30 March 2010: First day at work in Shenyang

30 March 2010

I survived my first official day at the old plant...I can see why we're building a new one...I'll just leave it at that.

Good, hard working people, but certainly not ideal conditions.

My office will be on the 5th floor...with no elevator! I went to the hotel fitness center in the morning and had a good workout...I didn't realize I was going to get a workout later by going up and down steps! No wonder all these people are skinny!

I also went to my first local restaurant yesterday for lunch...I'll have to get a picture of the window...I'll try to describe it, but it wont do! First of all, if I hadn't been with someone who knew, I wouldn't have known it was a place to eat...in the window were about 6 plastic dishpan looking pans with water and various "things" floating around…shells, etc...and the one I couldn't really get over...was a bunch of something that looked like worms...big worms...about as big around as your middle finger and about 6 inches long...I don't think I ate anything like that...but I can't be sure! The frenchman ordered for me and the food was good...but I can't be sure what I ate.

Then last night, I went out to eat with my boss. He took me to a very nice restaurant…he picked out the live fish that was going to get cooked, head and all...and we ate it (I stayed away from the head!). When we ate all of one side, he called the waiter over to flip the fish, so we could eat the other side. He said it was bad luck to flip a fish...if you were driving, you would have a wreck, or if you were on a boat, you would capsize…so sure enough, the waiter took the bones out, but didn't flip the fish.

I'm slightly overwhelmed, but I'll make it!