I have been in China for just over a week now. Kodak has a super talented office in Shanghai. More specifically in the expat-heavy Pudong area. This is good for me as it means I have access to western things (read: food). In the neighborhood I can walk to the super-store Carrefour (much like Walmart.. which also exists here but isn’t in my neighborhood). In there I can buy virtually anything (except pharmaceuticals as simple as Advil..).
Fortunately I have some good friends in China (just spent the weekend visiting one in Hangzhou), but it still can be lonely traveling by yourself to a country where you don’t speak the local language (note to self: learn Chinese). Even the western folks (read: white people) that I run into are not keen to engage in conversation (they tend not to be English speaking from what I overhear).
The Internet is filtered here (google it, I am not bothering with explaining the details). And TV is likewise limited. I brought some books, but there is only so much time you can spend reading. So I work.. not healthy, but it occupies my time.. and it is a business trip so I might as well give the company their money’s worth.
But I have come up with a list of things for any future trip I have the opportunity to go on (other business trips have never demanded such a list).
All in all, it has been a good experience albeit exhausting. I highly recommend visiting Hangzhou.. I’ll post pictures eventually. If you go, stay at the Rulai Free Soul inn. The location is great and it’s a nice calm retreat.
(@ Grand Central Terminal w/ 99 others) http://t.co/2aRo6dOY #I didn’t take the time to research this ahead of time, I expected the experience to be pretty typical for applying for a travel visa. It’s something I have to go through pretty much every time I leave the country. Being South African I rarely can have automatic entry.
Kodak is sending me off to Shanghai to visit our office there… next week. So off I went to 12th Ave and 42nd St to the Chinese Consulate. I googled their web site and printed out the form (which has to be completed within Acrobat, not hand written). I also had a letter from the Kodak office in China stating the purpose of my visit clearly. The web site didn’t list a whole lot of other requirements (unlike India, but that is another story).
So I get up extra early today and hop on the train. The web site I did find advised against going after 10am because it gets busy then. Well, I think everyone sees that and goes early!
First step was to get a photo. I did see some comments online that they can be strict about passport photos – plus I was too lazy to go to CVS ahead of time. So I head over to the photo man in there, who declined to speak to me and instead used cardboard signs with printed english. I suppose that avoids a lot of repetitions. It was somewhat painless, though I don’t recommend anyone looks at the resulting photograph! I will not be posting mine online to share.
So I wait in a very slow moving line for a couple of hours before I make it to the window. Meanwhile I keep seeing folks leaving the windows to go use an old copy machine to photocopy things like their passport and returning to other lines. The lady behind the glass was pleasant enough to smile, but after looking at my form and speaking with another lady handed me a highlighted piece of paper stating that I filled out the wrong form and here is the web site to go and get the right form. I ended up there for two multiple-hour visits (with a break for lunch.. they close from 12:00-13:00h). Don’t be me.
So my advice is this:
TL/DR – Make sure you have the right forms – bring a photocopy of your passport and green card
My mind is racing with too many things right now.. so let me get to the point. I found a great online tutorial for creating a 3D model of a house in Google’s very awesome Sketchup tool (grab it here: http://sketchup.google.com/download/)
I started thinking about it because Christine and I are going through the process of buying our first home. We’re using the best realtor in the world, Jenny Buchanan – and the best mom in the world. It’s new construction, which gives us the rare opportunity of actually having architectural plans for the home. Being the model home, we didn’t pick and choose the changes to the plans, but the copy of the plans I have are close enough for me to work with.
Next step, I am going to scan the plans into my Mac. From there I will trace everything into Sketchup. I am so glad I stumbled onto this tutorial because I was going to just do it from scratch.. and tracing is so much more efficient!