Blood, sweat and tea

It feels good to be back. Yes, I miss home. But I'm surprised by how much Shanghai is starting to feel like a second home. I missed coming into work and seeing friends and even some of the food here (wow, that's something I never expected!).

Another reason it's good to be back is that I've been meeting new people, doing fun things and traveling a bit too lately. My return to China started with a very fun ladies-only run called the Posh Hash. I met some wonderful women that night. It's really interesting hearing all the varied reasons why people are here - almost all for interesting careers. I've met lots of architects and real estate developers (probably one of the few places in the world where building continues to happen regularly), many consultants, people launching cool new technology products, folks from the auto industry and retailers too. And everyone has a story. There are also a lot of seemingly career-assignees. That's fascinating to me too. As glamorous as it sounds that they've lived in multiple countries, I can now appreciate how hard that is too. I'm not sure I could be a lifer, but the experiences they've had seem amazing. I also think that because Shanghai is so expat-heavy that I've been able to meet a lot of friends quickly here. It's scary being thrown into a situation halfway across the world and not really knowing anyone, but expats here are so welcoming and receptive to meeting new people. They've likely experienced the same fears and frustrations too. That's definitely something I love about Shanghai.

I also made my first trip to a "fake market" when I got back. Hilarious. There are stalls for as far as the eye can see, all selling versions of expensive bags, watches, clothing and shoes at a fraction of the cost. The market I went to is actually inside of a Metro stop, so that's an adventure all on it's own. Here's a convenience store inside of the market ... hmm:

My American co-workers Erika and Jayson were also on the adventure with me. The experience was unreal - at one purse store, it looks like a small storefront, but when you say you want to see nicer quality items, a shelf literally opens up to reveal a hidden room. You walk in there and they quickly shut it behind you so as not to get caught. There's one more layer beyond that of even nicer items too, so you're in this maze of a back-store area. All to protect their very-real-looking fakes that they aren't supposed to be producing. I didn't end up making any purchases, but just to experience it was pretty wild. Here's a few other items we found that we also didn't purchase. Unbelievably, we saw a lady wearing a pair literally 10 minutes after snapping these pics:

The other highlight of my first week back was a trip to Changsha. The city is southwest of Shanghai, and is the capital of the Hunan province. We went to visit some pharmacies there. There are conflicting reports online, but some sources say it has up to 7 MILLION people living there (which, according to the US Census from 2010 is roughly the same size as NYC). Shockingly, I had never heard of it. I find that's true of a lot of huge cities in China. Really?!

First, it was hotter than Hades. Second, they have awesome food! The Hunan style is pretty spicy, but I really enjoyed the two meals we ate there. It's also quite pretty - rivers and hills around the city. Here's a shot I snapped in front of a pharmacy:

Some of the pharmacies we visited carry Traditional Chinese Medicine. Apparently this is good to "take" if you've just had surgery:



You may also be happy to see that though there are incredibly few celebrities in China, Yao Ming is still racking up the endorsements:

And speaking of surgery, they're pretty affordable in Changsha! Here's a posting of the prices for different medical services. I was told that one of these lines (potentially not on the pic I posted) says "kidney removal" and the cost was less than $300USD. Cheap!

Being in China has been a lot of fun, frustration, unease, excitement and every other emotion you can think of. In a meeting last week, one of my teammates commented that a project was a lot of "blood, sweat and tea". I assume that's one of those lost-in-translation things, but I had to laugh. How appropriate. But reflecting back, and especially with my newer, fresher lens since returning home, it's definitely been worth the blood, sweat and tea.