The awakening

I think I'll start out with this: Dinner was... 5 pints of Guinness. That's it. Apparently that's what goes on in Shanghai on Friday nights. In truth, it was a rather productive day. Jet lag had me up at 5:00AM in the morning. I got my physical exam taken care of (results to come out on February 9th). The majority of Chinese tend to be on "vacation-mode" the week before Chinese New Year. I met, and had lunch, with a couple of my future coworkers. They're all cool, at least with first impressions. Stopped by the office, met the team, and really eager to really get to know each and every one of them.

After lunch, a fellow future coworker took me shopping... for a wireless router. Gotta say, one of the key cultural differentiations between China and the USA is haggling. Basically, what I would have done was picked out the router that I wanted and paid for it. This guy, on the other hand, really pressed the sales representative on "how much of a discount can I get for this router," and "what else can I get for shopping in your store?" Turns out, it worked. I was able to "procure" a marked 339RMB router for 299RMB, and a pair of headsets! Gotta learn from this dude!

Came home pretty winded. Must have walked at least 5 miles thus far, and it was only 2:30PM. I tried setting the wireless router up, but got hit with problems galore. Still not working right now. I'm hardwired, in more ways than one.

Got a dinky cell phone. "Miro," or some shit like that. You ever heard of it, Andrew? It's made by Lenovo. I was like, "Hey man, I've never heard of Miro," to the sales lady at China Mobile, "Are you sure it's legit?" She was like, "Yeah, it's by Lenovo." Basically, it's a prepaid phone. But the structure of the deal is completely different from that of the US. 900RMB paid. 450RMB gets credited back to me over 18 months (that's 25RMB a month). If I go over, I can add minutes to it from just about any convenience store. If I don't, there's no rollover. The first minute is 20cents RMB, the second minute is free, and from then on, it's 10cents RMB. I straight told the lady they need better pricing analysts.

Then there's dinner. The 5 Guinnesses. My future boss texts me to meet him at Kabb in XinTianDi. It's this joint that a bunch of expats hang out. Met a couple of people from Amsterdam, the UK, and of course, local Shanghai girls. Something about those girls, man... Didn't eat anything partially because no one else ate, and partially because food there would have been crazy expensive. I'm not going to be able to save anything if I keep going to places like that. Gotta find myself some 狗不理包子 around the corner instead. Hey Em, I know it's only been a day, but I really need to find that "go-to take-out" place.

I'm trying to keep tabs on what I'm spending on. Got a pretty delicate Excel sheet going taking into account the current rate of exchange and stuff. And, oh yeah, Shanghai drivers need to keep their horns in check. Sick of hearing the unending honks. I nearly died, FIVE TIMES, today! When the light turns RED, it means STOP! YES! Even for the first ten seconds!

I am sorry about the lack of pictures, Darkwing Duck, though I did lug my camera around all day. It's enough effort exerted on my part trying not to make logical, grammatical, and spellatical errors.