Musings on China

So I just came back from what amounted to three weeks in Sichuan province. I went up to visit a mill in Chongqing to solve a problem with a display, which I traced to someone screwing up a software build (a build that I had done that worked when I left it and before they decided to mess around with it I might add) which I did in a matter of a day.

After that it was the typical, "oh while you're here, there's this problem which is semi-related to your expertise, so why not take a look at it because we've told the mill that you're an expert on it" that work is so good at pulling. It's not just in China either, as they used to do this all the time in Vancouver too.

So it was a week and a bit of struggling with MD controls before I was ready to go home. Of course, when I was ready to go home I was asked to go to another mill in Chongqing and solve some problems there. Which I did. And then the girl took the chance to arrange a trip to visit Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong while I was near there. Which was amazing. And will be written about later. Honest.

Sichuan was neat. After I convinced the guys that I really did not want to keep eating at the bad hotel buffet (think bad American Chinese food) we started going out for noodles and local food more often. Which was very good, but probably very bad for me. Spicy hot beef soup noodles, spicy hot snails, spicy hot crayfish, spicy hot tofu. There was a definite pattern. By the time I went to Jiuzhaigou with the girl, I was eating food and not batting an eye that she couldn't touch. I think I killed off my last remaining taste buds.

And the food was cheap. Living in Hong Kong, I am used to paying cheaper, but still reasonable western prices for things. In China things are ridiculously cheap. 6RMB/litre for gas (less than $1 CDN). A bottle of beer - 5rmb. Dinner in a noodle shop downtown - 10rmb or less. I passed on the opportunity to buy the complete Devestator and Superion (old transformers toys for those who don't remember) for 50rmb each. That's $6. Less than each of the constructions or aerialbots would have cost individually! I'm still not sure if I should have bought them.