Ni hao!

As you can see I`m starting to learn Chinese! It`s harder than anything I`ve tried to do so far in my entire life so I won`t be mastering this new language any time soon … but at least I try.

Enough with the introduction, but just in case you liked the last week`s entry (with the street pictures and all) just know that I`m gathering more material for another entry in the weeks to come. So if you`re here for “up-skirts, pantyhose, boobies, long legs, Asian, school-girls” or any other weird search-word … move along, there`s nothing of this sort here … this week!

This Sunday I`m going to quickly go through some things that drew my attention in the past few days, so all in all, this entry is based on short stories.

Let`s see how short can I keep`em!

1. Mixcloud

In case you`re not fully embracing this digital revolution, I`m here to get you on the right path. For the past year I have been trying to understand funk. Which is kinda silly but let this one slide for a bit. So I started gathering all sort of albums from James Brown to Parliament and Funkadelic to Sly and The Family Stone, but I wasn`t quite satisfied with the selection.

Then I turned to Mixcloud, and found some brilliant people making funk mixes and vinyl sessions and people explaining why they arranged the songs in a particular order, and much more information about this genre. I got hooked from the first day and I haven`t stopped listening ever since.

Every day I download the mixes using Offliberty, and upload them to my iPhone. Usually they are 60 minutes long or once in a while 120 minutes. That`s awesome because I can listen to an entire mix on my way to the office, and (of course) a new one on my way home.

And there are days when I`m no looking for something new so I just “spin” one from the favorites.

If you`re into funk you can follow my Mixcloud account. (I`ll probably never upload something of mine … but “never say never”) or you can just follow Laid-Back, JazzCat and HeavySoulBrutha, if you want the whole scoop.

2. Paper by Studio 53

I have a new favorite app for drawing and notes. It`s called Paper and it just replaced 5 apps that were not used as much.

Why I love the app:

• Looks and feels like a Moleskine notebook, and I got three of those and It`s a pain searching for stuff inside them because they look the same. So the app is worth trying just because of that reason.
  comes free with a powerful drawing tool (the fountain pen) and you can impress just about anyone with that single tool;
• there are 4 other tools (pen, marker, liner and watercolor) that are gorgeous. And the testing mechanism (just in case you want to know if they are worth the 2$ each) is really well made. I was impressed!
• the notebooks can be customized with personal artwork covers.
• the writing feature is the best I`ve seen so far. It`s missing the zoom feature, but when that will be available … I`ll probably ditch the Wacom Bamboo app.
• it`s super-easy to use.

It has some downsides but nothing that can`t be solved in a few weeks of coding.

3. The TaoBao move

Last week I made the thrilling decision to buy a lens from TaoBao.com (some sort of Chinese eBay) and with the help of a co-worker, the package got here on Friday morning.

I was happy as a kid on Christmas day. I quickly open the package (kudos for the over-packaged lens) and start to check it. The first thing I notice is that it does`n look like the one in the pictures. OK… so that means I have to test it thoroughly. Focus ring: fine. Glass: clean. Fungus: none. Aperture blades: clean and working properly. Zoom ring: not moving.

I new it was too good to be true. At a closer inspection, it was the same lens from the add but the front element was replaced (same serial number but the one in the pictures had the filter thread cracked; the one I was holding was in good condition). Then I moved to the back, there were 3 screws from the original lens and a 4th screw that was totally different. And this is when it started to smell even fishier. On the outside it looked really good but when I took a good look inside the lens it was full of rust and it even rattled like sand inside the mechanism.

The zoom ring started functioning but it was really hard to turn and it was in no way usable in the field.

Right now I`m waiting for my money back, the lens is on it`s way back.

Unfortunately it`s hard to find a used one in a store and if you happen to see one, it`s twice the price that it goes on TaoBao so maybe this Chinese eBay is not for me. I`ll just wait until I get enough money to buy one where I can test it. I did try to negotiate with the store owner but the final price was still to high for my budget.

While on the subject of camera gear, if you`re in the market for a Leica M9 or M9-P, or even the 50/0.95 I`d like to let you know Shanghai is full of them. Almost every camera shop (Leica dealer or not) has an M9 and a Noct on display … just to make us feel powerless.

4. The Church surprise

This morning Ioana wanted to go to a orthodox Church. She found one using Google Maps and we headed straight for it. When we got there we realized that the Church was being used as a exhibition gallery.

My favorite piece was the ping-pong table.

The church looked very believable from the outside, but once inside we felt like in one of those Punk`d episodes. We started looking for the hidden cameras.

This happens kinda often here.

5. Shoes

I`m in the market for new running / walking sport shoes. So far Adidas has some ugly designs this year and the cool ones from Porsche Design and Originals are either too pricey or non-existent in Shanghai. Nike hired some color-blind designers this year too, and out of 6 different models that I tried today, only one was a snug-fit; the other were either hurting my feet or screwing with my balance.

Talking about balance, the Shanghai New Balance store on Huai-Hai Road was the most interesting shoe store to date. The whole thing was decorated as a New Balance History Museum with all sorts of warn out shoes, and the sofas for the customers were really comfortable. The store crew actually spoke English! (Adidas store was short on that kind of personnel).

Too bad the New Balance shoes weren`t as good for me as the Porsche Design models but in the future I`ll try more models hoping I`ll find something for me.

So far the ones that stood out are: 420 | 574 | 999

I think that`s enough for this week.

At the moment I`m working on some nice architecture projects that I can`t disclose but expect some sort of visual information in the following weeks. This is one of the main reasons I don`t get to shoot as much as I would like.

Until next time…

Take care, everybody!

After 4 weeks of constant whining I`m pretty sure everyone wants to hear good stuff about China and about what I`m doing here.

I have two topics that I will address in this week`s rant.

1. Perks of working in a big company.
2. Perks of traveling to “slim fit” country

So let`s start with the first one:

Sports and other activities:

On my first day at the office my boss gave me some sort of a tour around the complex. (we`ll call it an orientation but it wasn`t as elaborate). So at 12:00 he said … “let`s go to lunch!”. OK, I got up from my computer, checked to see if I have the wallet on me and followed everybody out of the office to the next building.

While walking up the stairs to the red building (next to our green building) he said “We get free lunch and dinner at 12:00 and 17:30, but it`s not the best food in the world”. “Right ON!” After lunch he showed me the chill-out area. One floor with a pool table, two ping-pong tables, a darts board and 4-6 tables for mahjong or poker. We can only use this area during our lunch break or after work hours. Fine by me, I said.

That first day I went to the ping-pong tables, and everyone was over-friendly wanting to play against me (at first), just to see if I can play or not.

I can play! And, just like everyone else, I have my good days and my bad days; it just happened to be a “good day” at that time and I caught them by surprise.

Here everyone plays ping-pong. I think it`s something that you have to do to prove your family that you deserve college money or something! (I`m joking, of course, but I haven`t seen anyone not knowing how to do it)

I kept going there almost daily for 30 minutes to stretch my arms and legs. At first I was wining, then they called-in reinforcements and the new guys got medieval on my ass. I have never seen anyone play like that in my entire life. Curved balls that feel like they have a mind of their own; the backhand is deadly most of the times (I guess they practice that way more than regular stance) and not to mention alternating top-spin and back-spin with ease. Disturbing, to say the least!

The good thing about playing against better players is that I hone my skills at a rapid pace, and I`m loving it! (McDonald`s)

The 3rd week a package got to our office front desk; my boss opened it and threw me a bag from inside. It was my new basketball equipment.

“You`re playing tomorrow!”
“What? How come!?”
“Don`t worry, they have girls playing in the other team; you`ll be fine!”

I haven`t played in 6 years but hey … I guess I can remember the basics overnight.

And that`s the only thing that I remembered. ) Because I was kinda lame, and after 20 minutes they ACTUALLY assigned me to defend a girl for the rest of the match. OK, no hard feelings … I`ll get better!

And if I`ll have time I`ll be able to join the swimming team on Fridays or attend dancing classes on Fridays and Saturdays.

I love the fact that we have so many possibilities; Too bad everyone is working extra hours almost everyday.

That reminds me about an article I read on Lifehacker

Why “We need to work extra hours” is almost always a bad idea

And on this bombshell I`m moving to the next chapter!

“Slim Fit” Sunrise:

I do love this city because everyone is slim and they all look healthy. Everywhere I look, people try to express themselves through fashion and most of the times they actually nail the outfits.

I`m not saying that everyone should be on the cover of Vogue. No. But they do try to follow the trends and the good part is that all the clothes JUST FIT! Rarely I`ve seen someone burst out of what they are wearing.

But the best feature – LEGS

If you`ve got a pair … show them! I think they teach this in school or something. Because everyone is rather short here, women tend to wear high-heels or platforms. Both acceptable in my opinion unless they are designed by Willy Wonka or Pikachu. In which case … we have a problem! But most of them stick by what is known to be “sexy as hell” – the stilettos.

Can`t go wrong with that!

And they pair the stilettos with (usually) a short skirt or very short pants. I do love the combination and it works best if you have beautiful long legs. (skinny legs are not beautiful, and we have seen plenty of those too)

This “long legs” craving is solved by putting on a shorter skirt or even shorter pants. Works all the time.

In between these two articles (pants and stilettos) there`s usually an area (leggings or stockings) where they can go wild!

I`ve never thought about all the design possibilities and the Shanghai experience was an eye-opener for me. Striped, wrinkled, cut, teared, dark, light, gradient and all of the above combined … they attract attention, and if that`s what they want, then it works flawlessly.

And the switch from heavy thick clothes to the mini-skirt and stilettos happened in a weekend.

That`s when we figured out that spring / summer is knocking on the door.

And for every picture I took, there were 15 other gorgeous women that I missed. So, I`m sorry I “couln`t catch`em all”.

Make sure to check the Picasa Album for more pictures from this series and other street shots. You can also leave individual comments there in case the Facebook comment system frightens you.

See you next week!

Howdy folks! I bet you`re wondering why I gathered you here!?
Well, if it`s Sunday, and I`m abroad, it means it`s time for a fresh set of “bitching and moaning”.
Enjoy!

Part 10. Chinese fruits (likes and dislikes).

As you know already I get to eat fruits every day at work between lunch and dinner so I got to try a few of them by now.

The day we got here, the strawberry picking season started. Anyone could just go on the outskirts of town, pick their own strawberries and pay for them right there one the farmer`s field. It`s way cheaper than buying from the supermarket and you can get the best ones. The taste is not as strong and full of vitamin C as what I have ate throughout the years at my grandparents but they are good and quench one`s thirst really fast.

They have only two types of oranges. The big ones with no seeds and thin skin and the small ones with thick skin, seeds and very sweet.

Bananas and plantains are exactly as you would imagine them.

You can buy a pineapple form the supermarket or from a street vendor. The latter will even carve it for you on the spot, for a few coins more. And that saves us a lot of trouble.

Mangos are smaller and tastier than what we were used to so the first day someone offered me one, I taught is was a pear and went for a big bite of It. The bitterness reminded my why we ALWAYS peel a mango. And the center is just a flat piece of woody material, it`s easy to eat around it so there`s not much to throw away.

After the mango experience every time we had a new fruit brought to the office, I waited to see how my colleagues will go about and approach the element in question.

Dragon`s eyes (Longnan) was something different because they have the exterior texture of a kiwi and have the size of cherries. Start by peeling them and inside there`s grey transparent pulp around a big black hard seed. They do look like eyes and they are not quite as sweet as I expected. They have the taste of a vegetable but they grow on trees. Hard to eat a bowl of those fast enough to actually feel full.

Then we tried a fruit with the texture and taste of a young pear but looked like a green plum. Everything went fine until I got to the hard shell of the seed. It was nothing impressive. So instead of eating that, just buy a pear.

And because I mentioned pears; there are two types most common on the market: the one that looks identical to an apple, and has the texture of a young pear; and the juicy over-ripen type that is very sweet and will leave your hands very sticky. They are both pretty good.

Dragon fruit (Pitaya) is very appealing but even when really ripe it still has a bland taste. It`s like a watered down kiwi.

Sugarcane © http://sipsnapsavor.com/

Speaking of thirsty, I had my first piece of sugarcane. A big juicy stick of wood that you chew on, suck all the tasty juice and then spit whatever wood parts you don`t need. The good sugarcane is a joy to chew on, the bad one (not peeled enough, or just not ripe enough) will slash your gums.

Part 11. Distinctive habits that we have to cope with.

The Chinese think that bad stuff should come out of your body as soon as possible.

Now imagine that everyone barfs, farts and spit whenever they need to! Sometimes after lunch if I go to play some Ping-Pong, the room feels like a war-zone. Men and women are battling for who has the more gas-free body.

I thought I had a bad habit of picking my nose … until China! I saw people in the subway elbow-deep in their nostrils. I saw a gorgeous woman in the subway using gloss on her lips then she took a picture with the duck face ultimately scratching her inner ear like a hill-billy and tossing wax balls in every direction. I was one step away of dying of laughter and eventually getting stabbed with a huge nail but we stopped at my station and I had to go.

Talking about long fingernails, I think it`s the only thing long that men can brag about here. I saw a weird dude dressed like a Cuban guerrilla trooper but with a pony-tail waist-long carrying a suitcase that looked like a sniper rifle case, proudly posing so that everyone can see his accomplishment : a fingernail of about 25cm. I`m not joking! 25 cm!.

If they don`t keep them long, they will probably cut them on a daily basis, in the middle of the street. They don`t care!

Part 12. Opening a bank account and exchanging money.

The first thing the company asked me to do was to open a bank account. One of the colleagues came with me just to make everything work smoothly.

After a “short” 20min walk, we get to the bank and the moment I step in, the guard asks us about our intentions. Good luck getting through the front door without a Chinese speaking translator! After a brief talk with the guy, he sends us to a clerk. The guy hands me a bunch of papers, all in Chinese, to fill out. I start writing and when I get to my name I start with VLAD. The clerk sees that, takes a good look at my passport and snags the papers from under my pen. He then gives me a speech about Last Name – First Name order is very important, and he shreds the documents right in front of me. He then hands me another set of papers. By this time I was afraid to do even the smallest mistake. They don`t like smudges or enforced letters / numbers on the document so I had to be very careful.

I had to fill out 4 sheets with all sort of information. I think the only thing missing was “blood type” and “favorite Sailor Moon character”.

And then with these documents all filled out and verified by the clerk, I went to a booth, but wait … I have to get a number! Well why didn`t you say that in the first place? I could have saved half an hour right there! So I stayed in the waiting area for another 30-40minutes because everything has to be triple checked and double stamped …

20 minutes later I had a bank account at the first bank. I had to do the same thing all over again at another bank … the reason for that is not important.

Fast forward 3 weeks and here I am again in front of the bank near our apartment, wanting to exchange money. Let`s just say I needed all my money changed that day to pay the rent.

I get in and go straight to the clerk and show her the cash. “You want change money?” … No, I just wanted to show you how dollars look like! Of course I want to exchange the money! “How much do you want to exchange?” … “Well, I need 1300$” “Ok, have seat.” She then hands me stack of papers the size of The Library of Congress. Well, I better get to it, I don`t have all day… Imagine making a mistake there …

By the time I get to my forth sheet the lady comes back with new information. “Sir, only 500$! You come back tomorrow. We change 500$ again! You come back Monday, we change rest of 300$”
“Are you serious? Is this a game show? Good job on hiding the cameras!”
“Just 500$, sir!”

Infuriated I overlooked the fact that 500$ would have solved the problem so I got up and left. (it was Saturday and I was losing precious time) I then moved my sorry ass to another bank. The clerk points to the waiting area and tells me “2 hours!”. And the next bank … the same story. By the time I get to the last bank on my list, 45 minutes of wait-time seemed like a breeze so I took a number and a seat. Those 45 minutes became 2.5h due to a customer who probably wanted to do every possible operation the bank allowed. And it was supposed to be fast because I was appointed to a English speaking booth, but there were other people in front of me appointed to the same booth … so I had to keep calm.

3.5h and I had all the money changed. I was happy. By the time I got to the office, there was only 1h of work to be done and then dinner (17:30). We got back from dinner at 18:40, it was pointless to work anymore so I headed home.

Banks in Shanghai … avoid them as much as possible, they are like time traps!

As I promised, I have updated the Picasa Album with captions (some of them quite silly) and I`m looking forward to the next week. We have 3 days off at the beginning of the week and if the weather is good I`ll probably take the Nikon for a spin.

Cheers!

Oi!
Welcome back, y’all.

Another week down, and many more to go. So, get you coffee ready because it time for round 3 of this prolonged ordeal called life.

Part 7. Dealing with just the iPad

Not a problem so far, and I’ll take you through the whole process, including apps and tips and tricks.

As you already know, the internet access in China is fairly limited and to bypass this annoying ”feature” one needs to use a VPN or a proxy server. Lucky for me, Ioana found a paid VPN software on the app store, so for 15$ she gets worldwide internet access. The best part is that once payed the VPN access code can be used on all of “her” iOS devices, thus … Yours truly gets Google and Facebook like a ”bauss” (dear mother, this last word does not exist in the English dictionary and it may be very well replaced with “boss”).

I have to admit: I do love the battery life on this thing. 8+ hours of whatever I throw at it. CAUTION: Battery will drain quickly if “*le girlfriend” keeps all her magazine apps ON at all times.

But let`s get on to business:

1. VPN access comes through VPN One Click. (easy to install and reliable every time)

2. I write everything using iA Writer. Can`t get simpler than this and does the job splendidly. I can`t praise enough the added buttons for “left” and “right” and the most common punctuation signs. Although I could have used something free, I feel that the money are well spent. iCloud sync, Dropbox and many other features are just bonuses.

3. iBooks is self explanatory, and although I have the Kindle with me, I haven`t touched it yet. It will probably get it`s share of use once I’ll get the courage to read in the subway.

4. Read It Later is one of those apps that really couldn`t be better. It downloads pages of the internet for offline reading. And it`s wonderful because in the morning I zoom through allot o articles in Google Reader and save a bunch for the office brake hours. (did I mention I still don`t have internet access at work? )

5. Perfect RSS is the app that replaces the Google Reader I was talking about. I love it because it can download articles off of those sites that are otherwise blocked. The downside is that if the website isn`t sharing the whole article … I still have to follow the link (and that requires VPN). So it`s really good because I can send articles to Read It Later and I save allot of time.

6. IM+ (free) is the replacement for Yahoo Messenger. It`s as good as they get but if I forget it ON , it will connect me to messenger every time I`m near a wi-fi. Not cool … but I got used to it.

7. Skype. ‘Nuf said.

8. WordPress, without it, you wouldn`t be reading this every Sunday like clock work. It simple to use and it gives me almost all the usability that I need. If I find something that is not to my liking, I`ll connect to the online version of my blog via the Safari browser, and fix it there.

9. Web Albums. Don`t know how I could have done it without it. This app let`s me connect to my Picasa Web Albums and it has a ton of functionality. The best feature is that I can have my albums cached in the app for offline viewing. This alone is worth the 0.99$ I spent on it. All I really need now is for it to resize my picture before uploading.

10. But because Web Albums doesn`t do that, I bought One Edit. It`s a good app but flawed exactly where I need it. It can`t resize images taking just one side in consideration. If I want to resize 20 pictures that have different aspect ratios, the software will resize them ALL to one fixed resolution (1920x1200px for example) so the square crops end up being squashed to landscape. Idiotic … but I manage.

11. Snapseed is THE APP when it comes to image post processing. And I know no software better than that for tablets and don`t even get me started on Photoshop Touch.

12. For individual resize I use Photogene. It`s good for other stuff too but not as powerful as Snapseed.

I import all my pictures using the Camera Connection Kit, from both cameras, and I send my iPhone pictures via e-mail to … myself. The iOS devices are synchronizing most of the pictures via iCloud, but the panos and HDRs need to be sent manually. In the native Photos app I worked out a system of folders so that when someone wants to see specific pictures, I just open the right folder; thus I don`t need to scroll through tons of temporary pictures.

I could probably do everything faster and better using a MacBook Air (wink) but for these 6 months, the iPad will have to do.

Part 8. Photography with whatever I have on me

The past three weeks where borderline hell for the cameras. If it wasn`t raining, it sure was damp. And I, for one, don`t want to get my camera wet more than it needs to be. So a fair amount of pictures where shot with the iPhone (I had it on me because it`s a glorified mp3 player – mainly `cause I can`t unlock it in China … for the time being).

These pictures have the hipster feel so (in my opinion) they are not really blog material but I`ll show you two of them anyway.

The Fuji X10 is the workhorse so far. It`s small enough to fit in my bag and it`s inconspicuous. Also, the files are easier to get from the SD card on the iPad so that`s a feature I`m starting to like.

The D700 doesn`t get that much use these days. I have so much dirt on the sensor and in the 17-35mm that I can start a vegetable garden. So he only saw a small part of Shanghai by hanging on my shoulder. The moment I get the cash flow going, I`ll take it to Nikon Shanghai for a proper CLAd-ing (dear mother, that is short for “cleaning, lubricating and adjusting”); especially the 17-35/2.8 because that one is on the tipping point. The sensor cleaning might not be that expensive, but the CLA on the zoom might set me back 300-400$. (money that we currently don`t have, due to a unexpected apartment deposit of ~1700$)

Part 9. Why we miss Romanian (European) food … and what to do about it.

Oh boy, I could talk about this one for hours but because this is the 2nd time I write this entry (WordPress and China internet don`t get together very well) I`ll try to be as short as possible.

As you might already know, I eat most of my meals at the office cafeteria, and although there`s a good variety of food, somehow I end up not liking most of it.

It`s like this: They have 3 meat dishes and 3 vegetable side-dishes that one can choose from. Everyone gets to choose 2 from the meat department and 2 veggie-based. They even have a nice shiny whiteboard that they write the day`s menu on, but … as you guessed already, it`s written in Chinese, and yours-truly still has no idea how to spell POTATO ! So you might say I`m picking my food with my eyes closed, and you wouldn`t be too far from the truth. I do squint my eyes everyday to give the impression that I know what`s in there but I`m still deciding; in reality I`m just trying to figure out which one has fewer bones and which vegetable looks familiar. I still have no idea what veggies are they feeding me because in 3 weeks I managed to get potato only ONCE!

And what`s with the skin and the bone in the food? The other day I chose something that resembled the almighty “schnitzel” but I ended up with a thin sliced BONE with egg and crumpled bread all over it. NO MEAT. NO NOTHING! That`s got to be a world record for useless food!

So out of 10 dishes (to have a round number) 6 are tasteless, 2 are utterly repugnant and 2 are death-row food (as in “drop dead DE-LICIOUS”). The weird part is that the 2nd week was awful and the past week we had wonderful food, with meat on the bone and tasteful side-dishes, so if history repeats itself I`m in for a nasty week, starting tomorrow!

The girls are a bit luckier than me but not by much.

To counter the office food, we`re now on the hunt for that one awesome restaurant with Shanghainese food that we can call home for the next 5 months. We haven`t found it yet but we heard they have sweet and sour food and lots of meat … yummy!

In the meantime to get our morale up, we sometimes hit the supermarket and fill our basket on things we know from home. Ham, milk, cheese, ice-cream, jam, potatoes, green peppers, onions (these can kill an untrained man!) and we eat just like we were in college: on a piece of newspaper in the middle of the living room. All we need is a campfire! But it`s so good! The best part: I eat onions Saturday morning and then I go to the bank. The teller can smell me from a mile away and I LOVE IT! Take that! for keeping me in line 3h just to exchange some money!

Another way to cope with food craving is to be taken out to a restaurant by a local. That will fix many of the problems. On Wednesday I was asked to join a group of architects from my company to a project presentation 250km away. As I had no reason to decline, I went along. After the meeting was over, the contractor for that project took us to a fancy restaurant. As you might know the tables are round with a spinning piece of glass in the middle, so everyone can enjoy the dishes that are being brought in.

We started with 12 appetizers that were mouth-watering. And only 2 of those were spicy, but the spice level was “over 9000″ and because it`s rude to spit out food, it was “over 9000″ for at least 10 minutes! I was so happy with the first course that I really didn`t need the 2nd course anymore, but I had to try it. So I ate everything, from fried ants with beans to cow belly to pork belly to shrimp to God knows what else because I barely recognized half of what I was being served that night. We finished, without much fuss, with fruit salad.

Traveler Tip: If they offer you “white wine”, it`s not what you think. It`s actually their distilled alcohol from rice. So be careful. It doesn`t taste bad (reminded me of UZZO) but it can take you by surprise. They say it`s around 50*, I believe it`s lower than that.

So, to sum up, if you`re craving for food, do it yourself or get invited to a fancy restaurant!

There are a lot of things to write about but I can`t give you everything at once… Stay tuned! Next Sunday I`ll tell you about:

1. Opening a bank account and exchanging money.
2. Chinese fruits (likes and dislikes).
3. Distinctive habits that we have to cope with.

I know I`ve been slacking but keep checking the Picasa Album of the trip. It might get a big update in a couple of days, with captions and other bits of useful information.

See you soon!

P.S. If you have questions or just want to chat with us, feel free to write in the comments section. Helps us take our mind off everything else.

I`ll start this week`s letter from where I left off last Sunday,

Part 4. Job

The first day I was supposed to get to work at 10:00 for the orientation. At 9:20 I got out of the subway station and I was on to work. I had the address written down on a piece of paper, in Chinese and I had full trust invested in the Google Maps solution to my problem. So with those two in hand … what could go wrong?
Well … for starters … EVERYTHING.

So I get to where I taught the place should be, and there was no sight of a nice fancy architecture building in sight. So I start asking around. For 25 minutes I was sent back an forth in between two major streets by people that had no idea where my address was.

Eventually I cracked down and phoned the number on my paper, next to the address. In my head I was calling the contact at the immigration company. In reality I called my soon to be boss. He was the contact number written on the paper.

Told him where I was (not far from the actual place) so in 10min he was there to pick me up. I was still under the impression he`s the guy who handled our papers for China, so the conversation that followed was pretty awkward for him, as he had no freaking idea about was I was rambling about … and (of course) I taught that he knows all about it.

We finally get to the office, and he puts his phone on his desk. That`s the moment I figure he`s not leaving very soon, so he must be working there. The puzzle was complete.

I was assigned to a 2 people team project the first day. Nothing hard, some pavilions with the concept already set. (the Tangram) The thing that scared me was the deadline. At first they said it has to be done in 12 days. But after 2 days the deadline moved to the end of the week (less than 3 days) … so I freaked out a bit. Thursday afternoon (the day before the deadline) we got a memo that said “meeting cancelled, deadline next week”. So I got a good night sleep on that evening.

UA China is a big architecture company that`s focused on residential architecture. It`s their moneymaker. It covers more than 70% of the business. The rest of ~30% is public buildings. That`s where I step in. The company is split into 8 divisions. Seven of them have 40 employees each and they just do residential. We are the underdogs. Our division had 5 people the first day I got here, and now we are 8. And I`m the only westerner here. It`s pretty cool because I get to learn Chinese faster than other people. It`s not that cool because they only speak Chinese. They all understand English at least at a basic level, but it doesn`t come natural to them to speak it. My boss is at the same time a co-worker in this division so everything is really nice so far. As long as my English is at a slow pace, everyone is happy.

Fortunately for me the company offers lunch and dinner on the house. Not the best Chinese food in the world but some days is really good so I forget about the bad ones. Also in-between meals we get fruits, every day different fruit and then repeat… We had some fruits that I had no idea how to eat, and made a fool of myself but that`s ok. It was bound to happen. I was bound to be the group`s entertainer.

The offices are always kept clean and we have almost everything we need … except internet access.
Coming from 10+ years of daily internet access, I found this thing to be a little disturbing, and I must say I found it hard to get used to. Searching for Sketch-Up models is out of the question now, and I have to get around by using the offline library. Music now has to come from my iPhone, and I can`t access MixCloud anymore. And the worst part: if I want to research something online I have to move my ass to the only internet enabled computer in the office. It has only Internet Explorer … IN CHINESE ! Then i have to figure out how to get the information down using only google.com.hk and then send it to my computer via the intranet messaging system. (and it doesn`t work all the time). It`s not very productive and it will take some time to adjust to.

Part 5. More about the food

By now we have learned to figure out what dishes are vegetable based and which have meat. We also figured out where to eat when hungry and poor, and how to stay away from spicy food.

At work I get two meals every day but overall they have room for improvement. Rarely we get something that` s drop dead tasteful and usually it ends in a heartbeat. We eat a lot of vegetables (known and never seen before) and there`s rice every meal.

The soup is not that great either. We could easily convert every Chinese to our style of making the soups.
Most of the time the noodles come in a lot of “water” with some meat in them, but the probability of that meat being bone-less is so small, that I rarely order them. So fried noodles it is then!

Shanghainese food is supposed to be sweet and sour but I hardly ever tasted it so far. I`ll have to keep an eye out for it.

Part 6. The Fake-Market

Last weekend Irina needed to buy a large suitcase to travel with abroad so we headed to one of the fake markets.
It`s no different than our regular market except people are desperate to sell something. They throw themselves at you in hope you`ll actually buy something. They even carry children in their arms just to soften you up.

A lot of foreigners visit the fake market and we stand out like elephants at the zoo; so it`s because of this most of the sellers know a few words in English. How else are they going to scam the people looking for a bargain?

Rules at fake-markets

Rule #1: Go when you don`t need anything at all. It will make you a better negotiator.
Rule #2: Always have small bills. This way you don`t have to wait for change.
Rule #3: Ask the price of the item and offer 10-15% of what you hear. You`ll make them drop their price to half of what they first asked.
Rule #4: Don`t buy the item just yet. Start walking away slowly like you don`t care. They will come after you with a lower and lower price. When satisfied with the price, buy it.
Rule #5: Never pay more than 25% of the original asking price. There`s always someone with the same item that will sell for less.

Top Tip: Never buy electronics that cost more than 20Y. Not worth the trouble.

In the next letter:

Part 7. Getting by with just the iPad
Part 8. Photography with whatever I have on me
Part 9. Why we miss Romanian (European) food … and what to do about it.

Until the next time, you can check the Picasa Album of the trip. If the weather is good I will update it 3-4 times / week, and it will build up to have more pictures than what I post on the blog.

See you soon!

Part 1. The necessary introduction

Good evening ladies an gents,

This week’s open letter is the first of hopefully many to come. I’m planning to write just about everything I will experience in my first 6 months abroad to the east.

For those of you who don’t know, a few months ago we decided to give it a try and do architecture elsewhere than Romania, so due to some friends already being here we rapidly set our minds on Shanghai.

It was a leap of faith given the fact that we were heading into complete unknown, but then again … No pain, no gain; so we figured it must be well worth it.

Fast forward to February 29 and we were on the plane towards China. One of the best flights to date! We flew to Frankfurt, 1.5h to change flights and then 11h of TV shows and sleep. Lufthansa really outdone themselves with comfortable seats, clean bathrooms, individual screens, 3 good meals and plenty of liquids to keep us hydrated the whole time. And the best part: we flew at night, so by the time we got to Shanghai it was afternoon, the next day.

We were picked at the airport by a nice volunteer and we went straight to the (soon to be) rented apartment. Outside it was raining cats and dogs, the fog was thick and the wind was blowing from all directions. We managed to get to the apartment complex in under 10 minutes, but half wet and with water in my (now broken) photo backpack. (finally after 4 years and many destinations one of the zippers broke)

Floor 31/39, 2 bedrooms, 85sqm with a wonderful view. One downside tho; no radiators installed and my mustache was freezing before my eyes. It was literally colder inside, than outside. Steam was coming out of my mouth!

We signed all the papers, gave away most of our money on deposits and rent and then we turned on all the air-conditioners to full power. Needless to say, the one in our bedroom wasn’t working properly, so the first night was awful. (no food in the fridge, no bedsheets, no heat, no water … no NOTHING!)

The next day was better because with the few money we had left from the apartment lease, we plundered the K Mart and acquired the minimum necessities. (we still don’t have pillows, and we stuffed the pillow sheets with our sleeping bags) on the bright side, we could see the potential of the view through the morning fog. We were in for a cool panorama and we knew it.

The weekend went by pretty fast, mostly trying to avoid the bad weather and the cold conditions by drinking hot beverages and wearing all of our clothes at once. Irina and Paul came by and said that it is colder where they live so we suddenly felt better. The 5 of us ended up watching “My Week With Marilyn” and sleeping in the living room with the air-conditioner on full throttle. Slept like babies!

The weather improved over the following week and while I’m writing this letter, we’re being blessed with sunshine and a little bit of natural heat.

Part 2. The food…

Chinese food here is not what we eat back home. There are a ton of different ingredients and flavors.
The first night we had to grab something from a street vendor. We where so hungry that we actually thought is was good. Snake, squid, tofu, vegetables, rice bread, pork, lamb … Everything nietly arranged on skewers; What’s not to like? Then we tried fried noodles with various vegetables.

We did this because it’s dirt cheap. We can have noodles with veggies for 6¥ (about 1$). Beer starts from 1.9¥ (0.25$) and goes up to about 5¥ , in the supermarket. Of course, it’s more expensive in the restaurants and can easily go as high as 20-25¥.

Pizza Hut has menus with drinks and dessert for 120-150¥ (20-25$). So overall there’s food here for every budget. And it doesn’t mean that it tastes better if it costs more. I’m still learning how to decipher the menu but it can only get better from here on. Most of the times if someone offers noodles it will be in the form of a soup. Speaking about soups, the ones I’ve tried so far are the worst in the world. Tasteless boules of spiced up water.

One other problem I have with the food so far is that they don’t take the bones out. Imagine a whole chicken (bones and all) butchered into small bite-size pieces and thrown in the pot. That meal will be full of small bone pieces. Hardest thing to eat! Stay away from that!

On the bright side, pineapple chicken (when done right) is mouthwatering. Pineapple and orange sweet and sour chicken … To die for! Fried vegetables … Better than everything I had so far. Too bad it all comes with rice … Breakfast, lunch and dinner, by default.

Fruits are a bit on the expensive side for the average shanghainese but they seem fair to us. So far I haven’t ate one bad orange, or one bad mango … And these two are cheap. I also tried some fruits specific to this country that are really good (dragon’s eyes comes to mind).

The malls are expensive and people only go there on payday.

Part 3. Traffic rules

The first thing that hit me was that drivers don’t care about you … The pedestrian.

I don’t know if it’s a written rule or not but every time you’re on the pedestrian walk, you have to let the cars, motorcycles and bikes pass.
As a driver you can always make a right turn and don’t have to wait for a green light.
If you have less than 4 wheels you can bypass the traffic lights.
If you have a green-light to take a left turn, the pedestrians need to stop to let you through.

So mix everything together at any given time and you have a ticking time bomb.

I think this is their way of controlling the rising number of Chinese citizens.

In the next letter:

Part 4. Job
Part 5. More about the food
Part 6. The fake-market

Until the next time, you can check the Picasa Album of the trip. It updates 3-4 times / week, and has more pictures than I would post here.

See you next Sunday!

The first shooting for 2012 deserves a blog post, so I`ll try to be short and to the point.

As you probably know Europe was under a massive snow storm. We (in Bucharest) got hit pretty hard, and we had to stay in the comfort of our apartments for a few days. That was fine by me because I took advantage of the overcast and shot with beautiful window light for almost 5 hours. I was actually happy that I only took one strobe out of the bag, and I only used it on a couple of photos.

The photo-shoot  was awesome and I would do it again any (cloudy) day.

Hi there,

For the past 4-5 years I`ve tried to showcase my work in almost all the ways possible.

I`ve started with a Blog on Blogspot.com (Google owned), witch worked fine until I managed to wipe every photo off, just by deleting some Picasa albums. Eventually I had everything back on, but wanted a place of my own.

I bought a domain and the hosting and moved to a new home with a brand spanking blog under the WordPress platform. But I still wanted to showoff my favorite pictures…

By that time I had the designer fever and wanted to do everything myself so I drew what was going to become my first website. Not only my first website but actually my first design / written code. It was the first time I knew I can make money off the principles taught in school.

The first sketch looked like this and the next picture is what stayed on the server for a whole year.

By the time I felt the need to face-lift the website, I was already at the 3rd iteration of the blog. Felt I had it in me, so I drew the 2nd skin the website was going to have. Matched it with the blog theme at the time.

The more architecture you ingest, the less stuff you want to put in your projects, so the next trend was to go with “less is more”.

And now for 2012 “less is more” is not enough. I measured every button, every indent, every space … so that the website will have more usability. I even added a horizontal scroll that can be used with the normal scroll of the mouse! How cool is that !!! And all that … on the iOS and Android devices too. And Internet Explorer (although there might be something more to iron out for it) … for those 12% unlucky IE users. We heard `ya!

And I couldn`t have done it without the help of best friend Seth who debugged the sh*t out of pages and pages of pathetic written code all these years. 10x bro`!

So if it`s February 1st 2012 (or later) follow the link to the website.

Hi guys,

For the past month I`ve dedicated my time to my first MMORPG – Star Wars: The Old Republic (I skipped World of Warcraft due to 6 years of college that needed my undivided attention). It`s kinda self explanatory that I`m enjoying it a lot. (I have 12 full days of playtime already)

Thankfully I got this game as a birthday present and it came in Digital Deluxe Edition. Among the perks of this Deluxe edition there was a “in-game” photo camera. Nothing fancy, just a script that takes the HUD (head up display) out of the way, and moves the viewpoint to your character`s level. But it was all I needed to take some pictures in the game … not to get out of shape.

The first screen captures sucked because I was limited to the field of view imposed by the 1920×1200 screen resolution but soon I discovered that I can alter that if I switch to windowed mode and stretch the game on both my screens. This way the FOV was somewhere around 10-12mm on a full-frame camera. In some cases I even tried stitching 3-4 images to get better resolution or a higher vertical FOV. There`s not a single image without some sort of post-process done to them so these are not the actual colors in the game. (you`ve been warned!)

But enough about this, I`ll let you enjoy some of the planets the good guys at Bioware designed for us. (The images are slightly larger if you click on them – and you can navigate with the keyboard arrow keys)

P.S. If the good guys at BioWare somehow read this and care to make an add-on / mod with a more powerful camera (aperture control / shutter speed / field of view) I wouldn`t mind beta-testing the sh*t out of it. So please leave a message.

Dromund Kaas

Nar Shaddaa

Tatooine

Alderaan

Hoth

Quesh

Belsavis

Corelia

I hope you liked the pictures. If you did, just know that the game is far better.
If you have suggestions, please leave them in the comment section bellow.

CES is over, so enough about cameras. Let`s see something else every photographer should have in the toolbox!

If you take pictures you`re inclined to post-process them to whatever extent necessary, but the main concern is “are the colors right?”. Well, it depends!

Are the colors right for:

• print?
• online publishing?

The first one can easily be fixed without thorough calibration. You just pick 3 photos you like, go to your preferred printing company, make some prints, go back home, fiddle with the monitor until what you see on that paper resembles what you see on the screen. Hope they don`t change equipment often and … print away!

For online publishing, well, that`s tricky! Because even if you have everything calibrated, your pictures will look different on virtually every other screen. The people might not have their screens calibrated, the LCD panels might differ from one producer to another, the characteristics fade with time etc, etc, etc

But for us artists it`s crucial to put our best products out there and hope for the best.

So what I`m about to show you can and will be seen differently by each and every one of you. But don`t forget that the samples are as close to “how it should be” as possible.

The past 4 years I have kept my screens calibrated with Spyder 2 Pro and later on with Spyder 3 Pro (always borrowed, never owned) so it was high time to get myself such a product. The day I wanted to make my purchase (a Spyder 3 Pro) I called a friend to make sure what I was borrowing , was in fact what I was suppose to buy. That friend told me: “Don`t buy that! Datacolor is releasing a new Spyder in a few days”

Searched online … nothing! Not even on the company`s website.

“Ok, I`ll trust you!”, I said, and a week later they came out with Spyder 4 series. And now I`m the proud owner of a Spyder 4 Pro.

I chose the Pro package because I needed to calibrate at least 2 screens for the same workstation. (sometimes as much as 4 linked to two graphic cards) The Essential can`t do that.

Costed me less than 180$ and given the circumstances = “the best 180$ spent so far”!

But now for the quick and dirty part:

New fancy sensor technology. Slightly better than Spyder 3.

“Spyder4Pro features a patented, full-spectrum 7-color sensor that can accurately characterize a variety of wide gamut and normal displays. Spyder4Pro software lets you use the same sensor to calibrate your monitor, laptop computer, iPad and iPhone. No other calibrator has this capability. The fourth-generation sensor uses double-shielded filters for longer life and better performance. On average, accuracy and precision are improved by 26% and 19% respectively.”

At the moment the software package can`t be found online at DataColor website. I found this annoying .

I, for one, don`t have a CD / DVD drive at my workstation. Haven`t had one in 7 years ! I wanted to download the software from them, but NO … “One does not simply get software over the internet”. I had to get a laptop, copy the CD contents on a USB drive, haul-ass to my workstation and THEN get the stuff installed.

On USB 3.0 the computer didn`t recognize the Spyder device. I had to yank it out and try a USB 2.0 port to get it installed. Only then it powered up on USB 3.0.

Calibration OFF. Uninstall Spyder 3 software. Install Spyder 4. Calibrate!

My main screen is a Samsung T240HD – 4 years old. (DVI connection)

Had ~215cd/m2 the day I bought it. Under Spyder 3 analysis it topped out at 106cd/m2 Brightness after 4 years. Now, with Spyder 4 I can set it at 120cd/m2 and still have room for more. (140cd/m2 seems like hitting the ceiling)

Uncalibrated. Rollover to see the calibrated view.

My second screen is a Dell 2311H – 1 yr old. (DVI connection)

I have no clue what brightness level it had when it came out of the factory but now I set it to 120cd/m2 (to match the other one) and i`m at 52% brightness. So there`s plenty of headroom there.

Uncalibrated. Rollover to see the calibrated view.

The Spyder 4 Pro software comes with some new analysis features that I didn`t bother trying. (few will so why bother!)

But I did like the fact that it keeps me informed about my gamut range; and I can compare it to older calibration profiles. And this way I actually know why I keep using sRGB instead of AdobeRGB. I mainly process for the web so EVERYONE ELSE has a fair chance of seeing what I see.

Overall it was a good investment for me, because I was buying a new product, but for someone thinking of upgrading from Spyder 3, it`s not worth it. I would probably upgrade from Spyder 2 tho. Can`t really put my finger on the right reason but I can justify 180$ with “It`s old and we could use a new one!” phrase all the time.

I got mine from F64, with a “frequent shopper” discount and some points I recently won, so I took only half the hit you`ll probably take.

If you have ideas about stuff you want me to give my opinion on, please leave a message and I`ll gladly answer. I know is`t hard taking a decision based on marketing bulls*it so I`m here to help.

Take your camera with you everywhere!