Travel Blog Posts
February 27th 2007
2 days ago, Omar, Shanti and I returned from our first vacation together. We decided to go to much talked about Phuket island. After extensive research on the internet and after talking to some people that had been there we had this idea of "paradise" with wonderful beaches, excellent food, nice people, etc and in some way, YES, IT IS TRUE!! but it can also very well be a very rough "Sin City". Here's the story: Got the tickets after much work and money (since everybody goes to sunny destinations during Chinese New Year, there were only business class tix available), wanted to book a hotel that supported a foundation protecting turtles that latched eggs in one of the Phuket beaches but of course one day before we confirmed the reservation, a huge group booked all ... read more
January 31st 2007
*Man takes live grenade home thinking it was a plant pot *Three little pigs burn down the house *Ukranian drunk escapes dolphin gang *Study: Aliens need more time to find us *Man thinks whale was sorry for hitting his boat *UK moon mission planned The above are just some of the news headlines in the English speaking publications in China. Also, I am glad to report that according to the City Office of Civilization Affairs (I have no idea what their job is) people are improving their spitting habits... Let's see... They put "officers" in 7 key points in the city and the reports indicate that the number of people spitting in 30 minutes has gone down from 146 to 42 in the last month. KUDOS to the officers!! Of course, part of the problem ... read more
Latest news from Shanghai and fight with crazy woman
Published: September 29th 2006Asia » China » ShanghaiSeptember 29th 2006
After 3 VERY difficult weeks that included moving into a new (and much smaller) apartment and organizing 67 boxes of our stuff (has it happened to you that you don't know how many things you have until you have to move???), a 7 weeks old baby with a terrible jet lag, a case of mastitis with 4 days of fever and chills and a cold.... It seems that we are finally finding our way back in Shanghai. The city seems so different now, I used to love to be in the middle of things, markets, yelling on the street, street food vendors, crazy traffic (especially bicycles) etc.... Today, when I have to go out with a stroller and a baby that hates her car seat, I hate all of the above (with the exception of the ... read more
July 22nd 2006
I just realized how important blogging has become for me... After only 3 hours of sleep, here I am sitting in front of the computer typing this entry about Shanti Lucia and our experience. I know Omar has said that Shanti was born after only 2-3 hours of labor... In reality, I had been feeling contractions since 2pm the day before and woke up at 3am in pain and could not go back to sleep again. We got to the hospital at 11 am and the pain was so strong that I could barely walk during contractions. Shanti Lucia was born at 1:55pm. I have to say that I was not the typical mother whose reaction is crying when seeing the baby for the first time...I was in shock!! I was like: "What?? She is already ... read more
June 29th 2006
I just realized that I forgot to tell you in the last blog that the Chinese guy that did not want to use his headphones took off his pants and I had the privilege to watch him sleep in his red underwear for several hours... I don't know how I forgot to tell you that, that was the funniest part of the story!! Ok, back to this blog. On June 24th, many cities celebrate "La Noche de San Juan" it is really a celebration of the birth of Saint John The Baptist and of course, it involves activities near or in the sea. I remember when I was living in Gran Canaria, Spain, I loved it! We would go to the beach and watch a show of fireworks, laser lights, drink some beers or "ron miel" ... read more
June 21st 2006
After a scare with pregnancy diabetes, one Monday at 4am, we decided to leave Shanghai and come to Puerto Rico to have the baby here. We would be close to Omar's family and if something went wrong with the childbirth or with the baby we could at least easily communicate with the doctors and it would be easy to go to the US for special care. We thought it was going to be our last trip as a childless couple so we decided to say "good bye" to our easy life by flying First Class. We expected lots of champagne (for Omar) and lots of ice cream (for me). We expected a really nice meal and seats together so we could hold hands while watching a movie and yes! of course! lots of movies to choose ... read more
March 8th 2006
Yes! we are back!! After Tibet we had lots of visitors, my brother Jose visited for 3 weeks, we went together to Beijing and Hong Kong... We never really had time to travel together so I was really excited and enjoyed every single day, especially the last day when we had a bottle of champagne together. After Jose came my friend Laureen and her daugher Emilia. They stayed for 2 weeks and we also had a great time, part of the experience included a US$4 but an hour long foot massage, getting surrounded by dozens of Chinese in a park when they heard Laureen was American (this is something like having super powers here) and a visit to the local Walmart (not your neighborhood supermarket in the US, here Walmart features live eel, all kinds of ... read more
October 13th 2005
WARNING: THIS IS A LOOONG ONE 13 days ago Omar and I left Shanghai decided to have a different vacation; a vacation where we will have to wake up early in the morning to jump into a dusty 4X4, drive for hours only to find a tiny village once in a while where we would have lunch (usually rice and some sort of curry), feel cold even under layers and layers of t-shirts and sweaters, walk and hike, have headaches because of the altitude sickness and sleep in rooms crowded with people we did not even know. While in China, we had decided not to miss this once in a lifetime adventure of driving from Lhasa to Kathmandu, we would stop at the Everest Case Camp to spend one night, hike for hours, drive for more ... read more
September 18th 2005
It has been a while since I posted something about our life in Shanghai. I have to say that I am enjoying our stay in this city. There is something interesting every single day (not always nice but always interesting/funny) although I have to say that sometimes I still miss going to the supermarket and recognizing every single product or just knowing that I will not need to squat every time I feel like going to the restroom in a shopping mall. Omar is doing good but working loooong hours. Last week he was invited to participate in a panel with Philip Kotler, hailed as "the world's foremost expert on the strategic practice of marketing" by most Marketing professionals and by anyone that has read maybe the most authoritative textbook on marketing: Marketing Management, now in ... read more
Eating Corbicula with Preserved Brassica in Zhouzhuang
Published: August 2nd 2005Asia » China » Jiangsu » Zhouzhuang
August 2nd 2005
Taking advantage that Rene, Jenny's friend was visiting Shanghai, we decided to go to Zhouzhuang, a town only 1.5 hours away from Shanghai and best known as: "Venice of the East". Zhouzhuang is indeed a beautiful old town, full of canals and bridges. Before 1980, tourism was not developed there but thanks to a Chinese artist that sold a painting of one of the bridges in more than US$32,000,000 to the President of the Occidental Petroleum in 1984, became well known to the rest of China. A trip to Zhouzhuang should not exceed 4 hours. Immediately after arriving, we were surrounded by old ladies selling maps, offering hotels, etc. After a few minutes walking into the town, we arrived to one of the main streets, which we recognized because of the hundreds of kiosks and stores ... read more
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