Step Down Like a President

Italian Seafood Soup

Tried cooking my first Italian style seafood soup. The ingrediants includes garlic, onion, tomato, squid, salmon, pepper, white wine, and some shells. Although I wasn't very sure about the proportion to mix them, the first attemop was not bad.

Free Buffet

Last Sunday was the date of the second yearly meeting of my community. The purpose was to elect new board of management for the community. A year passed so fast, last time we were in a partly finished construction site when we elect the board for the first year. This year we have a beautiful garden, fountains, lobby, and a brand new karaoke center. After the meeting the neighbors had delivered buffet service for lunch. Nice food, and great community.

Burned Hand, One Week Later

This is how my burned fingers look like after one week of treatment by myself. I'm quite satisfied with the result. New flesh and skin grew nicely without any infection in the past week. A few days later it would be hard to tell where the wound was.

By the way, this photo was taken with my new phone. Not good, but handy enough for such events.

New Cell Phone SGH-D528

Another late news. I got a new cell phone last Saturday. My wife and I went to buy new phones because her phone was literally breaking apart. She got the brand new cool phone, LG KG800, or the Chocolate Phone. I got a cheaper one, Samsung SGH-D528, but also much expensive than what I was using (a free phone when I bought my washing machine).

Today's dinner...Me!

I burned my fingers on Monday when moving dishes in my oven. The temperature was not very high actually, about 150 degrees. I moved my dish aside when the oven was preheating. Suddenly I smelled something burned. It was not like meat, but more like the smell of hairs got burned. Seconds later I realized it was my two fingers when the pain began. I put ehm under running water for a while and when used ice to cool them down. I guess it worked because I don't feel much pain or got blisters afterwords. This is how they look like today.

Last Night in Guangzhou

Today is my last night in Guangzhou, and Walter will also leave tomorrow. We tried very hard to be able to finish our tests tomorrow, so we worked overtime today. We got out of the office of ICIC China at 22:00, and then Zhang Chiang, our sales manager in Guangzhou, took us to evening tea.

The Cantonese have a habit of eating snacks after dinner. We were all uder a lot of stress these days, so when we were about to finish our job tonight, Walter asked me if we could go for beers after work. We went to a restaurant nearby. The food was great as most of Cantonese restaurants, and the local beer, Zhu Jiang Beer, was also great.

When we got back to the hotel, Walter asked me if I would like to have more drinks with him. We brought a bottle of local wine, the Great Wall Red Wine which I have just read on magazines and always wanted to try to his room. He received a short message about the terrorism alert in UK. We then talked a lot about terrorism, the world, business in Iran, modern China, and his family and vacations. It was almost four o'clock when we noticed the time and finished the wine. It was great knowing Walter. Byt the way, Chinese wine tastes interesting.

Free Dinner

Tonight we had a free dinner. There is a travel agent who has an office in the hotel we stay. We booked our rooms from him with lower prices, which is 298 each day. My colleague Jason was bugging him to cut the price even lower. He said he can't cut the room price, but he can take us to dinner.

We went to a Hunan restaurant nearby. The food was good. I ordered a snake but gave up the turtle. The price was really high, too. It cost the agent $506 RMB.

Working with German

(c) microform.de
A German arrived at Guangzhou last night. He left home Monday morning in Germany, took a local train for 30 minutes to next town, switch to a train to Frankfurt which is a two hour trip. He then got on a flight of Qadar Airways on 15:20 and landed at Doha 22:25 local time. The connecting flight was supposed to take off at 00:50 which is 2.5 hours later, but was delayed for 4 hours with no reason announced. His plane finally landed at Hong Kong at 18:13 local time, but all trains he planned to take to Guangzhou were already gone. I searched the web and found that there are coaches directly from the airport to Guangzhou. He managed to find one and was on his way at 19:15, but we have no idea where the bus will stop in Guangzhou. We asked him to let us speak to the driver on the phone, and finally got him to the hotel at 10:45. It's already 30 hours since he left home.

The next morning, he showed up on time and was ready to work. No signs of fatigue or jet lag. He just had his 50th birthday last month, and decided to change his life style. Less beer and less sweets. He lost 5 kg in 6 weeks since he travelled to Tehran last month. By the way, his name is Walter and plays bass guitar in a rock band.

Going to China Again...

I'll be going to China again next week. This time I will stay in Guangzhou for one week. Hopefully no more surprises or delays so that I can come back on time.

Chinese Lover's Day

Yesterday was Lover's day on Chinese lunar calendar. No gifts, just a home-cooked meal and a bottle of wine.