Your Kung Fu is Not Strong!

Mr. Wu, Tear down this fire wall!

Its annoying.

But nothing that can't be dealt with obviously (since I am posting)!

Anyway. I'm here!! Having not posted in 2 days while so much has been going on feels a little overwhelming. So much to talk about, but I have to keep it short because I have lots to do.

So on Monday I arrived in Xiamen. Lindon met me at the airport and I have been busy ever since. He has really taken care of me! We went out to dinner at a Western style place and talked about my role at the company and this and that. The apartment is fantastic. Much nicer and larger than I was expecting. I am on the 8th floor with plenty of big windows and have a pretty decent view of a school park and a small mountain. Pictures will come soon once I have tackled that.

Yesterday started by going to the office and meeting most of the people on the team. There are 4 girls, Lindon, and Lindon's younger brother who are all part of Enry. (the company I am working for) There are also 2 other people in the office that work for Lindon's other start up business.

One of the girls speaks English pretty well. With careful listening and a little coaxing it is easy to have a conversation with her. It was/is really comforting to have her around. 2 of the others speak enough that as long as I speak slowly, throw in what ever Chinese I know, and use a few hand gestures there isn't much trouble.

Lindon sent me his Brother and 2 of the girls out on a mission to get things for my apartment around lunch time. We went to a Chinese equivalent of wal mart and picked up so basics. After that we went out to lunch. It was my first true Chinese food tasting experience. It is worth saying at this point as I am sure quite a few of the readers here are concerned, I am not going to starve to death and did actually quite enjoy a few things and can easily tolerate some others. :)

Lunch was followed by a return to the apartment to drop everything off. I gave the grad tour and we where off again, this time to one of the factories where the bags are made. I learned a bit about quality control, what to look for, and how this process works. I will post some pictures of this here soon as well. I got a really nice backpack made specifically carrying laptops and work related things out of this! Pretty neat!

Then it was back to the office for a bit where we met up with everyone again and headed out to dinner. Lindon also picked up a few friends from college along the way and we had a HUGE dinner at another Chinese place. I tried LOADS of stuff and greatly amused everyone while I struggled with chop sticks, reacted to different foods, and pronounced tofu wrong (it is the right word but we say it wrong.)

Finally we headed to a shopping mall not too far from my apartment and picked up a phone. In China, you can't buy an iPhone. But you can take the one you have to a kiosk in the mall to have it jail broken no problem. Silly me installed the latest software the day I left so now I have to wait a month before they can crack it. Until then I have a beautifully little modern rendition of the big blue nokia brick from High School. It may even have snake!

Well, that wasn't really condensed, but nor was it with great detail. More time will be spent at the office today I think so I will see if I can post more once there. (I say I am going to the office, but work for me to do is still non existent. Still need a work visa.) Or at least get some pictures up.

I miss everyone lots!