stlplaceWent to Harvard Square this evening, took some pictures (the quality is not as great as I liked, but you know it’s Harvard).
(Harvard Theater)
(Harvard Square, Sumner’s statue)
That would be exciting thing 10 years back, when I was still a college junkie. It still will be interesting, at least I plan to visit Harvard Square, where Paul Allen met with Bill Gates (in 1976?) and said:
“We got to start this (computer business), this thing (computer revolution) is happening without us.”
We all know what happened in last 30 years (hint: we all become Bill’s “slave”, in a way).
Interestingly, I read from Yahoo that Harvard has the most billionaires.
I will back to the River City on Thursday night. Time to look for authentic Chinese restaurant now. I already find it’s a challenge task esp. visiting small towns. Boston should offer more choices.
I would like to list some of the Chinese restaurants I visited in this trip (and in the past). I will also list some web sites which I think will be helpful to plan Chicago trip.
Chinese restaurant
Lao Sze Chuan (web site here): this is the first Chinese restaurant I visisted in Chicago (2001?). I waited for more than 30 minutes in a hot summer afternoon. The waiting line is much shorter nowadays because there are more authentic Chinese restaurants. It is located at China town. Some of the food (e.g., rabbit meat) are very spicy in my opinion. Get a map here.
We are back from Chicago. Visited the Premium mall (near Aurora) yesterday, and was quite impressed. This was my first trip to the Aurora mall, and I was surprised to see so many premium brands and shoppers (esp. the crowds at Coach store). Judging by the size of crowds in the mall, it seems the economy is doing fine. But yesterday, the unemployed number announced by the gov (470,000) exceeded the expectation again. The market tanked again, although I think it has more to do with the July 4th US holiday, people want to play safe in this long weekend.
PT Cruiser
I rent the car from Enterprise near my home, this is a small rental office to serve the Lou Fuze car dealership. I booked an “intermediate”, and they offered the PT Cruiser to me. This is one small mistake I made, I should have booked “midsize” or “standard”. Usually Enterprise has a free upgrade in airport locations, but not this small office, as matter of fact they have to get the PT Cruiser from another office. Initially I was a little uncomfortable about taking this little car to Chicago, but the PT Cruiser turns out to be very good, except one minor problem: there is no guard/screen for the trunk.
GPS
We came to the windy city yesterday, and today we visited quite a few places: Michigan Ave. (magnificent mile), Millennium Park, Art Institute (outside, no inside tour yet), Navy Pier, China Town. All with the 3 day CTA pass and CTA train/bus.
I did not totally forget about stock market yet. This noon when I was in Chicago Culture Center, I hooked up my Nokia 5800 with the Wifi network. Interestingly I saw Exelon (the utility company serves Chicago, also the company is trying to acquire NRG Energy) signs in couple places: the skybridge connects Millennium Park and Art Institute is sponsored by Exelon. Because I own NRG stock, and Exelon is in a proxy fight against current NRG board, I received both letters from NRG and Exelon. Not surprising I voted according to NRG board recommendation, and did nothing on Exelon letter. One thing I noticed is the proposed Exelon board candidate is not really qualified to run utilities companies, they could be the “friends of Exelon” board.
Network
Back to travel, we are staying at La Quinta Inn Schaumburg, most things are ok except this silly network (managed by LodgeNet, a Nasdaq listed company, ticker symbol LNET). One problem I encountered is Google map and Google finance don’t work all the time. It thinks I was doing something fishy and says “in next 10 minutes you will only have 56k speed”. It’s like punish a kid for doing something wrong. Pretty much the much publicized Green Dam project. One thing I am aware of is I am using Mac. But the behavior of network is annoying, to say the least.
GPS
I was in Detroit last Wed and Thur. When I was leaving the client site, I heard famous actress Fawcett died from cancer. Shortly after I came back, I heard from NPR that Michael Jackson passed away. That was a shocker. I remember watching a lot Michael Jackson’s MTV back in early 1990s, when I just graduated from college, and when the MTV was relatively new to China. I am not a music freek, but I liked the design of MTV and his sound. Not to mention his move.
Anyway, back to Detroit. Interestingly I think the first record company Michael Jackson signed was Motown, which was found in Detroit (Yahoo Answer). I visited Detroit in 1999 and 2000, to do presentation before car companies (big 3) for automobile related research project. It was in early March, and I remember it was very cold. But I had very nice dinners at Fish Bone (downtown?) and another Italian restaurant.
Right now the best way is take a shuttle bus (Line No. 1) or a taxi. Allocate at least 1.5 hours. Refer to ShanghaiAirport for updated info.
Route: Airport bus Line No.1 Tel: 8621-68346612
From Pudong PVG Airport To Hongqiao SHA Airport (vice versa)
Operating Hours
PVG
Terminal 1:7:00~23:00 (flight over)
Terminal 2:7:05~23:05(flight over)
SHA
6:00~21:30
Interval (Mins.) 15-25
Fare (RMB) 30
Stops none
In the future (after May1st 2010, according to Wang Jianshuo) there is the Metro 2, which will link those two airports.
Some random thoughts on Chinese IPOs: Home Inns, New Oriental, Focus Media (Sina).
Home Inns
I stayed at Home Inns Zhongshan Park this time. This is a relatively new Home Inns hotel (it was operated as Shanghai Ningxia Hotel before joining the Home Inns family recently). One block away, I saw another Home Inns hotel: the 7 stars hotel which has been acquired by Home Inns this year.
I am back. I came back to St. Louis last night, after a bumpy ride from Shanghai to Chicago, and a delayed flight from Chicago to St. Louis, both due to weather. This morning I went to the Panera bread, and I found they lowered the price of souffles by at least 20 cents. Interesting considering the current economy environment.
I had similar feelings on Dec 26 when I talked to a taxi driver in Shanghai. He was saying fewer people are riding taxi these days. In normal days he could make 800 Yuan (revenue) by 11 PM, but recently he could barely make 700 Yuan by that time. On the surface, things are still quite rosy in China. My friend told me it’s “people mountain people sea” in Guang Hui Plaza on Christmas eve. From I read from the Eastern Daily, the Christmas shopping rose about 20% in Shanghai year over year: I bet the US will take that number and run, but this is not a good number according to the Chinese standard. The real challenge for Chinese goverment and business, is how to restore the consumer confidence and keep economy growing at a decent rate. It is not going to be easy because China relied mostly on foreign exports, infrustrure build up and more recently real estate for GDP growth in last 30 years.
Did I say real estate? The scary word of the year. While the authority is very nervous and reversed almost every measure used to curb the excessive bubble in real estate market, trying to restore the home buyer’s confidence, the reality of Chinese real estate is not good. A reality check should come soon or later, if we believe the price can not be away from the intrinsic value forever.
Air fare deal
Last but not least, Northwest is doing a promotion from Shanghai to North America recently.
Forget about recession, check out the properity in Shanghai 🙂
For more pictures, visit my Shanghai_2008 albumn at yupoo.