of us had a place, and so we decided to find one after the party. Bangkok is beautiful. It was much cleaner than Shanghai, Cincinnati, and New York. Just like New York and Shanghai, it never really sleeps. There are stores and restaurants always open, and the street food vendors are always eager to serve. We hang out at the party for a bit and then start our search for a place to stay. We eventually end up at the Ambassador Hotel, which is located right next to the party and tomorrow’s party. So Jeff and Milan are happy about that, I’m just happy to have a place to stay. I hit the hay around midnight and get ready to wake up at 8 the next morning.

Milan and I leave the hotel around 8 and need to get to the field by 9. Milan and I decide to take the metro to the field, and head to the closest station. The teller tells us to get off at MoChit station, and that’s about 7 stops away. We arrive at MoChit and look at our map to try to find the field. We head north and just start walking. We ask a few people on the street where it is, and they just point and we think we heard one lady say, “Bus”. It’s 8:45 when we ask a couple and the tell us, “Continue straight, turn right and then follow the road for 4km.” We say thanks, and we try to translate and figure out if we heard correctly. We ask someone else and they said 4km also. We decide to take a taxi. The taxi starts driving in the right direction and we get there in 23 minutes. 4km was correct.

The fields are located on an Army Base. I’ll let that sink in, and let you realize just how cool that is. While we are playing, there are guns firing, army dudes running around, soldiers marching, helicopters sometimes flying overhead; and here are 250 foreigners running around on their field playing with flying plates and blasting music. These people are awesome. I am placed on the Burgundy team and I don’t need to warm up because I got pretty warm and sweaty just by walking around Bangkok trying to find the fields with Milan. We play 4 games on Saturday, and it wasn’t my best tournament or play I’ve ever had. About mid-day, I start to feel it. I either ate too much food, or I had a little food poisoning because I started to feel my stomach about to come out my mouth. On top of that being in the sun for too long caused my to perspire a bit, and I could feel my heat stroke approaching. On top of THAT, after taking a break, I attempted to warm-up and stretch to find myself in excruciating pain in my right leg. My entire leg cramped up. My thigh was bulging and my shin was popping out. The locals were just staring at me and probably amazed at what they were witnessing. The medics rushed over and started stretching and rubbing my leg, and it would eventually go away. Then I got toe cramps, and then stomach cramps. Not the best day. We end the day and I head back to the hotel with Milan and jump directly into the pool. Cool down and stretch in the pool and just try to not feel as much pain. I explore the streets of Bangkok a bit. I walk around and there are just people everywhere. Food stands are littered everywhere and goods are lined up on the main streets. They are selling shirts, emeralds, shoes, watches, hats, DVD’s, and prostitutes. That was pretty awkward. I have been approached in Shanghai by people who want me to buy DVD’s and watches from them, but never women. I was disgusted and told them to get away. It is probably the worst thing about Bangkok, the prostitutes, and is one thing that I am willing to not see or be near again. After eating some beef on a stick and some noodle soup, I head to the Ultimate party where the theme is: Timewarp 3009. I get dressed and head to the party.

At the party there are tons of people dressed up. You know the movie Aliens with Sigourney Weaver, and the scene where she’s in that robot arms thing? My friend Mary knows that scene, and she made that. I wore a Chinese helmet, this silver jacket I bought, a white shirt, a transformers belt buckled belt, jeans and silver converse high tops. I looked good. I talk with some of my friends and learn that people are rather impressed with my skill level and my potential as an ultimate player, and that I could be even better if I just assert myself. That seems to be my problem in a lot of areas of my life, assertion. I head to bed around 1 and get ready to wake up at 7:30.

I get outta bed at 8 and Milan and I hitch a ride with another Ultimate player and get to the fields in 14 minutes instead of 64 minutes. My team was eliminated after 2 close games, including one game to universal point (sudden death). So we hang out after and watch other people play and just have fun chatting and hanging out. We go to another bar for another “party” and then I head for my 1am flight. Now my plan was to get the 1 am flight, get into Shanghai around 6am, and then head to work by 9am. WHY?!?!?!?! Work that day was sooo long and sooo boring and soooo rough. The day dragged and dragged on. But it was worth it, cuz I was in Bangkok.

I'm still here!

Day 46

Yes I am still alive, and no, nothing bad has happened to me. It has been a while since my last post, and I apologize. The past week hasn’t been all that exciting. Work has been getting better. There was actually a huge personnel change and I now have 2 new co-workers, and lost 4, so that was the biggest change at work. I’m still using Sketchup and Autocad like crazy, but one of my coworkers, Kolin, is trying to teach me 3ds Max and I’ll be teaching her Sketchup. My fellow interns and I decided to explore more of the market aspect of Shanghai and traveled to the famous Fabric market. Here, there are tons of vendors with examples of coats, dresses, jeans, pants, shirts, and suits. Their main goal just like every vendor is to sell you inexpensive things so that they could give their work to their sweatshops. I bought a 400 yuan Cashmere coat, and it is going to be custom made. In always strikes me at just how cheap things are here, and that’s definitely going to be something that I’m going to miss when I return to the states. Now I’m just preparing for this weekend. I’ll be venturing off to Bangkok for another Ultimate Frisbee hat tournament. So stay tuned, cuz there will be plenty to write about.

Kunming

Day 35-38


As many of you might know I have many passions in my life. One of them is Ultimate Frisbee. I started playing Ultimate about 3 years ago and I have loved the game since. It is my release from just life, plus it helps me to stay in shape. This past weekend I had the opportunity to do something that not many people can claim to do, and that is to be an international ultimate player. Now to some of you that doesn’t sound too cool or interesting, but to the rest of us, it is one of the coolest things to say that I have played a tournament in China, and I got noticed.

I left for Kunming on Friday. My flight was at 20:10, so I left at 17:40. Not many of you know this, but recently I have had horrible experiences with flying (if you want to know more, ask and I might post the story). I get to Hongqiao airport and I have no idea where to go. I can’t read any of the signs, and when I go to a desk I just get rerouted to another desk and to another. I finally get checked in and get ready to board the plane. Well I have 2 hours to kill so I pop open my book, Catch-22, get a good chunk outta it and then right in front of me a lady and her child appear. The smell is horrible. Without a warning or care, she starts to change her child’s diaper right in the middle of the seats and in public. Now my smelling ability isn’t that bad, so I can stand it, but I just can’t believe what is going on. My flight gets delayed twice and we finally board…onto a bus. We are all cramped on this little shuttle bus and like sheep we are then herded off of the bus to our plane and everyone rushes to get on the plane. Now one of the best things about flying in China is the service. First we get moist toilettes, then drinks, and then a refill and then food and then another refill and another refill. The service just doesn’t stop and it is awesome. Our meal however, not so hot: Cookies (yum), Roll (ok), Apple Crisps (tasty), cake thingy (good), Instant Matsutake (disgusting sealed packaged mushrooms), moisten gula candy (mint), and last but not least, Yi Lin dried radish (disgusting sealed packaged radish)…with a hair. After 3 hours we land and I get to the hostel, The Hump Hostel, check in and go straight to bed.
I wake up the next morning around 8:30, meet some of the other ultimate people and we head to the fields. This is a hat tournament, which basically means that the teams are in a sense put in a hat and are randomized by skill. I’m on team 1, dubbed: After the Game. The sky is clear, blue, the sun is shining, and I’m already outta breath after jogging for a minute. Kunming is in the Himalayas and is about 2000m above sea level. Everyone except the locals is sucking wind and we are all easily getting sun burnt. The day goes on, we lose our first two of three games and finally win our last game. One of the greatest feelings is to have everyone who is watching the game cheer and to just get wild after an awesome play…and I had one. (To you non-ultimate players this might get confusing, sorry). We pulled to the opposition, and I started running down the field. The disc landed about halfway between the back and front of the end zone. My man was standing just in front of the front end zone line. I baited the thrower and he ate it. He threw it to my man, and I fully layed out reaching for the disc and intercepted the disc right on the goal line. 4 inches closer, and it would have been a Callahan. The crowd went wild, and I have to admit, it felt cool. The night ended with spaghetti, with garlic bread and a spicy Caesar salad with hanging out and socializing and learning the important lesson of bringing toilet paper everywhere you go in China.

The next day we played hard but lost our qualifying match by one and then beat the team we beat yesterday. I almost had another layout Callahan, but no dice. We finished 3rd, but it’s ultimate and I had too much fun and met too many cool people to even care about scores or places.

Today I went to catch my 10:35 flight around 8:00 and went to check into the airport when the lady told me that my flight was booked for March instead of February. WHAT?!?!?!?!?! I told you I have bad experiences. It gets fixed and I board the plane all right because of my two-hour cushion. For the meal I get Fish with rice, a roll, apple crisps, packaged and sealed disgusting instant matsutake again, and packaged and sealed shalom? I get back to Hongqiao airport, catch a taxi, and he doesn’t quite know where I’m telling him to go. Excellent. It takes a little longer than it should, but he gets the job done. Well Kunming was a great trip and a great experience and I have Bangkok to look forward to in about two weeks, so stay posted.

Work

Day 34

Have any of you ever met a monkey? Well, the next time you meet me you can say that you have met one. Not because of my superior climbing abilities or my ability to run jump like a monkey or to catch a Frisbee with my feet; but because I have officially become a CAD monkey. So for the past couple days I have actually looked forward to work. The daily grind of going to work the same time everyday and doing the same thing everyday was really getting to me. Mainly because work wasn’t work, or fun. It was just useless down time for me. We have this client who is located in France and they specialize in making cookies. So they hired us to redesign their interior space to a smaller area. Not only was this refreshing, but it was really fun. It just felt good and it felt right. I was excited to go to work and put to use what I was thinking that night, or to look forward to work knowing that this was my REAL design. After doing many iterations and getting feedback from others I sent my final to my new supervisor, Yuki. And then the boredom set back in. I was able to hold off from playing all of my usual games: Free Cell, Spider Solitaire, Tap Defense, Sudoku, and iShoot for the time that I was designing, but when I “finished”, back to the games it went. Yuki came to my desk and opened up a powerpoint. She flipped through the pages saying that the first slide was hers and then all of a sudden I recognized the second slide to be mine. My heart was racing to see that. I had finally designed something real for a client, and this wasn’t like school were the clients are always real or they aren’t always going to build or see what I have done. This was a real client and a real design, and it was mine. It is one of the coolest feelings in the world to see your work and to know that it has even the smallest possibility to get built and to get refined even more. The feeling is priceless…even for a monkey.

1 month

Day 32
Well it’s been one month, and all I can say is, “ Wo lei le.” Translation: “I’m tired”. It’s been quite a month and one that I will definitely not forget. It was full of excitement, disappointment, full stomachs, new friends, and new experiences. Last night I ate my first burger in Shanghai at a restaurant called, Blue Frog and it wasn’t half bad. Topped with a fried egg and French fries, it was well worth the 40 kuai ($5.84). The ultimate guys and I hung out afterwards at one of their apartments and I finally got home around 12:24, just in time to try to get some sleep for work. Work was LONG. It wasn’t that bad though because I finally got to do what my title says: design. It was cool to finally design something in the company and things are looking better. So I experienced my first burger in Shanghai, my first design iteration at my firm, and tonight I experienced my first pizza. 12 inch, Hawaiian thick crust for only 50 kuai, including tip. It was actually quite good. I forgot that I was really a huge fan of Hawaiian pizza but the review of Melrose’s said that it was good, so I went with it. Good choice. It hit the spot and the best part will be cold pizza in the morning. So that’s one month down, and only four more to go, stay tuned.

Alarms

Day 30


Well it’s the start of another month, and let’s just say I wasn’t too eager to start today. As you know, the last week was Spring Festival, which is Chinese New Years. We welcomed in the new year of the Golden Bull with parties, clubs, dinner, and a whole lotta fireworks. Way to many fireworks. Instead of roosters to wake up to, it seems that people here like to use their vast arsenal of fireworks. I’m glad that’s over. I wasn’t glad to remember that I had to go to work today. Today….Sunday! I use my iTouch for numerous things. I use it for music, videos, games, and the handy dandy alarm clock. Loaded with many different sounds, I have chosen three that I use the most: Alarm, Digital and Strum. Alarm is one that goes: WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH…. Digital goes: BLIDEHS DLIBHHDIE BLCDOOIE KLKDIVNEPPQOE…. And Strum goes: strummy strummy strummy nice…. With these three alarms, I am guaranteed to always wake up and be on time to everything. The alarm function also has this cool function where I can set it to only go off during the weekdays. Do you see where I’m going with this? So I reset my alarms for Strum at 6:34, Digital at 7:01 and Alarm at 7:43. You might be scratching your head wondering why I’m so weird that I would pick these random times. Why not 6:30, 7 and 7:40? Well after seeing the movie “Pre” I have always been a follower of the idea to set times that aren’t so easy to remember and those times we take for granted. If you set a time like 8:27 instead of 8:30, you will make sure you make that before 8:27. Or at least that’s the idea. So I’m sleeping like I do every night, and I wake up around 4 in the morning. Frustrated with myself I try to cram as much sleep as I can in the next 2 ½ hours before my alarm goes off. I wake up around 6:49 wondering if my alarm went off at all, so I go back to sleep cuz I’m lazy. So I’m sleeping and dreaming and like so many times before I just suddenly wake up. It’s 7:54. WHAT?!?!?! I’m confused as to why my sure-bet alarms didn’t go off. So instead of getting outta bed, I turn over and start to ponder as to why my alarms didn’t go off. It takes about 36 seconds for me to realize I was stupid to think that it was Monday and not Sunday, so I finally get outta bed and get ready for work. The entire day, I thought it was Monday and not Sunday. It was one of the weirdest days, and definitely not one of the most exciting.


I have found though that this happens to me a lot. So many times I will wake up at just the right time. When I fall asleep in lectures at school (sorry, but it happens), I will wake up right when the professor is in his closing remarks. Every time I fall asleep on the bus, I always wake up one stop before mine so that I can situate myself and no stumble off the bus. And when my alarm doesn’t go off, my back back-up alarm goes off, and I end up being early to work. It’s crazy but it’s cool, I just hope I don’t get too confident in my 9th sense. I have only been “let down” once, and that happened about a month ago. I was flying into Shanghai when the pilot announced that we have about 30 minutes before we land. I decide why not take a little nap before hand because they always mean 1 hour anyway. So I fall asleep and I awake to this woman shaking me and yelling at me. I wake up in a daze, blinded by some light and see empty seats all around me and the flight attendants staring at me. Some smiling and some scowling. I stumble out of my seat, and try to get my bag out of the overhead compartment. I am dizzy and I really have no idea what I’m doing. I just walk around the airport until I find the customs and find that I have a huge gash from when I was taking my luggage down. It has scarred now, and it will always be my reminder of my trip in Shanghai, and also that even my back back-up alarm has a snooze button.