Tianjin - day 5

Last night as we were riding in from the airport the girl meeting us from Lishen said that we were getting in late and she was sure that we would need more time this morning so she suggested we meet at 1:00 in the afternoon rather than earlier. I told her that it sounded like they wanted more time to prepare answers to the questions that we had forwarded them. She admitted that was true so we agreed to meet at 1:00. This morning after breakfast I decided to go for a walk. I was thinking about a run but I had already showered and didn't want to get all sweaty again. I should have just ran because it is pretty hot and muggy here and I was all sweaty in a matter of minutes anyway. I walked to a shopping mall that is about two miles away and I'm really worried about running here. The air is so polluted that you can feel the crud going into your lungs. If you look at the picture of the apartment buildings that is not fog, it is smog. I got to the shopping plaza before it opened but everyone was getting ready to start work. They have a huge chain store in China called the "Friendship" store. It is owned by the government and they sell articles that are made by the local artists and craftsmen. It provides the locals with a market for their goods and it is a nice central location for tourists looking for souvenirs. The problem is that the stuff is not exactly cheap. I usually don't go shopping there but they had a Friendship store at the plaza where I was and in front of the store all of the employees were lined up in ranks and were marching two by two into the store. I was scared to take a picture because they were all looking at me but once I passed them I snuck a picture in from behind. No matter how often I see it I still think it looks funny. I mentioned yesterday that I have another nice room. This is kind of amazing because it is only about $100 a night which is cheap for these kinds of hotels. Once I got outside I noticed that this place is huge, much larger than I had expected. There is a lot of construction going on around it so I can't get a decent picture so I'm using an artist rendering that I got off the internet. This is what it looks like but with cranes etc. all around. The lobby is also very swanky. My room isn't the biggest room I've had but it is plenty big enough for me. There are also seven pillows on my bed. What does anyone ever need with seven pillows? You'll never guess what happened this morning. I'm in the shower and I noticed that it was the exact same tap as the one in Shanghai. There was my magic button inviting me to enjoy that wonderful warm rain from the sky. I pushed the button and I was quite disappointed. It was not much more than a drizzle. Oh well, the shower head had plenty of pressure. So i'm sitting here writing my blog and all of a sudden the plastic string holding in my glasses lens snaps. The lens hasn't fallen out yet but it is going to and with all the tile around here I'm afraid it will happen at the worst possible time. Now what am I going to do? I've got another week here and because I brought my glasses I don't think I packed my contacts. I guess tomorrow I'll go looking for an optometrist. I sure hope I don't need a prescription to buy contacts. Who knows, maybe I can get a great deal on a new pair of glasses. These suckers cost $1,000 in the states. This afternoon was a great day. Once again we had technical discussions and I learned a lot. I'm beginning to get worried however. The company that seems to have the best technology is the company that has the worst manufacturing processes and they have the worst patent position. Now what do I do? Lishen picked us up at 1:00 as promised and on the way I tried to take some pictures of China's new and improved image. Here is a picture of a major road with a canal for a median and pretty flowers in the interchange. There is also a picture of the side of the road with a nice brick sidewalk and a little park planted next to it. I should also point out that this all started long before the Olympics were chosen to be in China although that has certainly accelerated things. I learned something interesting about the Olympics. When the Olympics were in Calgary they were the Calgary Olympics and not the Canadian Olympics and all of the events were in Calgary or close to it. Same with the Salt Lake City Olympics, they weren't the US Olympics. Well that is not true for the Beijing Olympics. They don't call them the Beijing Olympics they call them the Chinese Olympics. They have events all over the country. Some events are in Beijing and some are in Hong Kong and others are in other parts of the country. That is like having some events in Salt Lake City, some in Los Angeles and some in Atlanta. Crazy eh? Some of them are extremely fancy too. As we were driving we passed this fancy dome and it turns out it is where the track and field events will be held. Tianjin is a three hour drive from Beijing. Oh, by the way, I can see my blogs today. I was starting to enjoy my little conspiracy theory about China blocking access to blogger. In China's renovation of their country one thing that I have never seen is a modern, single detached house. They do have many modern apartment buildings however. So today I was showing off my family to the people at Lishen and one of them commented how much Ben looked like Cristiano Ronaldo. They had to tell me that Ronaldo is a very famous soccer player. I decided to google him and low and behold, he does look a lot like Ben. So on my way back from Lishen today I asked them if they would mind stopping at the first optometrist they came across. I figured that I had better buy some contacts to get me through this week. After I got the contacts I decided to ask the guy what a pair of glasses would cost. I figured Lisa could have my optometrist fax a copy of my prescription to him and make me a cheap pair. I handed my glasses to him and within two minutes he had them fixed. It was a miracle. I decided against the cheap pair since they would still cost a couple hundred dollars and I don't need to be spending that right now. Since he didn't charge me for fixing my glasses I figured I shouldn't return the contacts. Tomorrow is Saturday so we are going to head into Tianjin and do some touring. There isn't much to see however since Tianjin is just like Shenzhen. Ten years ago this place was nothing but rice fields. It has only been created to do manufacturing. I understand we are right on the coast however so I imagine we will see the beach but I don't there is much else to see. Maybe I can do some shopping but I think the kids are tired of cheap jewelry and belts. I don't know what else to get them. Any ideas?