Shanghai, China - Part 1

This week, I'm in Shanghai, China.  I'm here to attend a conference called ChinaJoy.  This is mostly a videogame event for China.  If you're familiar with the E3 trade show, you'll just need to add about 1,000 decibels of sound, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

ChinaJoy is aimed at consumers - actual game players.  In China, online gaming is a huge business, so the show is very, very crowded.  In conjunction with the show, organizers hold the China Game Developer Conference (CGDC), which is aimed at the actual game developers.  That's the main reason that I'm hear.  I'm presenting at the conference, in addition to one of my engineers.

The journey from Austin to Shanghai was originally scheduled for about 25 hours in total.  I had an early flight to San Francisco, where I would connect through to Shanghai.  However, the flight was delayed over 7 hours!  That means a total trip of about 31 hours.  The silver lining? My daughter and her husband live near the San Francisco Airport, so I had them come pick me up, so we could spend the afternoon together:

When we finally boarded the plane in San Francisco, I was already tired...and that was just the beginning of the trip.  The plane pulled away from the gate, and then stopped suddenly on the tarmac.  The reason?  President Obama was flying in to San Francisco on Air Force One.  It landed right in front of us, and all ground operations were halted for a while.  Oh, well...

I arrived safely in Shanghai and headed straight to the hotel.  I'm staying at the Radisson Blu Hotel in an area called Pudong - this is the newest part of Shanghai - only 10 years old, after the government basically started over.

The hotel is lovely.  One of the things that I love about this hotel, is the breakfast.  In China, I'm about 13 hours ahead of the Texas timezone.  That means that I'm waking up around dinner time.  Breakfast is a fun meal ; )  The spread here is awesome:

An amazing choice of bread - much more like Europe

Pastries are delightful

In addition to the traditional "western" breakfast, they have a full buffet of Asian dishes, as well.  This includes Dim Sum dishes (pork buns, dumplings) as well as several noodle and rice choices.  They'll even create a bowl of noodles with whatever you choose:

We started the day meeting with a game developer - Aurogon.  They're working on an amazing PC game that is gorgeous.  The color palette and landscapes are beautiful.  They have a ways to go with the technology, but that's why we're here to help.

I only wish I could have a large Gundam robot in my lobby...

This developer has a loyal group of fans.  In fact, the fans are so enamored with the game and its characters, they've created their own "merchandise" and sent it directly to the developers:

I can't imagine how long it took to make some of those items...

Who doesn't want a body pillow with your favorite character??

The good folks at Aurogon took us to lunch, and we had a fantastic meal.  The main dish here in the middle, is pork.  You actually had to put on a plastic glove to grab a hunk of meat.  Chopsticks just wouldn't cut it...

Right after lunch, I had a chance to walk through a neighborhood grocery store.  This is one of my favorite things to do - just to check out the weird and unusual things that you can find...

I always head to the potato chip aisle.  They have some of the most unique flavors.  This time didn't disappoint ; )  We start with the Numb & Spicy Hot Pot Flavor:

It's obviously "intense" and "stimulating"

We move on to the Cheese & Lobster Flavor, which combines two great things, so it has to be great? That's like a mathematical law, isn't it?

For something different, you can try Cucumber flavor, or Lemon Tea flavored chips (not my first choice):

...and we finish with the Hot and Sour Fish Soup Flavor.  Actually, this is one I can get behind...

In the cookie aisle, they have Oreos.  However, they done something horribly wrong to my beloved Oreos.  Here, they've mixed the Oreo cookie with Green Tea flavor...not cool, Kraft, not cool...

Any day can be made brighter by taking a big bite of Collon:

...or, if you need something really adorable, then you can go with a box of Kittyland cookies:

Over in the produce section, I found some grapes that were gigantic.  I had to put my hand in the picture, for everyone to understand the scale:

These were also huge.  Each grape was about 2 inches long

The fish and meat section are always...how shall I put this...interesting.  Much of the seafood is in tanks, waiting for your order:

Yum!

Well, that's it for now.  I'm heading over to the convention center to get set-up for the presentation.  Check back for Part 2...