This week, I'm in Shanghai, China. This is the second post from the trip - you can see the first here.
Today, we delivered several hours of presentations to the Chinese developers at the China Game Developers Conference (CGDC). I was very proud of my staff for handling complex material, and working together to translate all the English speeches simultaneously.
After the presentations, I was able to give away some laptops in a special drawing. It's fun to hand over thousands of dollars in equipment to engineers that will actually use it ; )
We had a couple of hours in the afternoon, before the next sessions started. We decided to take the folks who were visiting Shanghai for the first time, to see some sights. We started at Yuyuang Gardens. This is a very traditional representation of ancient Chinese garden architecture. Outside the gardens, was a series of traditional-style buildings, along with modern-day merchants inside.
Clutching my beloved Coke Zero...hard to find a diet soda
Inside, the actual gardens were beautiful, and quite peaceful. Since my last visit here, I can tell that they're not doing a great job at maintaining things...but it was still nice to just take all of it in
Next, we took everyone to The Bund. This is a riverside area, that contains buildings from the 1930s, when France, U.S. and UK all owned portions of Shanghai. From The Bund, you get a magnificent view of the other, more modern, side of Shanghai:
In the distance, you can see the Pearl TV Tower - it looks like a giant spaceship, there on the left.
We proceeded to that other side of the river, to take folks up to the observatory near the top of the Pearl TV Tower. The tower itself is 468 meters (1,500 ft.), but the observatory is atabout 350 meters (1,100 ft) in the sky. Here's a video clip to try and give you some perspective on how tall it is:
At that height, it can give you a unique view of the giant buildings on the Pudong side of the city. In this picture, the building that looks like a giant bottle-opener is the World Financial Center. It's now the tallest building in China at 492m (1,600 ft). The building just to the right of that, used to be the tallest building in China - Jin Mao. It has a Hyatt Hotel inside, which I've stayed at. The lobby doesn't start until the 55th floor!
The best part of the Pearl TV Tower visit, however, was the floor below the observation deck. It had a glass floor. I can be honest and say that when I walked out onto the glass…seeing the ground below…my heart started beating quickly:
Your brain is screaming at you to get to a safe place, but you overcome that, and the view was just incredible. One of my employees was afraid of heights, but made a valiant effort to join us on the glass.
For dinner, I was lucky enough to take everyone to my favorite restaurant in Shanghai. It's called Din Tai Fung.
This restaurant actually started in Taipei, but has become really, really popular throughout Asia. They have locations in Japan, China, Australia, Taiwan..and even the U.S. Their only U.S.-based locations are in Seattle and LA.
Why is Din Tai Fung so special? They have the best dumplings I've ever had in my life. The dumpling in China is actuallycalled Xiao Long Bao. They have all different types of dumplings. The varieties mostly involve what's inside. The most popular - and best, in my opinion - are the pork dumplings.
We also tried crabmeat, chicken, and vegetarian. Inside each dumpling is a little bit of hot "soup" with a delightful meat flavor. The proper process for eating them, is to drain the soup into a spoon, then dip the whole thing in a mixture of soy sauce and vinegar. My mouth is watering, just writing this.
Other varieties involve types of water-and-dough wrappers on the exterior. Here's a picture of some shrimp dumplings we also devoured:
It's hard to communicate just how good this all tastes. The employees that accompanied me, had never been to this restaurant. I was very pleased to see the smiles on everyone's faces when they tasted their first dumpling. Worth the effort to get to the restaurant!
That's it for now - we have more meetings with developers tomorrow. I'll also visit the actual ChinaJoy show...you'll be amazed ; )
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