An update from Andrew

Hi... Figured it was time I wrote on here for once and put an end to the Tanya posting monopoly. Things have been quite busy, and I can say that as much as I liked my old job, I am very ready to be done with it and be back to only working one job. Overall the new gig is going really well and the people I work with are good at what they do. It is a very young site overall, instead of everyone in the room having 8-10yrs experience as was the case in Arizona, it is common for everyone to have 8-10months. It kind of makes me feel old at times (I am not old so shut it) seeing all the technicians running around who are 19-20yrs old. 

Here is one of my new business cards, English on one side, Chinese on the other. 

Anyway enough about work for now, or at least not directly about work... 

Here is the sunset out my window at work

I blew up the people and their cart so you could see it better

Another shot I took out my window at work is this one above. In the background is the wall of our brand new $2,500,000,000.00 factory. In the foreground 2 people drag a cart which seems to be made out of old car parts and full of bags of trash from lunch. In a lot of ways it really sums up China to me... brand new buildings with the highest technology, but still supported by massive manual labor. We had to move a tree out front of the building and replant it, and instead of one of those tree moving trucks like you would send in the US, the supplier sent 15 guys with shovels. 


On my way to work the other day I tried to count the number of cranes I could see on the  ride (you have time to do this kind of thing from the back seat). I got up to 27, but I am not sure as one of the buildings complexes looked like it had 6, but then as I moved past it looked like it could have been 8 or 9... so I just kind of called it 27 and quit counting, either way it was a lot. That also sums up a lot about this place, someone is always building something, some times you have to wonder what they are building it for, but I guess with millions of people moving in from the country every year, you have to do something to house them. These are some of the simpler observations I have had, but they are only the tip of what I am figuring out about the country and a very fascinating socio-political and economic period of change. I can already tell we are going to learn a lot from our time here. 


Now some more fun stuff... 

Here is some fruit on a stick from a cart... you can buy any kind of food you can think of on a stick from a cart here

Here is a picture I took today out my office window at 1pm during a huge storm that rolled in pouring rain and dust from the Gobi desert on the mainland. It was actually darker than it looks in this picture.  

Well that is about it for now.