Weekly update for 9/9/10

I guess on this date I don't have to think about writing the date the way they do here with the number of the day first and then the number of the month. If you don't understand you can stop reading now because there will be a test later.

Big events this week:
1. Moved to a new home
2. Finalized arrangements for the first big trip
3. My Chinese tutor bites the dust!

The Move - Now that I have a new home, it's amazing how fast you forget simple pleasures like a freezer or ice cubes I didn't have the past 6 weeks. Peace and quiet is a big win vs. the first location which had construction and horn honking contests at all hours. I guess now I have to find someone to cut the grass, trim the hedges, wash my car, figure out what day the garbage is picked up, etc. Wait a minute, maybe I had you fooled, it's an apartment, I don't have any of those hassles of regular home owning life. So I got to thinking about it. Not counting my temporary stay in an apartment for 9 months when I moved to Framingham or 3 months in 1979 when I worked for Mobil Oil (who promptly offered me a move before the ink was dry on the lease), I have not lived in an apartment since 1959! Pretty amazing and I've been pretty lucky considering my parents raised us in private homes and then being able to buy a home in Bellingham, WA at age 25.

Anyway, while my apartment is fairly small, it is very well constructed with lots of luxury types of built-ins like indirect lighting, rainfall shower head, solid wood doors, etc.

2. The big trip - I have now finalized my trip to Mongolia (or Mon Gu, in Chinese language). No one I have spoken to here has ever been there and no one would even consider it. There's Inner Mongolia which is part of China as what they call an Autonomous Region and then there's Outer Mongolia which was part of the Soviet sphere of influence from the 1920s until 1990. The means Lenin or Stalin was ruling things long distance. Stalin killed many thousands of people, mostly monks, and destroyed most of the Buddhist Temples leaving a few standing as reminders to people of when they were weak and on the wrong path before Communism found them. (You can't make this stuff up.) So the Chinese have no interest in Mongolia which is now a Democratic country with elections, bad politics, etc. The problem is the infrastructure is all Soviet and has been floundering since they ran out of money so the infrastructure is in a crummy shape. Sounds like a great place to visit, doesn't it? Oh yeah, 50% of the population lives in a Ger (or Yurt) dwelling and horse is the main means of travel and the paved roads end within 30 miles of the capital.

So instead of taking the easy way and flying, I'm doing something a little goofy. I'm flying to Beijing, staying overnight near the Rail Station and boarding a train for Mongolia. This short trip will take around 30 hours. You can only imagine the characters that I will encounter. Should be very interesting. At the border, they get everyone off the train, do customs checks, out of China and into Mongolia. Then they take the train itself and bring it to some kind of work-shed. Lift the train, remove the wheels that were used and replace with a different set. I guess the Chinese tracks are a different gauge than the Russian made Mongolian ones. Then it's through the Gobi Desert toward Ulan Bator the capital city. From there, I have two excursions planned into the countryside staying local people's Gers before returning to the capital for a flight home to Shanghai. For those of you who remember playing the board game, Risk, I better get off the train in Ulan Bator because the next stop is Irkutsk and the train trip ends in Moscow, but not for me this time.

So, this all starts next Friday, which means I have this weekend to prepare. The forecast for Mongolia, 50-55 for the high and 32 for the low not counting the winds. Did I say it was cold there?

3. Chinese Tutor

I decided on Day 1 here that I wanted to have a tutor to supplement or even replace the Rosetta Stone lessons for Mandarin I was taking on my computer. So I found this young lady who is bilingual and has taught Mandarin to Expats for a while. My interest attracted two other Staples people and we all took individual lessons for $14/hr. She did a good job. I had to fire her though. She decided that since she got an MBA she should be starting her career at age 29, probably a good idea. Not only did she go out and get a job offer, but one of the Staples team she was working with had her interview with us and she got an offer from Staples which she accepted. Se told me she would no longer be giving lessons so I told her, "You can't quit on me, you're fired!" (I guess I told her). We're all really happy she got the job. She will be a great addition to Staples and I may even get a lesson at lunchtime every so often.