Goat?

http://www.dawn.com/news/1303222/pia-on-a-wing-and-a-prayer (warning: graphic picture)

Pakistan International Airlines sacrificed a goat in front of an aircraft to 'ensure its safety'. This is after the recent accident. 

I'm speechless.

Prices

Green capsicum 9.96 yuan per kg

Bread 8 slices (half bread) 6.8 yuan

Tomatoes 3.96 yuan per kg

Potatoes 1.76 yuan per kg

Sweet corn 2 pieces 4.20 yuan

Photos from Suzhou

Near the office. The stone balls are all over the place and meant to prevent vehicles moving on to pavements or areas they are not supposed to be in.

 

 

Dushu Lake from the hotel window:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Night scenes at Moon Bay and surroundings

         

Christmas decorations in the hotel:

 

 

Getting the "Alien Employment Permit"

Getting to work in China is a multi-step experience - get the offer, get a medical checkup done, obtain a "Police Clearance Certificate" from the passport office, get an employment license + invitation letter from your prospective employer, get a Z visa from the Chinese consulate, arrive in China, obtain an employment permit and then obtain a residence permit.

I have, of course, gone through almost all these steps and today was the day I got my "Alien Employment Permit". The immigration consultant had applied for it last week and we went to collect it today. I took a taxi from the hotel to the "Suzhou Industrial Park - One Stop Service Center".

This was early in the morning, before the office actually opened; and I could see people arriving and forming queues. Initially I waited upstairs because the office address was mentioned as being on the 1st floor, but I went down again when I saw the consultant standing downstairs. There were a couple of "photography rooms" where you could get the correct-sized photos if you didn't have any. I stood in that line because there was only one of my passport-sized photos left. There were about 10 people in the queue before me and they were processed quickly as soon as the office opened. It was quite professionally done and there was even a coat available there that you could wear if you wanted the formal look.

Once the photos were done, I was asked to wait. I sat and played with my phone, and then was called inside the police area of the office. Remember, it is a "one stop service center" so there were representatives of various departments all in the same office. The police section seemed to be staffed entirely by women. I was handed over my employment permit and then I signed the application for the residence permit and another photo was taken. And that's it! We were done. Most of the time spent there was spent waiting.

I do wonder whether it would have been so straightforward if the immigration consultant hadn't been there. She did run around a lot and had everything in order. The residence permit is expected to arrive next week.

It is also a new experience for me to have to ask for help for almost everything due to not knowing how to read or speak the language. It's put me in an illiterate's shoes for the first time in my life and it's certainly not a good feeling.

Hunting for a supermarket

It looks like the place I am currently living at is somewhat in the newer side of the SIP, so there aren't too many shops around. There is, fortunately, a Papa John's just across the street and I've been there a couple of times.

I was told about a supermartket in the "Dushu Lake Neighborhood Center" which is not too far from where I live. I could take the subway, but I decided to walk down to get a feel for exactly where it is, to see the sights along the road and to general get some exercise from the walk. I managed to locate the subway station on Google maps and made my way there, with the supermarket somewhere in the vicinity. It took about 15 minutes of walking at a leisurly pace and I came across the entrances to the subway and a large building with "Dushu Lake Neighborhood Center" written on it (in English and Chinese).

Now, here's the difficult part - I couldn't figure out the way inside because there was no obvious entry point. There were a couple of doors marked "Cellar", a hotel entrance and a bus stop with buses going in and out. I finally stopped 3 youngsters who had apparently got off one of the buses, and asked them where the supermarket was. It looks like they understood what I wanted but weren't comfortable responding in English. Finally a girl pointed down and I understood that it was underground. I still needed to know how to get there and then they actually took me all the way in and down and pointed out where it was - very helpful, I must say.

I wandered around a bit inside the store, picked up some fruit and vegetables but had a tough time with the labels for the other items I was thinking of getting. Paid for my stuff in cash and walked back. The whole exercise took me about an hour.

Painful

I had downloaded all of the device drivers from HP for my new laptop and saved them for future use. The day of “future use” is here, the webcam stopped working and I’m thinking of reinstalling the drivers. Unfortunately, all the downloaded files have names of the form “sp?????.exe” so there is no way to tell which file is which driver. HP, what were you thinking?

 

They are not the only ones, sadly. Why is it so difficult to name files in meaningful ways? I’m now invoking each file and renaming the executable just to find my webcam driver…

Gmail

Doesn’t work via the mobile app or via the web interface.

 

My workaround was to link it to my outlook.com account and let them figure out how and when to fetch my gmail emails. Works fine.

 

But I also just found out that adding the gmail account under my Outlook desktop client also works! I don’t know how, since it needs to connect to the imap.gmail.com server, but yes, it does seem to be working right now.

Panoramic view from my window

Monday morning visit into the main city

I had to go into Suzhou city to the Suzhou International Travel Healthcare Center to get my medical reports verified. I had gone through a checkup in Bengaluru before the visa could be processed, and they have a process to verify the tests or undergo them again if required. In my case, it turns out they wanted to do a Hepatitis C test (which had not been done in Bengaluru) so they took some blood.

The relocation specialist accompanied me, language is a barrier and obviously I didn't know the process or even where to go. She summoned a cab, with a lady driver, and I got my first taste of Monday morning traffic as we drove into the middle of Suzhou. Roads were still good outside of the SIP and the traffic wasn't really too bad, considering it was Monday morning (certainly much better than Blr). I saw some older houses, apartments - reminds me of old Mumbai flats.
Not many e-bikes out where we went, I've only seen them in the SIP area. They also have their own paths and don't seem to worry much about traffic signals.

Some of my observations: Extensive set of flyovers. Mostly disciplined traffic. Police boxes. New construction going on in a lot of places.

Delhi Airport

Waiting at Delhi now. Big airport = lots of walking. And it doesn't help that I've been awake since 2am in order to catch my first flight from Bengaluru. The process was pretty smooth overall, even though the person at the immigration counter was surprised that I am traveling for work.

Reached Suzhou

Bengaluru to Delhi to Shanghai to Suzhou. One day's worth of traveling. Not bad overall, though I don't sleep as well on planes as I used to.

Air India was OK, nothing to complain about. Food could have been better but I've never seen really good food on any flight. Always hate the cramped toilet but fortunately the flights weren't too long.

The journey from Shanghai to Suzhou was in a taxi, however the driver didn't speak English. He was very polite and efficient. Most of the road was very good and he was able to drive at more than 100kmph. Didn't get to see any of the city though, it was dark and raining and the road was mostly bounded by Walls and trees with not much visible beyond.

It's cold out here, nothing that we haven't seen in say, Noida but it was certainly noticeable coming from Bengaluru.

My temp accommodation is right on the banks of a lake, very modern and comfy with a good view. Spent most of the day half-asleep, have to take care of some formalities starting tomorrow.

Heading out

At the Bengaluru airport, waiting for the flight to Delhi. It's been a whirlwind few weeks, culminating with my last day at work yesterday.

Traffic woes in Blr

School bus stuck at one place for more than 45 minutes. This is at Panathur road, and it's a daily occurrence. Life in the big city, eh?

Upside down cat

Bad experience with Amazon Now

We have been using BigBasket and occasionally ZopNow, and then V switched over to using the local vendors for veggies and the bigger supermarkets for groceries. With the current cash crunch, we decided to try out Amazon Now for a few things that were needed urgently.

Now this is not the first time I've used Amazon Now, it's actually the second... The first time they delayed the delivery and then cancelled it without providing a reason. This time they did send out the order but most of it were different items than ordered! I'm OK with differing weights of fruits and veggies and BigBasket, for example, sends out another email with the changes and updated prices before delivery. Amazon (Hypercity actually) made a delivery with several packed pulses of different weights and also different brands. They also delivered a pack we hadn't even ordered. The total amount was way off from what I had pre-paid, and the delivery person and his manager were clueless when we asked him to take the wrong items back.

As of now, the Amazon site shows this order as not having been delivered. The delivery guy has taken the receipt back with him for reconciliation.

And we are back on the BigBasket app ordering the items we wanted yesterday...

Things. They are a'stirrin...

Haven't written anything in a very long time. But things are about to change.