I am back to Shanghai. Nice flight. I am not sure whether the trip was too intense for me or something else, I slept so well on the plane and was not aware of what happened during the trip. I wake up a little bit, wrote about 18 emails, and fell a sleep again. I managed to wake up about 14 minutes before departure, when the land of Shanghai is clearly in my sight again.

For the first time in my life, I had a seat on the second floor of Boeing 747. The seat number is 18H. It has a nice closet on the right hand that you can put all your package into. I enjoyed the seat so much.

Meanwhile, I suddenly missed the sofa outside the conference room of Chaminade – the light brown sofa facing the pacific, and with sun-shine directly pouring down. Combined with jet lag, and intense day, I could easily fell asleep on that sofa – I told Micki that it is my paradise. If there is one facility I miss most in Chaminade, it is the sofa.

Jet Lag

Getting back is much easier. Even a sleep cat as I waked up early in the morning. Managed to keep on bed until 6:00 AM, and I finally got up. 5:50 AM is a magic time for people in Shanghai. 5 minutes ago, it was completely dark, as dark as night, and now, lights came out (what an amazing thing), and I can recognize trees and flowers (there are still some) in my garden. So let me take some time to write some emails back to the friends (very close friends now) I met in the last week.

I will head to office in about one and half day. Wendy had a training program just beside the office building I work, AND they offer free parking. We decided to leave early today, to match up with the worse and worse traffic on Nanpu Bridge.

Nice to be Back

Although I enjoyed the trip so much, and enjoy meeting nice guys within and outside eBay in the Bay Area, it is still the best to be back to home, and sit near my garden.

I completed the amazing five days in Chaminade in Santa Cruz. What a journey it is! It takes some time for me to reflect and recap what I have experienced with the team, but there is no doubt that it was such a unique experience for me personally, and it placed big impact on me. Due to confidentiality requirement, I cannot explain more in details about what I did, but I will sumarize the learnings in the next few weeks on the blog. Now I am just too tired to keep my eyes open. When I feel really sleepy after 22:00, I know my jet lag completed go away. What a exciting news for! But the bad news is, I am flying back to Shanghai tomorrow. I will drive from Santa Cruz (nice place, but I didn’t have the time to visit downtown and the beach yet) to SFO. I will need to adjust the time zone again. These weeks will be tough since I am flying between Shanghai and San Francisco back and forth at interval of 10 days – the date for me to completely get rid of jet lag. :-) It is part of life, isn’t it?

There are several services that I very seldom use in China, but I use it frequently in the bay area.

1. Google Map and Driving Direction

I don’t use map as frequently as here. I need to check Google Map once or twice every single day to get driving directions. In Shanghai or even in other cities in China, to check an online map is just for fun – to checkout something I am so familiar and see what the map says.

2. Local sites

It is the same meals. I need to check out a restaurant first before I go out. In Shanghai, I only need to set an area, and there are so many restaurants there. Here, you have to get a restaurant first so you know your driving direction.

3. Voice Message

I start to leave voice messages when the person I call didn’t answer the phone immeidately. I am still not used to this kind of “non-instant” communication, but it seems to be the common way to do it. In Shanghai, people seldom uses voice message – we just try to dial again.

P.S. Route CA-17

Route CA-17 from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz is still scary for me. I can drive at daytime, but at night, it is so scary for me – nothing just two lines of dots winding around before you, and you have to be fast – 55 – 60 miles/hour seems much more faster than it actually is.

Buck’s Restaurant

Buck’s Restaurant seems really popular. We went there for lunch, saw many people waited in line and it would take 40 more minutes to get a seat. Finally gave up.

I saw the Google Plate Tina talked about, with a tag line: “We are too dumb to buy Google stock, but we bought the plate”.

University Cafe at University Ave

Stayed for the whole afternoon in the university cafe. It is not bad. The next time, I can directly arrange some meetup there. Good place – I love the orange juice. :-)

Today, I finally formed some basic idea about the roads in Palo Alto. University ave is east side extension of Palm Dr, and Sand Hill Road is a major road connecting El Camino Real and 280. University Ave. also connects US 101.

On eBay Park

The eBay Park on Hamilton Ave is a great place. I had full day meeting with buddies here, and it was nice. I found out some good food in the cafeteria – chicken with steamed rice. It is so nice to finally find some food I enjoy.

Meeting with Friend at Night

I managed to drive from Hamilton Ave up to Sushitomi Restaurant in Mountain View. Silicon Valley has so many small cities like Mountain View, which is basically one central avenue (Castro St). I have been to this area for three times, so is pretty familiar. The only problem with my drive is, I spent more than 10 minutes to get to CA-17 at Hamilton just because I missed the entrance from east to west, and have to get a U-turn in the Friday traffic on Hamilton. So the finally trip was more than 30 minutes.

Public Lecture on Stanford? I Missed It

What I planned for the night? I went to Stanford to listen to the lecture from Anousheh Ansari, called A Journey to the International Space Station. The lecture was held on the Stanford campus, at Kresge Auditorium, Stanford University.

Why I go there? Stanford is my one of my dream university, and since I am in town, why not visit the campus (again). I saw the poster about the event in a Iran grocery store near eBay campus yesterday, and decided to go. My friend Michael Stephanblome said something like “Why bother check out buildings in a city? Check out the people!”. It is very to the point that it makes much more sense to me to attend a lecture in person on the campus than wondering between the buildings.

Wrong Way! Took 1 Hour to Get There

Imagine how long I took to get to Stanford? One hour from Mount View. What a shame. I didn’t bring detailed map with me. I have no problem locating Stanford at all, but to get to the right Auditorium is just a big challenge. The campus looks like a maze for me. Finally, I got back to the Palm Dr – the famous entrance that I can recognize, made a U-turn at the end (wrong way), and then move east bound, until I hit Campus Dr. I followed the Campus Dr to Serra St back to El Camino Real (wrong way again) where I came from, realize it until I reached Page Mill Rd, and U-turn back to turn to Serra St, Campus Dr E again. Anyway, you know how hard it was (and how stupid I am).

Finally I spent about 10 minutes to park – how come Stanford had so many cars on Friday night! Do the student really study so hard?

Full! The Waiting List Seemed Full Too

When I get to the gate of the Kresge Auditorium, the lecture already started for 1 hour. It is about the story of Anousheh Ansari

, the first female private space explorer. I cannot mistake the auditorium since there are so many people outside it – looked pretty like a social event.

To my disappointment, the guard didn’t allow me to enter (no surprise – why all other guys waited OUTSIDE?). He said it is absolutely full – there was even no standing spaces. People outside were waiting for some one who leave, so they can enter.

This is to my surprise that a public event on campus attracted so many people, and they waited outside for one hour.

So, finally, I saw a nice auditorium, and get some idea about Stanford – I practically created many of the road on campus (without a map).

My first visit to U.S. was around the year of2000. I prepared for the trip for almost 1 month – from visa, to map, to research, to exchange money, and to create plan… The excitement and curiosity made going aboard very different from going to other city to me.

However, after visiting U.S. for more than 10 times, to visit a U.S. city is not a big deal any more. It is just like a Beijing trip (and a Beijing trip is like visiting another area in the city).

Money? Where is my Money?

After Boeing 747 of UA 858 arrived in the San Francisco International Airport in the typically sunny morning in the bay area, I realized that I didn’t bring a penny of USD with me during the trip. I still have much Renminbi cash in my wallet, but no USD. I don’t worry about it at all, since I have a magic plastic card – the visa credit card with me, and hopefully, the trip will be OK with the card. The only problem I can think of is, how to pay the tip in hotel.

To travel with no local cash? Bay area seems to provide this opportunity. I remember my first trip to San Jose with 100 USD and some changes in cash, and turned out to bring the 100 USD note back. I just spent the money on tip in hotel.

Australia is not so Credit Card Friendly

We applied the same “credit card” only approach in Sydney this Oct, but failed. The first problem is, the shuttle bus does not accept credit card, so we have to take train. There are many places, like restaurants, and coffee where credit card was not accepted, or at least not welcomed.

In Shanghai? Never go out of airport without RMB cash. The taxi, metro, bus, and food court, for example, all accept cash only. Exchange RMB at airport before going out.

Chance to Exchange USD? Oh. No. Thanks

We witnessed how fast the world is changing. During the first few visit to U.S. in 2000 – 2002, the first thing I’d like to do after getting ticket and visa is to exchange 3000 USD of cash, no matter I needed it or not. At that time, the exchange rate was something around 8.28 RMB = 1 USD, and USD kept going strong. To go aboard was one of the only few opportunity for people in China to exchange some foreign currency. If someone wanted to buy something from outside, they have to trade USD in black market. Any cash people had can easily change back to RMB at much higher exchange rate. Even friends wanted to exchange some USD from you at higher rate you pay the bank.

Just within 4 years, everything changes.

First, people can trade USD pretty freely. With a national ID, people can exchange up to 20,000 USD per year. This was enough, at least people didn’t have to go to the black market just for some USD to buy a book on Amazon.

Second, USD consumption in credit card can be paid by RMB. There is no limitation on it. If I pay USD with my credit card, I can make up the balance simply by RMB.

Third, and most important reason, USD continue to go soft and I don’t want to hold too much USD in cash.

So in the last three trip, I didn’t exchange any cash at all. I have some USD changes that I will bring to U.S., just in case. However, this time I even forgot the changes.

The good thing is, from renting a car, to hotel, to restaurant, everywhere credit card is accepted.

Till now, I didn’t see any problem. What a risky game I am playing. Hope everything should be fine. I will report my the first place I met problem later.

P.S. I am just a small potato in the big wave of change in history. My personal experience in the city or on the road sometimes reflects the bigger change in someway.