Repatriation

We are back in the good old US. The weather has been great with blue skies and fluffy clouds and nice humidity levels (low). I took one spin on the bike with EF and did ok. I did pick up a summer cold rather quick after returning. BF is continuing her calligraphy at the home. We are back with family which is really nice. We are back to celebrate our parents 50th wedding anniversaries>>>

I am wishing all our friends in Beijing all the best and stay in touch. We really hope the Olympics are a great success for China. I am confident they will put on a great show.

What a wonderful time we had in Beijing. Clearly very memorable event in our lives that we are sure has changed us in one way or another.

This concludes the Life In Beijing blog. It has been a wonderful chronicled adventure to be cherished for ever. Thanks for reading............

Emergency Green Plan

The pollution is Beijing has been bad ever since the new restrictions were put in place. The government is blaming it on the weather which has been especially hot and humid. Hopefully some rain or wind will blow this out of here before the Olympics. But just in case it does not get better, Beijing is contemplating an emergency plan for if pollution continues.

The emergency plan will be put in place within 48 hours of the Olympics start on Aug. 8th. The plan would take 90% of the private vehicles off the roads, all construction sites and more factories in neighboring areas would be closed.

Family Dinner

The VP of our partner bank invited BF, RW, WL, and me to dinner with his family. He and his family are from Henan province and moved to Beijing in 2006 like we did. He hosted us at the Henan provincial headquarter restaurant (Yu Fu Shen Chu in the Shang Du Hotel) in Beijing. The food and company was fantastic. We even had some local Henan musical entertainment (pictured above with entertainers) which was a very nice surprise.

New Olympic Restrictions

It has been unclear since we have been here what activities would be restricted by the government leading up to the Olympics. There has been a lot of rumors over the months. Here is what we now understand:

• Visa restrictions were imposed a couple of months ago which has made it difficult to enter China. The government says they have only imposed the rules that were already in place.
• The police are stopping foreigners and checking for passports and visas. We have not experienced this but know co-workers and friends who have.
• The police started checking residency permits by going door-to-door to expat communities over a month ago.
• On July 1, half of the government cars were pulled off the road. We were impacted by that at work.
• Also on July 1, trucks with yellow tags (don't pass emission standards) are no longer allowed in the city of Beijing (that impacted our packing and moving schedule).
• Tomorrow the new travel ban takes place for private vehicles. Cars can only travel on odd-even days based on license plate number until Sep 20. As a result I will be riding my bike to work for the next two weeks.
• Heavy industry will shut down factories from July 20 to Sept 20.
• Government office hours have been reduced to 9 to 5 instead of 8:30 to 5:30 until Sep 20.

I sure hope this all works to reduce the pollution for the Olympics. Here are some pictures from Saturday at Jingshan Park, Coal Hill, Gaobeidian:

Advisory Board Meeting #3

Executive Management came to Beijing this week for a number of meetings with our prospective business partner. The last time they were in Beijing was on April 29th.

On Wednesday we held our third joint credit card advisory board meeting. The meeting was scheduled for 2+ hours. It started with a nice draft video that the partner did on the evolution of the credit card business and the cooperation between the two organizations. Then two of JPM board advisors were presented with live plastics from our inaugural credit card product in China. I then presented the status of the credit card business and thoughts on strategic direction for profitiability. The Executives then had a discussion about transition plans (without me in the room. . . . . yahoo).

Later in the day we had an update on the status of the international business, JPM, and the Card business in the US. Then a nice dinner at the Ritz Carlton.

30 Days to the Olympics

I cannot believe there are only 30 more days to the Olympics. The air quality better improve drastically and quickly.

July 4th in Beijing

July 4th was just another work day in Beijing. BF and I did go to Tim's Texas BBQ for a good old American dinner and then off for a foot massage. Trying to get a taxi was quite an event since it was raining so hard. We had a hard time getting back to the apartment with street flooding near our apartment.

Tokyo

We went to Tokyo for a long weekend with two couples from our apartment building. We had the good fortune of going with a couple who had lived in Tokyo for 10 months as Canadian Expats prior to moving to Beijing. We even got to travel out of the new Terminal 3 airport building from Beijing (out trips to the US still leave from the old terminal 2).

We left on a Thursday night and got in too late for the Express Bus or trains into Tokyo. Fortunately, Air China had provided buses to everyone free of charge to the center of Tokyo. The ride was over an hour. We then took taxis to our hotel in Roppongi area, near the US Embassy. Below is a view from our hotel which had a couple of elevated highways right outside (a little noisy).

This is a street scene in the Roppongi area which is known for catering to the foreign devils (expats). At night we had to walk by a couple of busy street corner where men would solicit you to visit gentlemen clubs. They did not care that we were with our spouses.

We did a lot of shopping, eating, walking, riding subway and taxis throughout the weekend. The meals were spectacular and just seeing the city was a treat. It was so different than Beijing (clean, people queued in lines, little car horn blowing, good air quality, no spitting, people spoke quietly, little talking on cell phones (lots of text messaging going on)

We happened to walk by this corporate sign. This will be a collector item some day since the branding for J.P. Morgan will be changing this summer back to the old branding and losing the octagon.

We ate at Gordon Ramsay's Restaurant (Hell's Kitchen for you Reality TV watchers).

The ladies were given a complimentary sparkling wine for their meal.

Amazingly Krispy Kreme had a 45 minute queue the first day we went by it. The last day which was very rainy the queue was a manageable 15 minutes.

We did have a couple of good Japanese meals as well.....

Saturday Test of FengTai Systems

I went in on a Saturday to the FengTai operations center to watch the data entry and card production process.

Dragon Boat Festival

This was the first year that mainland China celebrated Dragon Boat Day as an official holiday. It was also the first time they held a dragon boat race. A bunch of us decided to go the dragon boat races to check it out. The park was in the SW corner of Beijing about 1.5 hours away. We got a little lost on the way but finally found the event. We were the only westerners at the event. We stayed for a couple of hours to watch the races and then left for lunch and a relaxing afternoon.

Beijing Visit with the College Grad

MF getting fitted for tux for formal dinner on the Great Wall with the Australian Embassy.

Credit Card Grand Opening Celebration

The two teams had a celebration for the grand opening of the Credit Card business on June 2, 2008. The party was hosted by our Chinese partner and was a fun affair near Ritan Park. The host of the party was VP Lv. Speeches were given by me, our JPM investment banker and the President of the partner bank. We had a great Chinese dinner and a cake cutting ceremony.

I called in sick that day as it was the fourth day of a severe soar throat and slight fever. I went to the SOS Clinic to get tested for Strep throat. The good news was no Strep but the bad news was a virus that would have to run it's course. My voice was shot.

There were some frantic calls to my house to get me to come to the event even for a few minutes. So as not to disrupt all the planning that had been done, I went to the event.

I was encouraged to drink Moutai as a remedy. My concern was replacing a soar throat with a headache. The drinking was getting a little out of hand and I don't remember how many toasts were done. The good news is the night was done by 8:30pm. I suffered no headache but my soar throat continues.

The Minister even made and effort to make a brief visit with the team: