Day 14

We awoke early this morning to the familiar beeping of Jeff's alarm (it's a good thing it came along because we haven't had access to alarms here regularly).  Our breakfast was at the hotel this morning and consisted of a dumpling with meat in it, a doughy ball, fried breadstick like food, boiled eggs and something like cornbread.  It was a very carb-filled morning.

The company meeting today was with ZTE, a telecommunications firm.  We actually met with a representative of ZTESoft, the division that deals with network solutions for cell phone companies.  They provide software and service for business support systems and operational support systems.  There was a bit of confusion among the group as to what this was, which led to some strange questions that kind of confused our host.  What it comes down to is that ZTESoft helps companies like China Mobile (similar to a Verizon or AT&T) manage their network.  They help companies manage customer needs such as landline or mobile phone requests (the hardware which is under operational support) and the business aspect of the contract that people have with China Mobile such as billing (network usage such as data, SMS, MMS and call duration).  I'm pretty sure that people still have no idea what they do, but what it comes down to is that they are a network management company and have no part in the hardware or anything like that (ZTE does, but not the part we visited).  Because of the confusion the meeting was kind of frustrating for the host and for those of us that understood what was going on.  It was still a good meeting though, because I got to learn about an industry that I didn't really know existed before.

Following our meeting we headed to the train station to go to Hangzhou.  It took about four hours and most of the time was spent journaling, reading, sleeping and playing euchre.  We actually went back to Shanghai, then over to Hangzhou which is why it took so long.  A very bad thing happened on the train.  I took out my camera and was monkeying with it when it notified me that the memory card was full.  This cannot be the case, because it is an 8GB card with room for 2000+ pictures, or over an hour of 720p HD video.  I put it in my computer, which couldn't access it or format it either.  I'm pretty sure it's broken.  Very sad.  However, luckily for me (very unluckily for Cedric), Cedric's camera broke and so I can use his 1GB memory card for the rest of the trip.  I can take 200+ pictures with it at my highest setting, which is more than I have taken at one time before uploading to the computer, so I should be fine.  Very unfortunate for Cedric though.  I'm letting him borrow my camera whenever he wants it.

Our hotel in Hangzhou is pretty amazing.  There are robes in the closet and we have internet access, a desk and couch in a large room.  I'm pretty excited about the robes though.  It might be the best part of our trip so far :).  They're even Calvin colors.

We hit the town after most people had a chance to check their e-mails and got some dinner.  There were plenty of places nearby; we sat down to some sweet and sour pork with a spicy chicken-potato-tofu dish and some fried rice.

Hangzhou is known for the beautiful hills, rivers and lakes, so we walked down the street to see the lake at night.  There was a musical fountain presentation going on that, if I may be so bold, rivaled the 4^th of July show in Grand Haven.  It was very picturesque by the waterfront at night, and there were many people sitting in plastic chairs right along the edge watching the show.  After we had seen our fill we headed to the night market.

There's probably a night market in every major city in China, and they're all quite different.  This one had more clothes and goods and less food.  There were knockoff items in all shapes sizes and types.  It was stall after stall of clothing and glasses, blankets and computer peripherals.  I really wasn't looking for anything, but I spied a cool little mini-tripod for my camera when there's no handy ledge.  Initially I had no intention to buy it, but I had to know what the man wanted for it.  He started at ¥65 (which is almost $10 and ridiculous for such an item), so I laughed and continued on, but he said, "Wait!" and asked me for a price.  Just like that I started haggling, got the price down to ¥15 and bought it.  It's quite sturdy and fits my camera well.  I think that for an impulse buy, a $2 tripod that I'll probably use quite a bit can't be too bad.  A little while later we headed back to the hotel room, quite tired and eager to get some sleep to be ready for the two company meetings on Thursday (tomorrow).

Good evening, from Hangzhou.  We'll be here for a few days, so expect a more regular posting schedule.  The connection is good here too.  That will hopefully mean more photos.