First week gone by

My first week (and-a-half) in China has been quite interesting... (What else would you expect??)
We have spent a lot of time setting-up the on-site office in the shipyard including peeling-off wallpaper, gutting out unusable furniture (there was a double-size bed and a wall-mounted night-light!), getting cabinets, ceiling lighting, network connections, etc.... More physical than cerebral but this helps get-over the jet lag quite well.

We (Kevin and I) are staying at the Great Wall Hotel in a town called Qinhuangdao and a driver picks us up in the morning to drive us to the shipyard approx 30mins away. As we approach the yard, we pass through the "Great Wall of China". This area is called "LaoLonTou - or Dragon's Head" where the Great Wall commences. We visited this site last weekend with a young Chinese tour guide.

In the evenings, we are driven back to the hotel where we drop-off our bags (laptops) and hop into a taxi and tell them to head for the "MacDonald’s"...when they don't understand that, we draw the "M" for the golden arch and they quickly understand where to go. This was the easiest way to tell the driver to bring us down-town. After some office-supply shopping, we find a restaurant and this is where the real fun begins: The menu is in Chinese characters... Thank god for my PDA where I had Chinese speaking people scribble characters for some food and I just point to that squiggle and the waitress either understands or signs that this item isn't available here... So it's easy enough to get fish but you have no idea what part of the fish you'll end up getting! Meals are quite inexpensive so I end-up having to chose a variety of things hoping the there is at least one thing I'll enjoy eating. I'm quite fortunate that Kevin enjoys vegetables and fish and doesn't mind Tofu. One thing that I am an expert now on is "Pidgeo Ping Da" - Cold Beer.
Lunch at the yard is an interesting affair also. I get to go into the kitchen (or perhaps I shouldn't have...) and point to various ingredients and the head cook (with a lit cigarette hanging from his lips) grabs a handful and places it onto a dish. This creation then waits in a queue for cooking in a wok. I get to wait at my table during this time. A young waitress brings me my tossed vegetables with a cardboard box packed with rice and I dig-in with chopsticks....
To eat here in China, you must make yourself oblivious to various noises such as slurps, burps, throat clearing and spitting... Cigarette smells and sewage smells are also omni present...

On that tasty note, I wish you all a good day... I'm off to the Shipyard!!!