Samantha Grace

Today was not my busiest day at SBR, but it was certaintly the nicest. Morning and Afternoon Activities: - Wrote one news clip for the section. - Added a few more events to the Business Diary page - Edited a contract for the SBR Executive dental benefits - Edited the weekly SBR e-newsletter Lunch: - Italian restaurant Dolce Vita with Geoff (editor-n-chief), Olivia, Thomas and Lucky (all three are interns), and Gauthier, Chris and Leroy (sales). - Ate fusilli tuna and cherry tomato, which was delicious. There wasn't too much for me to do after having completed the e-newsletter, so I decided to take photos of office and my colleagues. Check them out! Oh! And by the way, the Chinese government has blocked Twitter and Facebook - in addition to everything else they've blocked. It has ... read more

The fourth of July was a bit unconventional: * Woke up at around noon (first time I have done that all summer so judging is prohibited). * Took a nice long, hot shower. * Ate veggies and noodles with chopsticks for lunch. * Went to the Fabric Market with my Chilian friend, Olivia, at 3p.m. - where we proceeded to walk through three floors of fabric. * Went to the Fake Market on Nanjing Xi Lu. - where several Chinese men and women said, "Hi pretty ladies, would you like a watch, bags, sunglasses?" You would think they would try to be a little bit more creative by asking us if we wanted something that we didn't already have. Both of us actually said, "Oh no thanks, we have one." But then, most of them replied ... read more

Naturally, any bar that sells wine, chocolates (qiao ke li) and other tasty treats are enticing for people such as myself, but this one has caught my attention more than once. And both times, I didn't have to pay a dime or yuan. The firs time was actually a farewell night for a friend of mine, Monica, who was moving to Beijing in a week. She was offered a better position in another company than in Shanghai so of course she took it. I was a little late getting there because my taxi driver was so slow and there were a few traffic jams - not his fault. One jam, however, was a little nuts because we waited at a stop light twice and then as we were crossing the intersection, we saw a big construction ... read more

It seems a little silly to blog about license plates, however, for something so small, it has caught my attention in every country/state I've traveled to. The shape of a license plate remains relatively same from continent to continent - normally a rectangle. Sometimes the rectangle varies a bit - maybe an elongated rectangle. Aside from the shape, everything else is different (e.g. colors, design, etc). In Europe, every country has a different plate; which is not to difficult to fathom considering every state in the U.S. has a different license plate - there are even different designs in one state. Chinese plates are fairly simple and similar to european plates. Based on what I've observed, the U.S. has the best, most creative license plates. Of course, it is not something Americans should boast about to ... read more

Hangzhou, a sub-provincial city southwest of Shanghai, is most famous for its historic and scenic places like the West Lake and Ling Yin Temple. It's a beautiful city - more trees, less pollution than Shanghai...and of course, lakes. Friday night, I had the opportunity to go out to a pub and hang with fellow interns, however, being that I'd have to be awake and coherent at 6a.m. Saturday morning, I chose not too go out. Lame? Maybe, but when my Peruvian friend, Bosco, practically crawled through the metro to meet up with the other interns at in the Shanghai South Railway Station, I felt a lot better about my decision. We took a bus from Shanghai to Hangzhou at 9:10a.m. and it was about a two-hour-death-defying extravaganza in the bus. It really should be a requirement ... read more