Month: April 2026

Categories
advice and tips China Life Tips

China travel tips, 2026 edition

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last Updated on April 5, 2026 by stlplace

(Working in progress as of 04-05-2026, soft launch for now as I expect summer travel to take off towards the end of May. Thought may be helpful for friends who have not visited China for a while)

I am learning from the one and only Apple in terms of their iOS new versioning convention – iOS26. Their new versioning scheme is not entirely ground breaking, btw. If you pay attention to the new cars in the USA (likely in China nowadays too), the new car model or next year model is usually available the year before. For example, right now 2026 Toyota RAV4 is already available. I was a car junkie back in the days – I could tell almost every car’s make and model on the highway when they drove by because I am a slower driver 🙂 But this is mostly useless knowledge too 🙂

Yesterday I came across 2 blog posts almost 20 years ago – More Shanghai travel tips and Travel tips for Shanghai. A lot has changed since then, this is obvious because not only because of the 20 years but also because of the smartphone revolution happened in last 15 years or so.

App, 微信支付 WeChat Pay

Let me give an example, I recall in March 2023, after a break of more than 3 years (2020, 2021 and 2022), I flew back to PVG and saw my parents again in Ningbo. At the KFC store, they already stopped taking orders from the counter, everything is done via app or via 微信小程序。I didn’t know. Just like I didn’t know way before that, at a bank branch in Shanghai, I am supposed to take a number from the computer (printer), which is equivalent to the ticket dispenser here in the US. But I didn’t know and waited in line directly until I realized that I didn’t have a number. Anyway, at KFC, the cashier or 伙计 tried to teach me to download the KFC China app on my iPhone, and because my app store country is set to the USA, it could not find the app 🙁 She has to manually put in order for me, and I was able to pay via WeChat pay though.

Hotels

I wrote quite a bit of kids friendly hotels that I stayed in China: mainly Shanghai and Ningbo Beilun.

Eat

This is mostly for my own benefits 🙂

Shanghai: 台乡缘（2024）

文兴酒家久光百货店（2025）

桂满陇虹桥枢纽浙菜 (2025)

Ningbo:小鱼厂私厨 鄞州 (2025)

Categories
advice and tips Saint Louis

I’m looking for a new gym and/or swimming pool

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last Updated on April 6, 2026 by stlplace

And I am open to all suggestions 🙂

Some background – amid the most recent war and the turmoil in the middle east, I thought about quitting JCC earlier next year – I shared my thoughts here YT Video (in Chinese) a few days ago.

Now I think I may do it a bit sooner – the earliest time I think is starting next month May 2026. This is a bit like if people decided to move on from a relationship or a job, it doesn’t make much sense to hang around long, if they don’t expect things to change. In this spirit, I think about cancelling the membership at the end of April – before they start charging me the month of May membership. I know I had said a lot of good words for the J, the short name for JCC, over the years: including my blog posts over the years and this one in particular. Both my kids participated the Day Camp there in summer. But now I think it’s time to move on.

I am thinking about some alternative locations for indoor swimming, if I continue to do that. Another thing I like to have is an indoor walking track – West County mall is one option (in that case The Lodge at Des Peres may be fit the bill?). I like to walk outdoors. But here in STL, there are quite a few months in the year that the weather will be either be too hot or too cold to walk outside, or too rainy. And I can think of the below list. I will be taking time to decide my next move as I am not in a hurry. I would join the Olivette’s Five Oaks off Warson, the closest community center (walking distance from my home), if they have one of those. But it seems to me they only have work out (exercise) machines (treadmills, bikes, weight machines etc.), and pickleball and basketball court. I am decent on pickleball, but I haven’t been fully sold on that sport. Btw, about 2 years ago I poked fun at the pickleball here.

The list

Center of Clayton || Membership rates below (monthly), probably the closest among all the gyms.

 catergoryResidentCorporateNon-Resident
 Youth (3-17)$32$38$42
 Adult$47$56$67
 Senior (65+)$38$45$49
 Family $78 $90 $111

======

Maryland Heights Community Center: it looks like their rate is much cheaper than the J membership.

Prices below are listed as Resident/Non-resident

Adults (Ages 16-61):

  • 12 Months: $270/$324
  • 6 Months: $169/$203
  • 3 Months: $101/$115
  • 1 Month: $41/$49

======

Not too far from Maryland Heights CC, the YMCAs (Edward Jones branch)

Richmond Heights

Lifetime Fitness (this one is a bit more expensive; I feel it’s too expensive for my income or taste)

Forest lake tennis and swimming club (outdoor pool only): my younger daughter is already doing weekly tennis clinics there.

The Lodge (Des Peres)?

Categories
Business Investing Software development

Vertical industry software

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on April 5, 2026 by stlplace

or SaaS

CashBoard: quite a while ago, I did a side gig job (year 2012), and I used this app for PDF invoice (professional looking)

ServiceTitan Inc (now a public company TTAN): saw a plumber uses this to generate receipt for me when I paid via CC. Just as I was looking at a possibility to look at buying some of their stocks, I realized they have quite high stock based compensation. ServiceTitan Announces Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2026 Financial Results (My Q: are they the biggest in the industry?)  

Google Search: “how much of servicetitan’s operating free cash flow is from stock based compensations”

Niche players in their respective markets

Bumped into latter two because my younger daughter does violin and dance.

MyMusicStaff (Teipen Music Academy uses it)

The Studio Director (SLAD uses it)

Other examples of vertical industry software (or SaaS)

Constellation Software (Wikipedia): this is a Canadian conglomerate of vertical software companies. It’s probably the latest of its kind. Its stock is traded at Toronto Stock Exchange.

Personally I worked for companies such as Siemens Digital Industry Software (Wikipedia) and Autodesk, both in the CAD, and related CAM, CAE, PDM/PLM industry.

Categories
Edu-and-Ladue-School kids Life

镇海中学石蕴玉老师

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on April 4, 2026 by stlplace

我初中的英语老师。”其实我喜欢石蕴玉老师，她也走了，戴着一圏圈的近视镜，一个个过我们的英式英标” (我的王同学说的）。石老师有可能是解放前在上海的租界教会学校学的英式英语：这本身并不重要。她是我的英语启蒙老师：她是非常好的启蒙老师。万事开头难 –  “The first step is always the hardest“。这也让我想到另外一句“千里之行始于足下”（记得当时周老师常说这句，他会把它刻在讲义里）。对我来说，美式英语大概是高中时在镇中的新的语音实验室里听托福或类似节目才开始的。

我估计我们上初中时，石老师大概有五十岁左右。如果说周国夫老师，我们的班主任/数学老师，是严父，那么我觉得石老师就是慈母。我估计石老师大概比周老师大几岁。周老师对石老师也比较尊重。石老师眼睛高度近视，在我们那个年代80年代初，我的初中是 83 到 86年，她的眼镜也就非常厚。她好像身体不是特别好，印象中有一次好像她有视网膜脱落。我估计在我们那个年代，这种手术可能要去上海或者杭州这样的大城市。

我记得两件小事。有一次，她让我上讲台去背书，我不知道为什么反正那次我背不出来：可能是我没有好好准备，也有可能是我比较紧张。我那时可能是初中二年级，我小时候比较喜欢哭。那次不知道为什么，我背不出来，忍不住，就开始哭。石老师没有批评我，她只是鼓励我好好学习。

还有一次，我不小心把英语作业本的封面给撕开了一道缝，我也没有胶带，或浆糊，直接吧作业本。后来，有点在我意料之中的，石老师把我的作业本给补好了。

我大学毕业四年以后就出国。我记得大概是二十年（具体哪一年我现在记不清了）之前，我的一个老家在镇海的初中同学告诉我，石老师去世了。