Author Archives: leendertvandoorn

This has been a tumultuous week in China. From widespread unrests to the passing of Jiang Zemin. Right after I posted my previous blog entry last Saturday, things boiled over in Shanghai. A vigil that evening on Wūlǔmùqí road for the 10 burn victims in Ürümqi turned into a protest. This was followed up theContinue reading “A tumultuous week”

At the beginning of this 2nd trip blog, I mentioned that I wasn’t sure what was going to happen and that I had to be flexible with my plans. Well, that flexibility is being tested. I was originally going to Hangzhou and then on to Beijing this weekend. I had planned to take a carContinue reading “COVID-19 (Continued)”

There is a strange vibe hanging over Shanghai. People are afraid. The two-month long COVID-19 lockdown in the Spring of 2022 has left its mark. It comes up in most conversations I have, and the biggest concern people have is the lack of rhyme or reason. Lockdowns can happen spontaneously with no reason given andContinue reading “COVID-19”

As I alluded to yesterday, my first twelve hours of freedom were occupied by grabbing a beer with a friend, followed by dinner with a few other friends. I hadn’t seen these folks for over a year. For beers, we went to my favorite Shanghai beer place, Beer Lady. The vibe of this place veryContinue reading “Enjoying Shanghai and getting ready to take on China”

Things were very chaotic this Saturday. On Friday afternoon 11/11 the Chinese government announced that they had changed the quarantine requirements from 7+3 (=10 days) to 5+3 (=8 days). I was excited on Friday because the next day, Saturday 11/12, would be my 8th day in quarantine. I had my Chinese admin call the hotelContinue reading “A free man, yet again”

These last 12 months have been a roller coaster. After returning from my 5-month stint in China last year (2021) I was focused on launching Azure’s ARM service and I was also exploring my next role since I had accomplished what I came to Microsoft for. I had quite a few conversations and multiple offers,Continue reading “Another trip to China”

It is November 2022 and as I’m sitting in my quarantine hotel in Shanghai preparing for another visit to China, and by popular demand write another blog, I realized that I never finished the blog from last year. That was in part because that last one and half month got very busy with visiting friends,Continue reading “Wrapping it up – 1 year later”

About one month ago, the COVID-19 delta variant escaped from Nanjing airport into the wild. Apparently, the cleaning crew of an airplane from Russia didn’t handle the security procedures correctly and got infected.  This highly contagious variant spread around like wildfire to Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing, Yangzhou, Wuhan and even a resort town in southern china. EventuallyContinue reading “How China dealt with the COVID19 Delta variant”

On Friday morning 4am I woke up in Shangri-La and I did what I typically do, check my health and travel codes and take screen shots of them. Sometimes the internet is slow or the systems are overloaded during the day so its good to have back up copies of them. If you don’t haveContinue reading “An unexpected ending: Shaxi, Weishan Dali, and back to Kunming”

The next few days were a long travel days. The distance as the crow flies is not too far, but Yunnan’s mountainous terrain with its many hairpin turns slowed us down a lot.  The trip from Baisha to Tiger leaping gorge (虎跳峡) was about 2:30 hours, followed by another 3:30 hours to Balagezong (巴拉格宗) which isContinue reading “Tiger Leaping Gorge, Balagezong, and Shangri-La”