Day 3 -- NI-Shanghai

Still waking up before dawn, which is not cool -- we are very tired, and I have been looking forward to sleeping past 7 a.m. for a long, long time. Oh well.

Monday morning we woke up very early, had breakfast, and headed out to the office. It's located in an area of town called ZhangJiang, which is even more rural/suburban than where we are now. Many of the Western tech companies have their offices out here. (Sarah, the AMD office is directly next door!) It was so fun to go in and see all the guys I've met on their trips to Austin, as well as to finally meet Susan, who has been so much help over email. Ryan, a tech writer from Austin, is finishing up his stint here, and he introduced me to the whole team and let me sit in on a status meeting.

It was a little surreal -- the cubes were exactly the same as the ones we have in Austin. And I haven't worked in the office for a full day since February 2005. But I had a great time. And got a lot of work done, too! Tommy spent the day in meetings (we met up for lunch).

After work, the head of the Shanghai branch invited all of the expats out for dinner to welcome us to town, and to say goodbye to a couple who will be leaving on Monday after 3 years. (Tim works for us, and Laurel works for AMD.) We ate at a place that serves "hot pot", which is basically fondue without cheese. Huge plates of meat, vegetables, tofu, seafood -- most notably the freshly-skewered shrimp that were still wriggling when you picked them up -- that you cooked in your little dish in front of you. Delicious!

Tim and Laurel invited us over to see their place, which is one of the compounds we'll tour on Wednesday. Laurel gave me all kinds of great tips about living here -- which fruit vendor to use, where to shop, the best places to travel, etc. We're sad that we're not going to overlap with them, but know they're excited to be going home.

Now, bedtime. Tuesday will be another full day -- Tommy will be back at work, and I'm heading out on my own to look at schools. No translator, no Mandarin skills ... nada. :-) I have my cell phone to call Tommy if I need help, but I'll be mostly depending on my charade skills and printouts of the addresses where I'm going...