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I prefer the appearance of being a taker.
Any giving I do remains anonymous.
Except for my banking, that’s pretty well known. ;D
All this plasma donation and altruism talk makes me think of the single greatest altruistic act one can give to those in need. In the words of Will.I.Am:
Imma be a bank, I be loanin’ out semen.
I have found that even over our corporate/S2S direct transfers between Chengdu & San Fran are much slower than transferring via AWS. AWS has an enormous latency and bandwidth advantage, but it costs money.
If you’re looking for a free option, while I’ve not tried it, I know gmail seems fast for me and has massive e-mail storage (well, for the file size you’re talking about, anyways :D) but there are often timeout/instability issues with any sort of web upload/download for large files, still may be worth giving it a shot. Any small-time or unpaid service will always be slow, just how it is with bandwidth allocation and efficiency in routing.
After visiting the site for the first time, I’d rate it like this:
Short-term stays, yeah, looks fine.
Long-term stays, you’d be insane. 😀 If you’re coming from overseas and don’t know anyone here to help you sort a place out, it might be worth renting by the week at hakka homes or something similar while you check out local in-person real estate rental places..they’re littered all over the areas you’d want to rent and can take you to apartments right away.
Cool. If your target is meeting the guys from the hotel once a month, you may have that opportunity, they occasionally show up for meetings 😀 It’s not a total wash, just not really useful for our business (IT/Outsourcing). Their “TGIF”s are a *yawnfest* though, usually just the amcham office girls and a couple new people who don’t know better yet..at least it was when last I went. Your idea for focused English (Hotel English) might be a good one, hope it goes well..and glad to hear StrongVPN is satisfying for other people!
RE: AmCham, it’s not a very useful organization – at least we didn’t find it to be – you might meet a few people who are interested in selling you services if you’re a new start up or moving a business here, but that’s about it. We were on the board for a couple years, but found it useless, so left completely.
It’s not just cruel to have a Husky in a small apartment – it’s cruel to keep one in *Chengdu*.. the weather/humidity is totally not suited for their uberthick winter coats, if you get one suggest keeping at least one room well A/C’d so they can cool off.
It’s also a bad idea if you don’t like dog hair. Husky’s shed, a LOT.
That being said, Charlie is right: Husky’s are second to only a mixed baby in terms of accessories to meet women on the street.
@Charlie: I think I threw out my last record, but if I remember right it was either $35usd or $45usd for sending $7500usd. I think it’s about the same for $5k. The fee is paid in USD, so if you want to send $5k, get like $5050 or something ready on your trip to send.
Certainly more than wire transactions, but when I looked at maintaining a USD bank account here and/or transferring funds, the amount of paperwork required for taxation proof and other shit was just like….. f’ it, I’ll just use WU.
WU has seriously given me absolutely no grief. The convenience is worth it in my opinion. I think there are a ton more WU locations than when I started first sending – used to be able to send from only one place at Bank of Agriculture next to Holiday Inn, I think most other BoA’s also provide the service now.
Agreed with the above re: credit cards, don’t get one locally.
Re: money transfers out of country, I routinely send sums (previously limited to 5k USD per transfer) back to Canada via western union, never had any sort of hassles or challenge with it at all.. And the last transfer, I had my maid send it on my behalf, 7500 USD in one transfer without anything required. In fact, not only was it without hassles, but she wrote half the information either incompletely or incorrectly and it still piped thru, just give the correct MTCN for the other side to pick up. For larger sums, just send several times, I’ve never had to prove anything or provide any sort of paperwork *at all*.
I checked out and now recently joined RenHe’s Ozone, at Tianfu Square’s Ren He, which is an awesome gym.
It has a lot of equipment, a relatively low population (generally these days at 5-7pm it’s about equal numbers of staff to regulars, maybe 8 or so of each milling around) The classes, especially evenings, often fill up with women but they don’t use the equipment as frequently.
The main thing that drew me in: it’s absolutely clean. There’s little bags of potpourri in each of the lockers, there’s a full time cleaning staff that keep everything smelling and looking pristine, the showers never lack soap or shampoo – they keep various other ‘products’ available at the sinks should you not mind public use of whatever product you use, and the people are pretty nice.
I think 1 year is about 3000something? But I paid for a 3 year membership, and it was around 6200 I think after a few minutes negotiation. I guess the main reason I joined is it’s exactly next to my office, but having been to a few gyms in Chengdu, it’s definitely one of the nicer ones.
As a long time VPN user and IT professional, I have evaluated various VPNs for both speed and consistency. For legit and stable VPN I suggest dropping a (very low fee) of $50 or whatever they have going on for deals *per year* at http://www.strongvpn.com which is a ReliableHosting company. Depending where you want to pipe out from you can choose which VPN server in which country you like, depending on the package you choose. I go through San Fran, which is where my company is located, and get awesome speeds — from home in Chengdu, I stream Hulu.com (US TV) and youtube.com without experiencing any sort of buffering delay and have since I signed up a couple years ago.
Any issues you’re having, they have free online support 24/7 (our timezone often gets Russkies online). Give ‘er a shot.
Interesting update: apparently many VPN sites (web sites) have been blocked, as I just found out:
China: PPTP and L2TP VPN protocols blocked – Global Voices Advocacy
advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/…/china-pptp-and-l2tp-vpn-protoc… – Cached20 Mar 2011 – However, it has been confirmed that three of the most popular VPN providers in China: Witopia, 12VPN and StrongVPN have been blocked or ..
That is to say that the website to order the VPN has been blocked, but the service has been unaffected..at least for StrongVPN. Strange. Never noticed that because I never had any problems, so never had to re-visit the site 😉
Other people give positive feedback for the most part, so maybe it was higher expectations than I should have had or maybe it was different ingredients/prep. on my visit. I was most shocked with the buns more than anything. Mine looked like normal little chinified ‘burger buns’ you’d find at a local bakery which are sweetened and super, super squishy, almost cake-like..which is what kinda killed the overall sandwich from my perspective. It looked a little different than the photos above, maybe it _was_.
To that note, I’ll probably try again in a while or if someone else drags me along. But for constructive criticism:
* Kaiser style buns, lightly toasted. Or anything without sugar.
* Mediterranean or something similar style mixed spices mixed in the caesar’s for a less-bland flavour.
* Salsa needs work: it’s far too puree’d and lacks much flavour, salsa should be chunky with a kick.
* Nachos were a little cardboardy with too much oil, maybe can try smashed corn base instead.
* Table very wobbly, any local street-side ‘handyman’ can drill a couple holes into the base and bottom of table and install little props to keep it steady.
Keep up the good service, though, and I am a very critical and well-traveled eater, so not trying to be harsh…maybe it’s totally awesome ‘teacher-food’ 😀
Overrated. Seriously, best western food in Chengdu? There is better western food at mediocre fusion restaurants like Princes Kitchen. I tried the pulled pork sandwich which I read is so wonderful: it’s like local braised pork and red cabbage stir-fried on a bun. Not a Good bun. The bread is sweet, which you’ll not find in any good foreign restaurant. Hint to owners, you can buy buns without sugar at places like Auchan. Second, TOAST the bun. The sandwich is like a sweet soggy mess.
The chips are oily and tasteless, the salsa provided has no real texture and is too watery. Google a good salsa recipe: use diced onions and garlic with a paste base not whatever the pureed pink ‘stuff’ was.
Caesars salad is alright, but for 48 kuai, you’d expect more than the most basic salad, should find a way to stand out beyond lettuce dressing crutons and cheese.. I did find it interesting that much of the staff are foreigners and honestly the service is good….
The drinks were alright. Stick to beers or martinis though, cosmos are not very good.
