A New Week

This week was filled with many new experiences for me at work and not many new happenings in the home front.
We had our entire work team together on Tuesday and had a successful full day meeting. We made a lot of progress and learned much. Our work in China is something that we are not at liberty to discuss much about. So when we encounter new people it is always interesting to keep conversation at a very superficial level. Usually it comes down to the name of the company and where the offices are located. This week we spent much of the time talking with people in the China market and putting together a game plan that we can work from. The best thing that has happened is we are now working in our functional work teams really for the first time.

We met CW who is the COO for JPM Mainland China. He and his staff have been helpful in establishing working space, getting us some ground transportation, and making us feel welcome. He planned a dinner for our team and spouses which with this team is not much different than just inviting the team. There are only two non-employee spouses. (Two spouses did not move, there are three working husband and wife teams, and one should be here in another month or so) out of the 11 employees.

Traffic to work has been ok. We have been trying to sort out the use of the vans between the employees and establishing the best routes. I always take a taxi at 7am and will usually arrive at the office in 30 minutes. Friday seemed much more congested but it still only made a 5 minute difference. The congestion I discovered was due to the first day of school for the Chinese kids in Beijing. Getting home I made the mistake of riding with the team in one of the vans one night. It took well over an hour by dropping off a couple in CBD and then going onto Dongzhimen where 3 other families live within a long block from each other. So the last couple of nights I have shared a taxi with the 3 other employees who live in Dongzhimen. It usually take about 1/2 hour unless the taxi drivers decide to take alternative routes than the second ring road.

CW and I ate at a new restaurant that serves Shanghai traditional foods, called Merryln Restaurant. We were the guest of some Chinese work acquaintances. They introduced us to some of the dishes like "lions head" which is ground pork in the form of a meatball with a hard egg in the middle. There were several dishes that were dumplings. The Shanghai food tends to be a little sweet to the taste. We will need to take the JPM work team there some day since it across the second ring road from work.

Here are a couple of pictures of the the team hard at work: