Category Archives: Uncategorized

Before the plane landed at Shanghai Pudong International airport, we were all instructed to stay in our seats after we arrived at the gate. The ground crew would tell us when to deplane and in what order. We had to keep our customs health QR code ready for inspection. That was the code we gotContinue reading “Arriving at Shanghai Pudong Airport”

The trip to Shanghai started on Wednesday Cinqo de Mayo (May 5th) from Austin. It’s a cumbersome trip because China requires you to take two COVID19 tests. Both the PCR (nasal swap) and antibody (blood serum) test. Both need to be taken at the port of departure within 48-hours of your flight leaving at aContinue reading “The trip to Shanghai”

WeChat and Alipay are indispensable phone apps here in China. You use it for everything. To pay, to order food, to order taxis, to instant message, to tracking your health, social media, etc. It’s an integrated platform that is pervasive throughout the country. China is effectively a cashless society, and all its payments are doneContinue reading “Wechat and Alipay”

The first step of getting to China was to get a valid visa. I already had a 10-year multi-entry visa but that was only valid for 60-days at a time and on top of that China had revoked all outstanding visas in 2020 because of COVID. Fortunately, the Microsoft China visa office was there toContinue reading “Getting a Visa”

Why go to China in the middle of a pandemic? That’s the first question people asked me when I told them about my plans to go to China for the summer.  China has always fascinated me since I first travelled there in 2011 when I was still working for AMD. One of my responsibilities at AMDContinue reading “Hatching the plan”

Last September I got the idea to spend some time in China. I’ve travelled to China many times before, but I had never actually lived there, and I wanted to experience first-hand how quickly things are changing in that part of the world. Of course, my timing wasn’t optimal. China had effectively shut down itsContinue reading “This blog”