March 5, 2007 – stlplace

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on March 7, 2007 by stlplace

These days you need some faith to hold those relatively new Chinese IPOs. I only have Mindray (MR) at this time, but I have traded HMIN and EDU before. All three stocks dropped a lot from it highs in a week. I just want to summerize my observation after spending 2 days in Shanghai, this is in no ways a comprehensive study.

Home Inns: it faces more competition. I went to Jinjiang Inn on Sunday with a friend, we need to book a room for another friend. It’s fairly easy. Maybe this is not a busy season. But I remember one or two years ago it’s not easy to book a room one day in advance. Also Marriot (the American hotel giant) bought a Chinese economy hotel chain “Xingyu Star” and renamed it as “Wan Jia Wan Hao”. It plans to open 300 hotels in a few years.

United Adventures

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last Updated on November 2, 2025 by stlplace

I have taken United Arlines (UA) flights from St. Louis to Shanghai couple times. This one is probablly most adventurous. The main problem was caused by the weather in Chicago. I thought this newly created ORD to PVG routes by UA and AA would benifit people in the Midwest: save one stop, for instance, if we take Northwest, we will have to stop twice, at Detroit/Minneapolis and Tokyo. But on March 2nd Chicago got wind and light snow. The flight from STL to ORD got delayed for about 3 hours. When I looked at the TV screen after I got to Chicago at 10:30, I could not find the 10:15 ORD PVG flight. So I waited patiently in a “200 miles long” line at the United customer service. This “200 miles” is quoting a lady lined after me. I also called the United hot line on the phone, all I got was the computer response. I guess there were so many delays and cancellations, and UA don’t have enough people to take the calls.