How Car Annual Checking Works

Posted on April 2, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

It is a hot day – 27 degrees, and Hangzhou seems to enter Summer already. I am back – very tired. The 170+ km express way is not easy to cover. Next time I go to Hangzhou, I won’t drive – bus or train is a better choice – so I can enjoy the nice scene of Hangzhou without the frustration on the crowded road.

My car is registered in Hangzhou. From considering to get a car, to I finally get one, the car plate in Shanghai raise from 38500 RMB to 43000 RMB. So I chose the much cheaper solution – to register in Hangzhou. (Later, the Shanghai car plate price once dropped to 21001 RMB). The pro side is, it is much cheaper. The con is, I need to go to Hangzhou for the annual checking. Although there are many agents who are willing to do it for me, I hate to give my car to someone I don’t know. So I used the weekend to drive there.

The Place

The place is not easy to find. They moved from the old place, from Hanghai Road, to the other side of the Qiantang River.

The Qian Bridge No. 3 was closed for construction. The added additional difficulty to find the place. When I am there, it is already 3:10 PM.

It is Closed

When I got to the window, they told me they do not accept new applications already. Their business hour is 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM. There are still one hour and 20 minutes left, but they refused to take my application. The parking lot is near empty. It seems the only way to get examined is to come the next day.

There is Always Workaround

At the entrance to the office, there is a “car club”. We stepped in. A woman was practicing Chinese typing at her computer. I asked is she able to help us on the exam. She said “sure”.

We gave her 100 RMB for the service. She went to the same counter, send it in. Very soon, some official came out and drove my car in. 5 minutes later, I got all my documents stamped, and I passed the exam.

This is the typical way government collect money – to close the office early or setup enough difficulty, so people need to go to agents (commercial organization), to get something – like visa, permission, certificates, or license. Since the government is not allowed to directly get any money from citizen, they can leverage a commercial partner to collect the money by providing priority service to the agents. People pay the agents to get better service. The money can be used as “activity fund” for the employees.

This is the only way I can find to explain why they don’t accept application but the office 100 meters away accept it.

Disclaimer: Only the fact part of this article is confirmed. The how it works and behind scene part is my guess based what someone told me.

Hangzhou for Car Yearly Checking

Posted on April 1, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

I am in Hangzhou.

Two years for Goudaner, and I have to do the car yearly checking. So, I drove to Hangzhou.

The first weekend, I was in Hangzhou for meeting.

The second weekend, I went to Nanjing.

The same Sunday, in Suzhou, Taihu.

The forth weekend, which is today, I am in Hangzhou.

I will post picture tomorrow.

Notes to the Day

Posted on March 31, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

1. Server changed to bluehost.com. They seem good. The transition is smooth (pretty smooth), but I still lost some comments (5?). Feel bad about it.

2. Back from Donews gathering this year. Had wonderful dinner with Friends.

3. Went to Internet cafe again.

4. Focus Group is really helpful.

5. It is better to go to bed now.

Photo of People’s Square Area

Posted on March 29, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

The People’s Square area represents big portion of Shanghai’s image. So are its details. Here are two pictures I took the other day.

The flower is the city flower of Shanghai. The city flower is a smart choice. March is the month when white city flowers (Yulan? No idea about English name) boom everywhere.

Car Insurance in Shanghai

Posted on March 28, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

It is time to figure out how to buy another year of car insurance. The new car comes with 2 years of car insurances. It ends this month. I even didn’t notice that.

Car insurance is enforced. It is several thousand RMB per year – not cheap.

People like to ask about living cost in Shanghai. My simple answer is, to live the local live cost less than US, while to live U.S. live in Shanghai causes even higher than U.S.

Car is an example. Car is much more expensive than those in U.S. – a Volkswagon Polo is 10K RMB (or 12 K USD), and everything related to car is more expensive.

I guess that is the reason why Shanghai is ranked as one of the most expensive city for expat – because to play Golf in Shanghai is way far expensive than playing golf in U.S.

P.S. The suspension nightmare is not over yet. The lunarpages.com guy is sending email again, and may want to suspend the site due to the wrong calculation of CPU usage they use. I am thinking about bluehost.com. They are amazing in my first few telephone call – they pick up the phone almost instantly – or to be more exact, within 10 seconds. I’d say it is a little bit better than the 27 minutes expected waiting time from ipowerweb.com

Finally Back from Suspension

Posted on March 27, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

You may noticed two days of server outage. Don’t worry. It is another technical support case with lunarpages.com. They like to suspend a site first, and drop you an email that “please contact me”. After that, it seems the guy who suspend it never appeared. So, in the next 48 hours, (or even 56 hours), there were no one response to the ticket. They have educated me that the only thing I can do is to wait, since my future request will cause my ticket to be put into the back of the queue again, causing the delay… So I waited. Finally, I found myself smart (will you call it smart), that I submitted another case, and it was solved quickly (in 30 hours).

Anyway, I feel happen when I see the blueish screen of this blog.

This time, I really learnt to be patient, and this time is not that hard as the previous 10 day server down.

If I Lost it, Then Let it Be…

Posted on March 25, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

I found myself never work well with a host company. I moved from ipowerweb.com to lunarpages.com for hosting, but again, I was driven mad. Every time I have to write or talk with a technical support guy, I am completely mad. Every single word I read or hear lead to the thought in my head: “I have to kill someone.”. Just kidding, but it is exactly what I feel.

From March 15, to March 25, it is another 10 days, and the server problem is not solved. I paused for several days for the data to get back. Finally, I gave up. I always cannot work well with technical support from hosting companies, no matter where…

How painful it is to work with someone follow a process, and cross the different time zone. It is hard.

Here are some examples:

1. Every morning, when I check my mail box, I always cannot see my response from lunarpages.com. Then I asked is there any update. Two days later, I was told that “Every time I add a note, the case will be put to the end of the queue again.” So if I am worried, and I need urgent assistant, the more I write, the slower my response will be. OK. I accept this.

2. Although I am worried, I kept patient and don’t touch the case. I expect a response within 24 hours, but two days later, I get another response. So, remember when dealing with a host company, be patient. Plan a 72 hour server down time.

3. Time zone is hard. Sometimes, when I add a note, waiting for the next morning, and only get one note: “Can I verify your identity? What is the last four digits of your credit card”. I replied and wait. Two another day past. Finally, when we reach some agreement for an action, support guys will ask: Can you confirm this? I said “I confirm”, another two days go away.

4. Telephone may helps. If you call, I feel lunarpages.com did wonderful job on telephone support. They only ask me to stay hold for 7 minutes, while on ipowerweb.com, they can easily say: “Expected waiting time is 27 minutes”. I think the definition of “how long is long” in China and America is different. It is unbelievable to have someone wait on telephone for half an hour. Telephone system does not have emotion. People have.

After another 10 drilling experience, I said: OK. Forget about the old entries, and forget about the comment I lost. Let me start from March 25, 2006, and stop working with the guys in lunarpages.com. It is just because my expectation always does not match the host can provide.

My expectation is very clear:

1. Someone response my email with two days.

2. Any very simple server request like backup files, or get a file, should be solved within 7 days.

This expectation has been lowered a lot after working with hosting companies. That is the reason when someone ask my recommendation to hosting companies, I said: It is hard to recommend, since everyone is “bad”. You will get angry with anyone. The only difference is, how angry you are.

On the lost data, If I have to lose it, let it be…

Xiang Yang Market is Closed on June 30

Posted on March 24, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

I guess this may be the last entry for the Xiangyangmarket category in this blog. Xiang Yang Market will be offically closed on Jun 30, 2006. The market started with a small market at Huating Road (Metro Changshu Road station), and moved to the current location, and became really big and famous. Since there are too many fake goods there, under the pressure of foreign companies, the government finally closed it (This is my guess of the reasons, not official reasons).

After the market, there is no plan to rebuild it somewhere else. Quoting the term a technical support guy in ipowerweb.com, “It is gone. It is gone, for ever. There is absolutely no way to get it back!” (The guy used the sentence to convinience they have happily deleted every single file I own on their server.)

Currently, according to my friends who visited the market, the majority of the market is closed, with small portion still open. There are many people bringing visitors to their private locations near the market. The fake deal still continues.

Still pending.

Posted on March 23, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

So no update these days. Waiting for the restore, so the new entries won’t be overwritten… Sorry for the inconvenience.

Pending for Rolling Back.

Posted on March 21, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

This site was rolled back to March 15 by my ISP – Lunarpages. I have sent email to ask for the latest version (March 20). This change is expected to happen in the next 24 hours. All comments (including this post) coming after this post will be erased. So do not comment, or keep a copy of your comment if you do.

Yangtze Hotel is Good

Posted on March 20, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

To be honest, I am not familiar with hotel in Shanghai at all – I never, ever stayed in any of the hotels, because I live here. Unfortunately, hotel recommendation is the most frequently asked question.

I helped to arrange my friend and his family in Yangtze Hotel yesterday. Today, his feedback to the hotel is really good. So I feel safe to recommend it to my readers.

Name

Yangtze Hotel 扬子饭店

Yangtze is named after the Yangtze River – the longest river in China.

Location

Although I never been to the room of the hotel, one thing I can confirm is, you cannot easily find a hotel that has better location than this one. It is just at the People’s Square, the very center of the city. There is a church beside it. It is just at the No. 2 exit of the Metro Line 1 and #2.

The door of Yangtze Hotel opens just before the door of Raffles City (where I work everyday). It is near to almost everywhere – easily reached via Metro or taxi.

Here is the map.

Price

As of this week (March 13 – March 18), the standard room is 560 RMB (or 70 USD) per night.

The Room

I didn’t see the room myself, but my friend told me there are old style rooms and very modern style rooms. The sink in the modern rooms are made of glass, and there are curtain between the restroom and the bedrooms. They even have computers…. Let me find time to take a look.

The History

Yangtze Hotel looks like a very normal hotel from outside. I even didn’t realize there is a hotel at the gate of my office building. For me, it is only a cheap place to have lunch. We enjoy the fast food of the hotel – 15 RMB for the lunch – not bad.

I checked the history of the hotel on Internet. It has unordinary history. It was built in 1934, and was once named “the third best hotel in the fareast” in old times.

Wow. Let me take pictures of the hotel tomorrow. People always ignore important stuff besides us.

Reservation

Book it via CTRIP: Yangtze Hotel.

Forget about the 1078 RMB listing price. It never charged that high.

Yangtze Hotel

740 HanKou Road, Shanghai 200001

Tel +86 21 6351 7880

Fax +86 21 6351 6974

Email:sales@e-yangtze.com

Website

They have a website: http://www.e-yangtze.com/

If you stayed in the hotel, please share your comment.

P.S. There is always good and cheap motel like Motel 168, and Jinjiang Inn. They are 268 RMB or 168 RMB per night. They are also good – clean, fully equipped, and convenient. The only problem is, they are often fully booked. There are other hotels like this, Sports Hotel is one example.

Taihu! Taihu! Taihu!

Posted on March 19, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

You have to visit a place many times to really learn its beauty. It is exactly

true. I fall in love in Hangzhou, in Nanjing, and today, in Taihu. The

Expressway network in the Yangtze Delta extends at the speed I cannot imagine.

The newly built Suzhou – Shanghai Expressway directly connect the Suzhou City

Ring Express and Shanghai A30 Express. Now the riding distance from my home at

Pudong and the Xukou at Taihu is only 120 KM, costing…

Mashup Camp China Report

Posted on March 18, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

Back from Mashup Camp China event. It is a wonderful event. Here are some

pictures. Around I am back from Nanjing via T731, and updated this blog in my

reading room at Shanghai….

Report from Search Engine Strategies

Posted on March 17, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

The one day conference at SES (Search Engine Conference) went on well. Many

friends gathered there. As far as I know, 25 employees from Google, 6 from

Microsoft, 6 from eBay attended. There are tremendous other Internet companies

attended. There was no appearance of Baidu. I am impressed by the Google local

team. Clearly, they face the same challenge every international company faces in

China. The localization process is as painful as others, but the spirit is good.

I met…

Hello from Nanjing

Posted on March 16, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

I am in Nanjing now. I am still at the excitement of the Maglev’s extension to

Hangzhou, and imagine how lives in both city will change if the 30 minute

connection line is built. Now I am in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province.

The Trip The trip from Shanghai to Nanjing is shorter than I expected. The first

time I came to Nanjing on Oct 1, 1996, the train was schedule to arrive in 6

hours, and turned out…

Happy Birthday to Goudaner (2nd Year)

Posted on March 15, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

March 15 again. Two years ago, at around 7:00 PM, I drove my car back home. I still remember the excitement to have the first car – I didn’t though to buy a car is as simple as buying any article at stores – just swipe the credit card and got the key to the new car.

There is a small story that I didn’t tell. When I first show the car, I found it perfect – the smell, the color, the inside decoration – everything. But there is a very small defect at the front of the car – a 1 cm long scratch. It barely noticed, but it is a scratch on a new car. I felt bad and told the dealer that I don’t want it. I want a completely new car, instead one with some scar on it.

The dealer was very reasonable, and agreed to return the car back to the warehouse. They said I can get back again after one week for another one. They did mean it. Just before they drive the car to the backyard, I felt although there is just several minutes, I don’t want them to drive “my” car away. You know, the feeling of the first ever car is interesting. I thought it is may be the feat of the car, and my feat that we meet. I know buying a car is all about luck. No one guarantees you that every car is exactly as durable and reliable as each other. I am afraid IF I get another one, I will regret that I didn’t pickup the first one I saw. It may happen.

So, that is the final decision. I happily drove the new car back home, and show the family about the car. I didn’t tell Wendy the scare for the first few weeks. We all love it. I made the good decision. In the last two years, Goudaner is reliable, and performs great. I enjoy driving it around. No one is perfect. So does a car. I tend to tolerate other’s imperfectness, just as many people tolerate mine.

First day on March 16, 2004

I gave the name Goudaner to it one week after we have it.

In the last two years, it accompanied us from home to work, and go to nearby locations. We went to Hangzhou for twice, and Suzhou once. We also went to Chongming once. Went to Pudong airport and Hongqiao Airport several times. Besides that, Goudaner didn’t travel far from my home.

Recently many people are looking at cars and plan to buy one. I always say: “To own a house does not change the life too much – to own a car does”.

Happy Birthday to Goudaner.

MagLev May Extend to Hangzhou – Confirmed

Posted on March 14, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

In the morning, I saw the headline of today’s Oriental Morning Post on my desk is: Shanghai – Hangzhou Maglev will be Completed in 2008. The subtitle is:

Total cost: 35 billion RMB
Proposed East Hangzhou Station and Jiaxing Station
Half an hour between Hangzhou and Shanghai.

It is good news. I hate to way until 2008, though.

Impact on Me

I am happy that where I live now is 3 km away from the Maglev station at Longyang Road. It is amazing to be able to get to Hangzhou within 30 minutes. If so, to get to West lake will be within one hour – 10 minutes to Maglev, 30 minutes to Hangzhou (if I arrange the time well), and 20 minutes to West Lake. This is almost the same time from my apartment to Xujiahui (45 minute)! I believe my life will be different if it does happen.

How about the Residential Area?

One question I have is, how the government will deal with the Wanbang City Garden – the newly built residential garden just at the extended direction of the Maglev. Will they be teared down? Will the Maglev use the other path?

I am also curious about the plan of the rail of Maglev. I may pass the place where I live, since the area is just in the middle between Long Yang Road and the World Expo 2010 site. Anyone know some insight about the plan?

Mashup Camp China

Posted on March 13, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

We didn’t expect the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Nanjing is such a big event. It started as a small event (my perception) months ago, when I agreed to participate in the meeting as a speaker. Later, Jack Mao (head of Alibaba, and Yahoo! China), and Johnny Zhou (Head of Google, China) joined as speakers. I didn’t expect it to be a big one. The event is coming this Friday.

As every industry meeting, the fun part is always outside the meeting. So we organized the Mashup Camp China. The original plan is a 7 people BBQ in Mao’s place, but when more and more people rushing to Nanjing, we finally extended to be a “very big” event – 20. :-) It is already big compared to the 7 people event.

Here is Mao‘s page on mashup.

Here is Isaac’s.

Attendant list:

Robert Mao, blogger, Founder/CEO of UUZone

Isaac Mao, blogger, VP of UCI

Jian Shuo Wang, blogger, Head of Kijiji China

Jack Gu, blogger, Founder of podlook.com

Xiaofeng, Jin

Zheng, blogger

Xuer

Bruce

Michael

Johney

6e (luliang), blogger, CTO of bokee.com

Owen, blogger

The name was inspired by Mashup Camp, which we closely monitored in the Idea Factory China alias.

Note

Met Lucifer Chu (Zhu Xueheng), the founder of OOPS (Opensource Opencourseware Prototype System). He donated his time, and money to translate all opensource opencourseware, like the MIT’s open courseware project, into Chinese. The project is a nice one. Lucifer has a personal award for sci-fi type of novelist. This idea inspired me a lot that you can help to promote something by setting up an award. :-)

Back from Snowing Hangzhou

Posted on March 12, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

Back from Hangzhou

The express way from Hangzhou to Shanghai was quite empty today. There was not much traffic – I believe it is not the rush hours yet. 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm is not the typical time Shanghai cars get back from Hangzhou. The big bus was confortable. My personal preference is always to take bus over train. I feel to have more personal space on the trip instead of a large cart on train. Most of my friends like to take train, since it is safer, and more on time.

It snowed heavily when we left. I worried that the expressway may be closed soon if the snow continues for 1 hour. We were lucky that very soon, we left the snowing area. It didn’t snow in Shanghai section of the road, while the snow continues in Hangzhou for quite some time.

One observation: the expressway have been extended from 2 lanes before to 4 lanes. At a service area, I saw a notice to drivers:

Do not use the left most lane in a four lane express-way too long – you will be fined for 100 USD if caught by policement.

Hangzhou

Hangzhou is so nice, but the traffic in Hangzhou is really a mass at weekends. So complained by many people in Hangzhou. It may be because many people rush to Hangzhou to Shanghai. :-)

Hangzhou looked so beautiful this time to me. The west lake, and the mountains, look great whenever it is rainy or sunny, or snow, like today.

2,880 RMB Round-Trip to U.S.

Got an email from Northwest Airlines. The latest promotion from Northwest is surprising. They offer 2880 RMB (about 350 USD) for round trip flight from Shanghai to San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland. The criteria is to book before April 24, leave before April 27, and get back before June 11. Sounds attractive.

Hello From Hangzhou

Posted on March 10, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang