Back to Shanghai

I'm finally back in Shanghai now that my project in Taipei has ended. Back to the crowds on the subway and the rude taxi drivers. I wish I could have taken a better picture of the number of people who squeeze into the subway station during the morning commute. I could not take a picture of the worst part - the fact that people do not let you off the trains because they are too busy pushing to get on. A coworker of mine missed her stop by two stations because she couldn't get out in time.

According to Wikipedia, Shanghai ranks only 13th in the world for number of annual passenger rides, but because of the relatively few interchanges (6 stations that allow you to transfer to a different line), each interchange station is incredibly crowded. If you are trying to get on, off, or even exit the system at one of these stations, you'll be pushing against thousands of people.

Not all food is better

I haven't eaten much ice cream over here in Asia because it's not nearly as good as the stuff we have in the States. Ben and Jerry's is non-existant (except for in the Hong Kong International Airport food court - please read my earlier airport faceoff post). Haagen Dazs is all over the place, but costs an arm and a leg - $10 for a pint. But it's so worth it. Let me compare the ingredients of chocolate ice cream from Haagen Dazs to vanilla ice cream from some russian brand I got when flying Eva Air to Korea.


Just in case you can't read the text, let me list the main ingredients for Haagen Dazs: Cream, Skim milk, Sugar, Pasteurized egg yolk, Alkalized Cocoa. Simple and delicious, some dairy mixed with sugar, egg and chocolate.

The ice cream a la Ruski: Water, Milk powder, Sugar, Maltose, Coconut oil, Anhydrous milk fat, Egg yolk, Vanilla seed, stabilizer, emulsifier, vanilla flavor, Carotene. Coconut oil? Anhydrous milk fat? Huh?

I suppose at least it was made in Taiwan. Better than food made in China.

Thai food

The food in Thailand was delicious, and I did try to stay away from eating pad thai or anything I could get in the US. Unfortunately, I was so busy figuring out what everything was that I forgot to take many pictures. This is all I got. It's a roasted chicken (I know, not that interesting, but very tasty.)

Asian city tour - Stop 3: Bangkok

I’m staffed right now on a project with an associate from Thailand. Since it’s such a long flight to go back to Shanghai, I took him up on an offer from him two weeks ago to show me Bangkok one weekend instead of flying home. Here are my impressions:

Bangkok is a lot more developed than I expected. I’m not sure why, but I expected concrete buildings a la Beijing, without the sprawl. In fact, it’s a really nice city with top notch hotels, good shopping, and terrific food. It had a certain friendly Southeast Asian feel to it that I get from Singapore, just not as clean or orderly.


Thailand is wicked hot. It’s not just broiling hot, but disgustingly humid as well. It’s a good thing everything is heavily air conditioned. I don’t know how anybody lived in the area before the discovery of refrigeration and freon gas. I sweat a lot to begin with, but I probably lost a quart an hour walking the streets of Bangkok. It doesn’t help matters that most temples and the national palace don’t admit people wearing shorts. The picture next to the Buddha above was taken just an hour after the picture at the beginning of this post. I wish I could say someone splashed my shirt with water, but they didn't. It's sweat. I know - gross.


It’s not sketchy in an in your face strip club way. It’s definitely there; a night market that we went to was surrounded on two sides by strip clubs and bars. But I think it’s more discreet than the Mexican guys who push strip club ads in your face in Las Vegas.

All in all, it was a fun trip. I much of spent Sunday in my firm’s Bangkok office (which is gorgeous compared to our second rate digs in Shanghai), but saw a lot nonetheless, thanks to my friend. He took me to a number of temples, the palace, a few street markets, and shopping centers. If it weren’t so ridiculously hot, I could see myself living there for at least a few months.

Blogger is back in China

As Ingrid pointed out to me, my blog is now available again in China. The Great Firewall has decided to open access to Blogger. I believe this action has coincided with recent changes in positioning toward requiring "real name" registration of blog owners in China. Read up more online to get the full details. Basically, the Chinese government would like to allow people to post content to the web, just as long as they can track down the people who say things that are not inline with government positions. There is no such thing as anonymity in China. Not sure why they decided to unblock Blogger, since as a foreign service, Google is not (I hope) requiring our real names.
In any case, the net impact should be more frequent posts as I will hopefully be able to access the site more often.

Food is good

I’ve been asked to write more about the food in China. I’ll be sure to pay more attention to the culinary aspect of my journeys going forward.

I’ll start off with Taiwan, since as I already mentioned, it’s a great place for eating. It seems like everyone in Taiwan is a foodie. It’s not always the best food in the world, but there is such a wide variety of really interesting and tasty things to eat in Taipei that it’s been hard not to get fat. For example, for breakfast the other day, I had a red bean and green tea bun. (Katie: eat your heart out) It wasn’t as good as a “hot out of the glaze waterfall” Krispy Kreme donut, but a well done tasty treat combining multiple Asian flavors.

Asian city tour - Stop 2: Seoul

As I mentioned in a previous post, I took a weekend trip from Taipei to Seoul. The flight was just over 1 1/2 hours.
Once on the ground, I was pleasantly surprised. I first took a “limousine bus” offered by Korean Airlines. It cost me $13 for a 70 minute bus ride on an enormous leather seat. It dropped me off at my hotel. I checked in at the front desk where I was greeted with fluent English.


Seoul is so different from the other cities I have been to in Asia. There is a distinctly American feel to it. People drive SUVs (Hyundai and Kia of course,) wear clothes without huge brand names on them, there were actually tree-lined streets, and people line up for the elevator instead of just push. I didn’t have much time to explore the city, but I did get to see a few really cool things: Dongdaemun market, Gyeongbokgung Palace, Namsam Tower. Unfortuntely, I had to skip a bus tour up to the DMZ due to work.


The best part about Seoul was the food. Taiwan has some great food, but Korean food is uniquely tasty and savory. If you can eat kimchi, you can pretty much eat anything there. I saw lots of meat on the menu, including Kangaroo and Ostrich, but I stuck to the basic bibimbap. At Dongdaemun, I grabbed a stick that held what I thought was just a lump of french fries, but it turned out to be even better. It was actually a corn dog with fries mixed into the batter. If only Katie could have been there to help me finish it. The market also had some delicious red bean crepe-like things served in a paper cup. I skipped the Mado goat ice cream being sold at the Namsam Tower, but I was definitely intrigued.

The worst thing about my trip was that I only had 24 hours to be there. I would definitely plan a trip to go back sometime. It may not be worth a 14 hour trip from the US just to go to Seoul, but it would be a perfect 3-4 day side trip from Tokyo.