Another Day, Another Contact

Trip Start Apr 26, 2006
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Trip End May 10, 2006


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Tuesday, May 2, 2006

I called, Renee, the sales manager at Silo City in the morning and cancelled our reservation on the apartment. In its place, we went in the morning to this new development in the 2nd circle of Beijing based on advertisement my Mom saw on the plane. This was prime area and an advertisement showing that housing was at a slightly higher price than Silo City. Wrong. These bastards and their deceptive ads...the real prices are twice that, so basically your typical 2-bdr, 1000 sqft house would cost you ~$250k US. More ridiculously is that the condo will not be completed until 2 years from now, so 2008 and once you get the house you can't sell until 2 years after that. So basically what you are looking at is a 4 year window where your money is locked in and you get zero returns. In addition according to the information and research we got, we'd probably be lucky to get what we paid for 4 years later because of the glut of housing.
ChineseMedicine1
ChineseMedicine1
Chinese Medicine
We went in the morning to the local Tong Ren Tong. This was where the traditional Chinese doctors see their patients. My family and I wanted to check things out so we went. I was basically normal but they said that my Kidney Chi (or whatever it is) is kind of weak. No big issues now but that I should probably improve my overall lifestyle...

Dinner with Ms. Zhao
We had dinner at a terrible vegetarian restaurant in Beijing. That's probably the last time I refer to Lonely Planet guide for vegetarian restaurants. Food sucked but at least the people were interesting. My dad's friend, Ms. Zhao, and her 2 other friends provided interesting dinner conversations. More importantly of friend was the CIO of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and he offered to help me find opportunities in Shanghai should I FIRST DECIDE to work in Shanghai. It was understandable that he didn't want to waste his efforts if I wasn't serious. I guess that will make things difficult when I get back to the states. I'll have to decide on China or not without first obtaining a job. If I want to work in China, I'd have to move my ass out there first and then find the right opportunities...ugh...decisions, decisions. The good news is that I've made some excellent contacts in a span of a week. The bad news is that my career plan isn't any clearer; if anything else it's gotten more convoluted. This is a HUGE and non-trivial decision and I'm going to have to think long and hard about it...
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