Chocolate Truffles for non-Cooks

I'm not much of a cook. I can't make waffles without using every single utensil and pot in the house, and I occasionally go check my email in the middle of making something, only to lose track of time until the fire alarm goes off....

But every year I make chocolate truffles with the kids. Now, normally making proper chocolates requires special copper pans and candy thermometers and all sorts of patience, timing and skills. None of which I have. But I like to spend time with my kids, and chocolate is as good of an excuse as any (although, do you *really* need an excuse for chocolate? Or time with your kids? Ever?)

Anyway, I came across a recipe for chocolate truffles a long time ago that suits me just fine - it's easy, inexpensive and fun to do with kids. I just spent the last hour tearing apart my damn basement looking for it. I also tried all sorts of searches online. Nothing.

All the "truffle' recipes online seem to start out with "get a degree in culinary arts, buy a thousand dollars worth of copper cooking equipment, install a gas stove, and then buy large chunks of unsweetened chocolate, some cream cheese, etc...

Nope, not for me. I just found the recipe I use and it's dead simple. It's also tattered almost beyond recognition. I'm afraid I'll lose it again so I'm posting to my blog.

Yes, I'm abusing your time and attention for my own selfish reasons, bad memory and poor filing skills. I can only hope to make it up to you for this horrible abuse of your trust and time by offering some delicious, easy and simple holiday cheer - the McAnerin household recipe for easy chocolate truffles:

Easy Chocolate Truffles

Ingredients

• 3 cups (3x250ml) semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 (14oz/300ml) can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tbsp (15ml) vanilla extract

Yup, that's it. No complicated recipes for THIS guy...

Coatings: Finely chopped toasted nuts, flaked coconut, chocolate sprinkles, colored sprinkles, unsweetened cocoa, confectioners' sugar or colored sugars.

Flavors: I also wrap the chocolate around maraschio cherries, though it's messy and doesn't turn out perfectly. Another thing I do is add rum, maple, banana and other flavors to the batches (1 tsp for each batch gives a nice light flavoring, one tablespoon is stronger). Yummy.

Instructions

1. In large saucepan, over low heat, melt chocolate chips with sweetened condensed milk.
2. Remove from heat
3. Stir in vanilla.
4. Pour into medium bowl. If you are making different flavors this is where you separate into different batches and mix in the flavorings (rum, maple, butterscotch, etc).
5. Cover and chill 2 to 3 hours or until firm.
6. Shape into 1in(2.5cm) balls; roll in desired coating and/or decorate with frosting and candies. I use different coatings to tell the flavors apart.
7. Chill 1 hour or until firm. Store leftovers covered in refrigerator.

Note 1: I use Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk, and as I was writing this, it occured to me that's probably where I got the original recipe from - a label on one of the cans. I just checked, and it was. Credits for the original version of the recipe to them.

Note 2: Yes, I know that 14oz is technically equal to 415ml, not 300ml, but that's the standard size can in Canada and this is an *easy* recipe. One can of sweetened condensed milk. It works just fine. Same goes for all other conversions - the focus is on easy and tasty, not chemistry...

McAnerin International Inc, or "Why I've been AFK"

It's been quite a dry spell, blogging-wise here. Sorry about that. I'm going to try to post a lot more from now on. The reason has just been life in general:

• I went to China for a family vacation
• Then I went to China again (this time with the CSMT and SES Xiamen China). I also hit Japan, Korea, Macao and Hong Kong while I was at it. This took a while to recover from, but before I did...
• I went to Toronto SES, followed by a quick trip to Ottawa, where I got food poisoning from some bad escargot. Not pleasant.
• Then I got home for *1 day* and was off to Miami for SES Latino, where I woke up almost completely blind on the first day of the conference. Giving presentations while blind is not fun.
• Then I got home, barely began to recover and then had to go to SES Travel in Seattle. This was a much more pleasant experience, but I was still exhausted by the time I was done.
• My new accountant then informed me that my original plan to have a sole proprietorship (McAnerin Networks) in Canada and an incorporated company (McAnerin Networks Inc) in the US was not working out for me, and I had a 35k tax bill to prove it after taking every deduction I could think of. Ouch.

During this period, of course, I still had my clients to take care of and 3 kids and a wife who deserve to see me occasionally. As a result I've decided to take August off (or at least slow down a lot) and focus on my company and my family. Up until now, I simply haven't had the time to update the blog. I hope you understand.

So now, I've both begun painting the house and redesigning my company websites. The websites reflect the new name, branding and focus:

Corporate Site: McAnerin International Inc. - Internet marketing site focused on international SEO and international SEM/PPC.

Technology Site: McAnerin Networks Inc. - Hosting, domains, programming, design and other technical offerings.

Localized Sites: Canada, USA, China, UK, Japan, Mexico

Non-Company/Other: Mobile Site, McAnerin Family Genealogy Site

Since I'm the only website designer/programmer/SEO/etc for all of these, they are all in different stages of development, and several of them are not even active yet, though they should be shortly.

Why link early to a site still under development? Domain Delay (aka sandbox) proofing, of course. Thanks to Google, I am now forced to do something for a search engine I would have never done in the old days. The irony is that Google keeps telling people they should not do this, then designs a system where it's necessary to do so. I'll be ranting about this more fully in an upcoming blog post.

So in general my company is now McAnerin International Inc. now.

Over the next while I hope to share tactics on how to properly organize multiple local domains in such a way as to maximize rankings for each while minimizing any negative impacts due to duplicate content issues and so forth, using my sites as examples.

I'll also perform several tests and experiments related to international search marketing, both for my own information and as fodder for the book I'm writing in my (ahem) copious amounts of spare time (rolls eyes).

Ian

Back from China

I'm back from China. No, I didn't go on the China Search Marketing Tour without you, and you didn't miss it yet (though if you don't sign up ASAP, you will!). I went on a family vacation. I took my kids, wife, inlaws and an "uncle" I've never met to Beijing, Shanghai, and finally to a small village near Kai-Ping where my wifes family comes from.

Even though they are Chinese, it was the first time any of them had ever been so far north - Uncle (as I called him) had never even seen snow before, so the sub-zero weather of Beijing in March was definately a new experience for him. The trip to the Great Wall was in almost -40 degree weather!

I'll spare you the day by day (I'm planning on inflicted that on you for the CSMT), but there were a couple of highlights:

Never go to Beijing before April - it's cold and no fun. May is MUCH better.

Damn, it's cold!

My wifes village is very interesting, and about as rural as you can get in China while still having electricity...

Looks pretty - Don't drink the water...

Stir Fried Water Beetles and other "interesting" foods are often eaten in villages.

Bugs... Yummy. Taste like unsalted pumpkin seeds.

I have many stories about this trip - some of which I might even tell one day. :)

Ian

SES Latino 2006 - Miami

So, to get to the point of my talking about SES Latino, I'll talk about Miami first (it's only fair after the previous post).

Miami, as I think of it, is actually the Greater Miami Area (or South Florida metropolitan area if you are political), which is basically several cities/areas all in one fairly easy to drive, contiguous area. The 3 main areas I was in were Miami, South Beach (SoBe) and Bal Harbour (where one of my clients, Gray & Sons, is).

The conference was at the Miami Intercontinental, which was right on the beach, and had a cool lobby. It is also walking distance to the famous Bayside Market, where the shopping is very nice (if you like that sort of thing - and I admit I do...)

I arrived early, so I had some sightseeing time. I wanted to do a tour of the everglades, but that's pretty much a day trip, and I wanted to be fair and give Miami another chance. So I went to SoBe.

Now, I try to pride myself on being an experienced enough traveller that I always check the weather first, but I screwed myself up this trip. I duly checked the weather and noticed that it was going to be overcast with thunderstorms pretty much everyday during the conference, so i packed appropriately without doing the mental calculation of Fahrenheit to Celsius like I normally do. BIG MISTAKE.

See, in Canada, "overcast and thunderstorms" usually means cold, or at least, coolish. In Miami, it means "your sweat doesn't evaporate, the rain is hot, and you need to shower after about 20 minutes outside if you are wearing any clothing of significance."

I took a cab to Ocean Drive (the road that runs along South Beach) and stopped by the News Cafe for lunch and some people watching. People watching is a major sport in SoBe, due to the (lack of) clothing worn, the celebrities that hang out there, and the party/club atmosphere.

The meal was good, but I realized that I was way overdressed for the area and time. Not to mention I was soaked in sweat. Fortunately, there is shopping nearby on Washington Ave, and I was able to buy a pair of shorts, a lighter shirt, and thong sandals. After that, I was ready to actually see the darn beach.

The beach is really nice, with white sand and lots of people. It's an odd mixture of beach volleyball and joggers, thong bikini wearing sunbathers, and families with kids. It all blends in a natural manner.

Frankly, it was so hot that I didn't even notice that the picture I took of the crowd on the beach included several topless sunbathers until I was uploading it later. Honest. I know you don't believe me after the belly dancers in China and CanCan Dancers in the Yukon, but it's absolutely true. Really.

Anyway, after that I figured I'd go take a couple of pictures of alligators, which was a challenge since I didn't have time to do the everglades tour. So I went to the nearby (to the hotel) Parrot Jungle Island. Yup, they had them, including "Crocosaurus", a HUGE saltwater croc (born in Thailand, not natural to Florida) that is the largest in the world.

After this, I met up with my friends Christine Churchill and Mike Grehan, who introduced me to Frank Watson (aka AussieWebmaster), Jeffrey Eisenberg of Future Now (an excellent source of information on post-click conversion behaviour and methods - thanks Jeff!) and Erica Schmidt of iProspect.

I was then introduced to a wonderful Cuban drink, the mojito. Warning! This is a very, very dangerous drink! It's tasty, very refreshing and loaded with alcohol. You can find yourself drinking a lot of them if you are not careful.

We decided to go for dinner, with Mike (as usual) leading the way. He took us to Lincoln Road, an amazing pedestrian road lined with restaurants. This is definitely a great place to find food. Since Italy had just won the FIFA World Cup hours earlier, we decided to have Italian food in their honor.

The next day (Monday) SES Latino began.

The first thing I noticed was that this was very smooth and organized for a first time event/venue. I've been to a lot, and this one went very well. About 500 people attended.

I usually don't go to a lot of sessions, preferring to network with people in between, but the information presented here was simply not available easily anywhere else, and I found myself in a lot of the "Landscape and Tactics" tracks, which focused on Latin America, Spanish and Portuguese language and issues, and so forth. Fascinating and highly informative, even to a jaded conference goer.

That evening, I decided to go on a harbour tour with my friend Huiping Iler, the president of wintranslation.com. Huiping is the person I trust for many of my clients translations, and this is the first time we've met in person. She's also written a very nice white paper called Maximizing Visibility for Multilingual Web Sites that I recommend.

Anyway, I dragged her to a charter boat in the shape of a pirate ship (hey, we are in the Caribbean...) for a short tour of the harbour, including Millionaire Row, a bunch of homes of the rich and famous.

Shortly after leaving the dock, the sky started to get cloudy. A couple of minutes later, we were in a pretty intense storm. It was so bad I started humming the Gilligans Island theme song and wondering how far I could swim. the captain finally pulled into a nearby dock and we waited a while for the worst to pass.

After that, we finally got the tour. There were a lot of very nice homes, owned by people like Sharon Stone, Gloria Estevan, Sylvestor Stalone, Shaquille O'Neal, and Jackie Chan. For only 5 million, I could live there too...

After this, we went back to the hotel. The next day both of us had presentations to give, and neither of had completely finished ours. I always do mine at the last minute, since I try to customize it to the attendees at the conference.

The next morning, I had 2 major technical issues right in a row. First, I discovered that, in my second packing blunder of the trip, I had left both my USB drive and blank CD's at home, making it very difficult to get my (now finished) presentation onto the presentation computer!

Fortunately, although it's not obvious, the hotel is very close to a Walgreens and I was able to run (literally) over there and buy a new USB drive. Shaking from the heat and sudden exercise (yes, I'm out of shape - I'm working on it...), I walked into the bathroom to freshen up.

Then my cell phone rang. While grabbing at it, it slipped out of my (still shaking) hands and directly into the toilet! My scream of despair was still echoing in the room while I fished it out of the (fortunately unused) toilet bowl and over to a nearby hairdryer.

You have to realize that this is no ordinary phone. It's also my main business number, my mp3 player, backup camera, e-book reader and *gasp* day-timer. I had just managed to finally retire my old, heavy leatherbound paper-based day-timer only a few weeks before. Literally, it's my (business) life. Not a good development. BTW, water damage isn't covered by the warranty (imagine that!).

Anyway, distractions aside, I still needed to do my presentations which were immediately before and after lunch. Fortunately, they went well. You can see them (along with other presentations I've done) at private.mcanerin.com.

After this, I was exhausted and pretty much just went to sleep, since I had to be up at 4AM the next morning to catch my flight.

All in all, it was a very good trip, and I no longer hate Miami... As a matter of fact, I think I'll be back next year. Good job, Nacho!

Ian

Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada

Well, I just got back from Whitehorse - it was great! Whitehorse is the capital city of the Yukon Territory of Canada, and the most north I've ever been.

For those of you more familiar with US geography, the Yukon is the Canadian Territory that is right beside Alaska. As a matter of fact, the Klondike (of the famous Klondike Goldrush fame) is roughly the area that is the border between the two. Goldrush history pretty much defines the area.

Since it's pretty far north, my general concept of the place before visiting was freezing snow in the winter, and mosquitoes in the summer. Well, I can vouch for the mosquitoes, at least. But there is more, of course.

The city is surprisingly small - you can walk from end to end in less than an hour. It's very much a government and tourist town. I was there giving a seminar on Web 2.0 for the government, but also took some time to act as a tourist.

Some Highlights and Observations:

North of 60 is also known as "The Land of the Midnight Sun" - and it's true. This is a pic of my watch (and the town) a few seconds after midnight, and below is a picture of me around roughly midnight. I was able to walk around town and take photos in the natural sunlight until I went to bed at around 2AM!

Food: I always try to eat locally whever I travel, so I made sure I tried some local stuff - I had Muskox and Halibut at the Klondike Rib and Salmon BBQ, Caribou at the Westmark, and Bannock (Indian bread) at the Talisman, a Native-owned eatery. But for the life of me, I could not find sourdough pancakes anywhere! Weird.

Housing: During the building of the Alaska Highway, they ran out of space for all the workers, and the Log Cabin Skyscraper was born. There is one of these in Whitehorse, and it's a very strange sight indeed. Another interesting site was the use of sod on many of the log buildings - yup, that's grass growing on that roof!

Entertainment: Well, although the most popular pastimes in the area appear to be hiking, fishing and partying until the sun goes down (about 6 months from now), I was tired, so I just took in a show - The Frantic Follies, as vaudeville review (including CanCan Dancers) based in the Westmark Hotel. One of my favorite parts was the rendition of the "Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service (a famous writer of the Canadian north), and the very, very funny skits involving audience members.

You know, between the belly dancers in China and the CanCan dancers in the Klondike, I'm starting to notice a pattern in my travel entertainment. I sure hope my wife doesn't...

Shopping: I like to buy local souvenirs, of course. I got the kids some cool prospecting pans with real gold dust and my wife a necklace made from genuine mammoth ivory. For myself, I bought a soapstone card holder with an inukshuk on it, an ulu (traditional Inuit knife) and a nice shirt from The Main Man.

One thing that stood out clearly while shopping that that all the shop personnel were genuinely friendly and helpful, not only for their own wares, but in directing me to other shops when they didn't have what I was looking for. The salesgirl at the Main Man even phoned all over town on my behalf in order to help me in my (ultimately failed) quest of sourdough pancakes. She really went above and beyond, and it's appreciated.

History and Culture: Well, it's a small town, and fairly recent by global standards, so there isn't a huge history, but what there is, is wild and fascinating (kind of like a colder Las Vegas). The goldrush, cabin fever, ruthless criminal gangs, fearless NWMP (Canadian Mounties), etc.

They do have the orginal cabin the Sam McGee lived in - that's cool.

The poetry of Robert Service ("The Bard of the Yukon"), is a very interesting series of stories that tell about life back then. Read them - they are worth it. My favorites:

The Cremation of Sam McGee (funny)
The Law of the Yukon (tough)
The Men That Don't Fit In (my favorite - sad, though)
The Ballad of The Black Fox Skin (traditional myth)
My Friends (really good - another huge favorite)

Actually, I like almost everything he wrote (19 books of verse), but that's a good sampler. The actual book I bought was "The Best Of Robert Service".

Trivia: in the local parlance, if you are not native, you are either a "Sourdough"(tough and experienced local/prospector type) or a "Cheechako" (technically a foreigner, but generally just a spoiled, lily-livered, city-folk tourist type...).

Ian

CSMT Day 7, SES Nanjing Day 1

Yay! SES Nanjing begins!

This morning, the members of the CSMT tour are met at the door by Inway Ni, the China-side organizer of the conference from TimeV/ISAS (Internet Society of China). He's a really great guy.

After signing in, I went to the keynote session featuring Jack Mah (Alibaba/Yahoo) and Johnny Chou (Google). I don't think anything else made the differences between China and America more clear than these two speeches. Johnny was the consummate Google professional, and Jack was the upstart "local boy does good". It was also pretty clear that although Johnny had more to say of substance, Jack was the darling of the Chinese press, and really knew how to speak to the local audience. This translates well into how each of their representative internet properties is seen in China, as well.

Jack VS Johnny - this should be an interesting battle...

Several people asked why Baidu wasn't at the conference. Were they boycotting it? I asked too, and the answer I got was that (in typical Chinese fashion) the Baidu team asked to show up as keynote at the last minute - far too late. So they were there, but not as visibly as Google and the others. That will change next year, I''m sure.

The turnout to the event was very respectable for the first SES in the country (a lot more than the first SES in the US) and was pretty well organized. The only thing marring the event was that the heat was off (or the air conditioning was stuck - I'm sure it was colder inside than it was outside) It was freezing during most of the sessions.

Some interesting facts and figures:

• Yahoo China is different from Yahoo. You can get listed in both (and should)
• Mobile search is likely to be really big in China soon
• Executives tend to use Google, Students tend to use Baidu
• Internet users in China are younger than elsewhere - averaging under 22 years old.
• Google considers China to be the most competitive search market in the world.
• The trend of search engine usage showed that the less sophisticated cities (ie Guangzhou) tended to use Baidu, and the more sophisticated cites (ie Shanghai) tended to use Google.
• Jack Mah: The very concept of search engine usage is US-centric - "asking", and is not necessarily the way Chinese want to find things "looking/browsing".

After the sessions were over, we went to the Google Dance, which was very well done, though mostly (and obviously) a recruiting drive. I got a nice picture of me with Johnny Chou and then a bunch of us (with Mike Grehan, the ringleader) left to see if we could teach some of our new Chinese friends how to celebrate St. Patricks day. With 3 people of Irish decent in the group (including myself and Mike), there was no way we were going to skip this tradition!

After many bottles of wine, many bottles of a local dark beer that almost passed for Guiness if you had drank enough wine beforehand, and some Irish Coffee chasers, it was time to call it a night.

I'm proud to say that there are now several Chinese SEM's that now understand St. Patricks day almost as well as an Irishman. Of course "It's an excuse to get drunk" didn't take long to convey, but it's the cultural communication that's the important part here... ;)

Ian

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CSMT Day 6, Nanjing

Train from Shanghai to Nanjing

Today, we took the train from Shanghai to Nanjing.

It was quite an experience, as the train station was very crowded and definitely NOT big-suitcase friendly. Since at this point I was hauling more luggage than anyone else, it was especially fun for me.

Once on the train, though, it was quite nice. The train was modern, and actually reminded me of the one in the Chunnel between England and France (though slower and not, uh, underwater...)

I was hoping to get some nice pics of the countryside, but the train was going so fast, and the sides of the track were lined with trees (probably to reduce the sound of the train), so I didn't get many pics. I guess I'll have to make a countryside tour one of these days ;)

Once in Nanjing, we had lunch, including a specialty of Nanjing - "cold salted duck" which sounds disgusting but is quite good. Then it was off to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial.

The memorial is a very beautiful park, and well worth the visit. While we were there, we met some junior high students from Shanghai, and naturally asked them what search engine they used. They were unanimous in saying that they normally used Baidu for "fun stuff", but their teacher liked Google, and they also used Google for research and study. Interesting.

After the park, we went (you guessed it) shopping. Brooke was still on a mission to find a suitcase. The thing that I noticed most about Nanjing is that it's very nice - modern, lots of greenery and parks, clean. Our first stop was a shopping mall (including an entire department devoted to merchandise for the 2008 Beijing Olympics).

Next, we took the subway to the Confucius Temple, which is more of a shopping area than a temple, IMO. Oh, I eventually found a temple, but the area is mostly a set of shopping streets ala Nanjing Road and Xiangyang Road Market. The temple, honestly, was a disappointment, especially after the really nice one in Shanghai. Nonetheless, the shopping and atmosphere was very pleasant.

After the temple area, we headed back to the hotel for a good nights sleep - after all, tomorrow is SES China!

Before we could tuck in, we got notice that there was a welcoming party for select SES guests (and all of the CSMT members happened to be on the list) so off we went. It was a very nice meet and greet, though I went through a LOT of business cards (or name cards, as they are often referred to in China).

After the party, Brooke (who is a journalist) managed to convince Stephen Noton to give an interview, and David and I tagged along. By this time, I was exhaused and almost asleep, but Stephen had enough interesting information that I managed to stay awake. ;) You'll hear all about it from Brooke, no doubt.

Finally, we went back to the hotel (New Century Hotel) and grabbed some sleep.

Ian

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CSMT Day 5, Shanghai

Confucius Temple, Luggage Shopping, Business and Negotiations

A full day in Shanghai. Our Shanghai guide, Katrina, met us in the hotel lobby early in the morning and off we went.

We had to make a minor modification to our plans, however. Lily, whom I had met on my way to China, had phoned and arraigned for me to meet the members of the company she was working as agent for this afternoon. A quick discussion resolved the timing with the tour - I'd go to the meeting while they went to the top of the same building (The Jin Mao building, which is apparently the tallest in Shanghai) for some sightseeing during it. If I was there too long, they'd just finish up the day without me. Perfect.

So, sightseeing in the morning, business in the afternoon - a good day in the big city :)

Our first stop was the Confucius Temple. Now, I'm a big fan of Confucius (most of the time) and even took an entire course in Confucianism during university, so this was very interesting to me. Apparently, "temple" is a bit of a misnomer, since Confucianism isn't really a religion - more of a philosophy. It's closer to a school.

Unfortunately, it was bombed during WWII, then the remainder destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, so it's more like a recreation of the original, rather than the original itself. But it's very beautiful. Almost all of the furnishings and artifacts were donated by locals during the rebuilding, which is very heartening.

The courtyard garden is gorgeous.

One of the more interesting views is that right across the street from the temple is a modern high school. Old and new schools teaching together - I like it.

After the temple, we went shopping in the Xiangyang Road Market. I thought that Nanjing Road was pretty good, but this place was incredible! It had a great "Chinese" look to it, and tons of stores. I was able to get some nice gifts for family and friends at some good prices.

After that, we had another tea ceremony, which was very nice, but by now I was starting to get all tea-ceremonied out. On the plus side, I can now do a tea ceremony perfectly. This one featured 2 interesting teas called "Romeo" and "Juliet". They consist of a ball of tea, that, when dropped into hot water, expand and unfold into a miniature bouquet -just beautiful.

After this, I loaned my camera to David and went to my appointment with the Shanghai Tiens Jinquan Investment Consulting Ltd. (http://www.tiens.com.cn/) who are apparently far larger than I originally thought they were. After discussions, it became clear that we both had very useful skills to bring to the table, so after some discussion, we signed an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding).

This is not common in North America, but almost every deal I've put together in Asia has started with one. An MOU is simply a non-binding written expression of interest in working together. This is usually (hopefully) followed by negotiations and discussions that solidify the expectations of each party. Once this has been sorted out, the next step is a Letter of Intent, which is basically the non-binding, high level, bare bones of a contract.

Once the Letter of Intent is agreed to in principle by the Directors of all parties, the lawyers get to work and draft a Contract, which then usually goes through several revisions (my personal record was 23, with Samsung) before it's all finally done.

This is a fairly normal practice and procedure in China, Korea and Japan, at least in my personal experience. It's actually quite nice, since putting something, even non-binding, in writing is a good way to show that you are serious about proceeding, and not just saying you are interested to be polite or to save face.

Since this all took far longer than I expected, I missed the rest of the tour that day.

When I got back to the hotel, I found that Dave and Dale were also doing some business meetings, and Brooke was getting hungry. The two of us decided to go grab something to eat, and then went on the "Great Suitcase Hunt" (which will be a minor but continuing theme for a good portion of the rest of the blog about the tour).

Brooke, shopping machine that she is, decided she needed another suitcase to hold all the stuff she had bought. I'd feel smug and superior about this except I had deliberately arrived with an almost empty huge suitcase myself, which was now bursting at the seams and weighed enough to make the ticket agents want to bill me for another ticket. Any big city can get a little seedy at night, so I went along with her.

Nanjing Road is a very different animal at night. The normal shops close down and the street vendors and beggars move in. One of the first things I noticed was someone zipping down the road wearing some strap-on wheels on their shoes. My kids had specifically asked for these, and I'd been looking in vain up until this point, so I decided I wanted them. Big mistake.

The vendor (a kid, really) started off at 600RMB per skate. Nonsense, of course. We went back and forth for a bit, and finally, I decided that I was willing to pay around 50RMB each. After much haggling (with Brooke wisely insisting that I should hold out for less) I agreed to 175RMB for 3 pairs (58RMB each or about $7 each).

You know you have just made a bad deal when the vendor grabs your money, runs towards his friends, jumps in the air, kicks his heels and yells "Wahooo!"

No lie. He did that. Lesson learned: Never want something so much you are not willing to walk away from it, unless you are willing to pay the sellers price, rather than yours.

To rub salt in the wound, we were then hounded by more wheel vendors, each one offering the wheels at progressively lower prices. For reasons I can only describe as pure evil, one finally offered to sell 3 pairs of wheels for 15RMB (less than $1 each). I watched, ego shattered, as Brooke bought a pair "just because they were too cheap to pass up". I briefly considered beating her to death with a wheelie, but then settled for a session of self pity.

But we still didn't have the luggage. So we continued down the street until we were mobbed by a bunch of old ladies thrusting cute kids with roses at us. I made a mistake and gave one little tyke a couple RMB for a rose, and was rewarded by being hounded by the rest of them in an incredibly offensive and belligerent manner. I felt really sorry for those kids. We retreated.

On the way back, the kid who had sold me my overpriced wheelies tried to sell us some more. Brooke asked him if he had any luggage. To my astonishment, he said yes! Off his friends went to procure it, while we continued walking back. Near the end of the road, just before we were to turn towards the hotel, we saw that the group of them had disappeared down an alley. An alley which I noticed was not only dark, but adjacent to a luggage store.

A few minutes later, they came out with a few pieces of very nice luggage. By this time, I was very concerned we were buying stolen goods ("You need luggage?" *smash* "Here’s some. How much you pay?").

Further, Brooke, who I must admit is a much better bargainer than I, only wanted to pay 300RMB, not the 500RMB they wanted. They then offered to show us more luggage, though we would have to follow them down the dark alley. No way on that one.

By this time Brooke had also decided it was all too shady, and she wasn't about to support shoplifting, so we left without luggage, hoping maybe we could find some in Nanjing, which we were scheduled to go to by train tomorrow morning.

Ian

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CSMT Day 4, Fly to Shanghai

Fly in, Nanjing Road Shopping, Acrobats, Night Lights

This morning we flew from Beijing to Shanghai. This is my first time in Shanghai, so I'm really looking forward to it.

The first thing I noticed was that it was noisy again. This was almost a relief after the almost eerie silence in Beijing. Come to think of it, that might have been a temporary effect just for the People's Conference. I'll have to check on my next trip.

Shanghai is VERY different from Beijing. Closer to "New York with Chinese Characteristics", I think. There is a palpable energy and vibe you get from being here - every one of the tour members could feel it. This is a place where both opportunities and business happen! It's also a lot warmer and greener than Beijing right now.

On the way into town, the high speed train passed us at around 230KM/h - which according to our new guide, Katrina (who met us at the airport) is apparently is not it's top speed, but is the fastest it gets in the short run between the city and the airport. To give you an idea, it took us 40 minutes to get from the airport to the city, and the train does it in 8. Nice. It went by too fast for me to get a photo.

Another interesting thing I saw on the way to the hotel was an ad for eBay on the back and side of a bus. Cool. I have a special place in my heart for eBay, as one of the founders, Jeff Skoll, is a fellow canuck.

Our hotel is not bad - pretty nice, actually. The best part is that it's walking distance from the second best shopping place in town, Nanjing Road (I thought it was pretty darn good, until I went to the Xiangyang Road Market the next day). Nanjing road is closed to traffic, and is basically a pedestrian road lined with some great shops.

Since it was clear that we all had totally different shopping agendas, we split up and agreed to meet in front of a McDonalds that happened to be in front of us when we made the decision.

Some of the shops are really interesting. One of them was a dedicated chopstick shop. That's right - they only sold chopsticks! If you need a $400 pair of chopsticks, this is the place to get it from. I wandered around for a while, and was approached by people on the street often enough that I started keeping count: 7 times by attractive young ladies who wanted to be my "friend", 4 times by "art students" who wanted to give me a "free tour", and 3 times by hawkers with menus in hand trying to entice me into going to the restaurant they worked for. I kept my hands on my wallet and walked by, but it was interesting nonetheless.

I finished up early and found myself standing in front of the McDonalds alone. After fending off several street hawkers, I decided I'd be safer inside. A long time ago, I put myself through university working as a manager at McDonalds. This has had several impressions on my life - 1) it really did help my management and people skills, 2) I really don't like french fries anymore, and avoid most other fast food unless I'm out with my kids, and 3) I'm fascinated by differences in the menus between countries and areas. Since McD's is very standardized, regional differences are well researched and reflect local tastes.

I noticed 2 things right away. First, it was dirt cheap. $1 for a cheeseburger combo!. Second, they offered taro root pie, instead of the usual berry flavored one. That was too much to pass up. I bought a combo and a pie, while taking the opportunity to change one of my 100RMB notes into smaller change for some shopping later on. The pie was unusual, but very good.

Shortly afterward, everyone else showed up and we went out to a show. This one was really well done, and for $10 extra we scored front row center tickets, so I got some great shots. There were all sorts of acrobatics and juggling. One thing I noticed was that the performers were quite young (though obviously enthusiastic) and occasionally dropped plates and so forth. Rather than ruining it, this made it more interesting for me, as it made the skill necessary more obvious. But it was a big concern when they brought out the motorcycles.

Now I had seen this in Las Vegas. It's basically a cage about 15 feet in diameter, and you drive a motorcycle into it. You can then drive around at high speeds, including upside down. What makes it even more dangerous is that they will sometimes put more than one motorcycle in the cage at the same time! In Las Vegas, I saw the record, 4. It was one of the most dangerous things I've ever seen, but quite thrilling.

So the first guy goes in, and spins around, including riding with no hands upside down. Very cool. Then they bring out the second guy. Now it gets more interesting. At this point, I whispered to the person next to me (I think it was Brooke) that I'd seen this in Vegas but they had actually had 4 at a time. She whispered back there was no way they'd do that many here, and I agreed. It's just too hard, and these performers are young. Heck they kept dropping plates! Can you imagine making a mistake in a 15 foot cage at 60 MPH with 3 other cycles?

After many death defying stunts, out came motorcycle number 3. Now this was exciting! Especially when they started going in opposite directions. That 3rd cycle really made things cramped in that cage.

Then out came number 4.

Unbelievable. You had to be there. Very cool.

After the show, we walked back to the hotel, as it was a very nice night, and the lights of the city are quite beautiful.

Ian

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CSMT Day 2, Beijing

Free Day - Shopping, BeiHai Park and Belly Dancing?!

Today is Sunday, and our guide, Simon has the day off. Of course, that doesn’t mean we’d leave anyone high and dry, so we met with Ivan Yi of WebPlus Inc (Beijing) (http://www.webplus.com.cn/) and Star Mu of Pacific Net (http://www.pacificnet.com/) and his wife (whose card I didn’t get).

We went to the HongQiao Market, which is not too far from the hotel, near the Temple of Heaven.

Now THIS is shopping! The market is how I remember “Silk Street” from back in the 90’s, except it’s far cleaner, is inside, and the quality of goods is much higher. 5 floors of shopping mayhem. Clothing, electronics, jewely, trinkets and almost everything else you can think of are present, and it’s one of the places where former President Clinton and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and many others shopped during their respective visits (there are pictures of them all over the mall).

The lower levels are basically the cheaper stuff (and the knockoffs) with the top two levels reserved for high end pearls, jade, amber, sapphire and other precious jewelry. I bought my wife a set of beautiful pearl earrings with a matching necklace from the world famous Yong Hong Pearl (aka “Sharons Store” - http://www.sharonpearl.com/ ) at the top level, and some tea and CD-R’s at the lower levels. I also wanted a belt, and the result was a very interesting experience in Chinese market negotiation.

See, it’s common for Chinese companies to make a “good, better, best” quality array of goods, where the goods appear almost identical but the quality differences can be dramatic. My old belt was wearing out, so I stopped by a stall to see about getting a new one. The first belt offered (at the outrageous price of 600 Yuan - $75 USD) was a cheap Hugo Boos knockoff. I think it might have even been pure vinyl. Very often, market negotiators will start with something totally crazy, on the off chance you might be stupid enough to actually take it. Myself, I’d have been embarrassed to offer it. First step, focus on quality, then negotiate price. Otherwise, if you get down to a low enough price, you’ll never even be shown “the best stuff”. She had a bag of what looked like totally identical belts, yet the first one was a cheap vinyl one, the second offering was real leather (though only as a razor thin layer on top of vinyl – you can check by looking at the belt holes – you want to see pure leather all the way through, never any layers of material). The third one was real leather, but had a cheap belt buckle, and finally, with great reluctance (and me about to walk away, since, as I was able to show her, I already had a belt and really didn’t “need” another, so I didn’t care) she brought out a real belt – good quality stitching, real leather, good buckle, the whole works. Finally. If you don’t know exactly what you are looking for, it’s almost certain you won’t get it, here.

Then we negotiated price. Naturally, she started at 600RMB again, claiming that she could not move on it, since my excellent negotiating had put her in a bad position. Yeah, right. Rule number one – they will NEVER agree to a break-even or money losing price, so be ruthless – you won’t be taking advantage of them, since they won’t let you. Unless you have counterfeit money, the only person in danger of getting a bad deal here is the buyer.

I knew that this belt was worth between $45-$60 in the US, so I set my sights on around $20. Since we had already eliminated the crappy quality stuff, there were limits to how low you can go, at this point. But they are usually lower than you might think. I started with $10, and we haggled for a while, with the invaluable help of Ivan, Star and his wife. The final price was $18. Nice.

While waiting for Brooke to finish her shopping (the lady is a shopping machine) we discussed e-commerce in China (Ivan works for a Chinese friendly shopping cart company) Since shoppers rarely have credit cards, there are obviously several challenges. Turns out there are some very interesting tactics you can use with cell phones, debit cards (which are more popular) and, of all things, C.O.D!

Afterward, we went to a local restaurant across the street that serves fairly authentic Beijing food. I’ve experimented a lot with food in Asia and I had not seen half of these dishes. One looked like un-hardened cement, but tasted delicious.

After this, we broke up into two groups – Brooke and I in one and David, Ivan and Star in the other. Brooke suggested seeing BeiHai Park (right near the Forbidden City) so off the two of us went.

Unfortunately, the park, like the Forbidden City, is under renovations for the Olympics right now, though there are a number of interesting sights, nooks and crannies. They drained half of the lake, and we watched workers loading dirt onto a pickup truck that must have been 50 years old. Afterward, we had some tea (you can almost always find a teahouse nearby). It was very cold, just above freezing, so the tea was very welcome.

By this time it was getting late, and I had my eyes set on a dinner show. The hotel apparently has a very nice dinner show, so we hurried back. Unfortunately, the show was not on that night, which was a disappointment, since dinner shows in China are a lot of fun. Asking the guy at the desk, we found out that the most famous dinner show (A Fun Ti) in Beijing still had space, so we booked a reservation and went.

Belly dancing in Beijing. Will wonders never cease. The show also included China’s only male belly dancer (very popular with the ladies), a very pretty female belly dancer, some female Chinese dancers in more modest clothing, and two musicians. The show was in Mandarin, Cantonese and English, which was nice.

Anyway, the show was a lot of fun, and family friendly. There were even several couples with their spoiled rotten kids in the audience. One kid kept wondering up on stage, and apparently the parents thought nothing of it. These kids are in for a big surprise when it comes time for them to deal with the real world later on. In China, due to the one-child rule, kids are often spoiled, and usually referred to as “Little Emperors”. Every one I’ve seen so far this trip was also ill-behaved and severely overweight. Fortunately, it didn’t detract from the show (Personally, I think it added an interesting Chinese touch to the otherwise very middle-eastern experience). The lamb-kabobs were very tasty.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel for some sleep – tomorrow is the Great Wall trip, and you want to be fully awake for that one.

Ian

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CSMT Day 1, Beijing

Hutong,Tea House, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Silk Factory

This was the first “real” day of the tour – being a weekend, it was basically a sightseeing day. After a nice breakfast (included with the tour) we met with Simon, our guide and got onto the tour bus. The first stop was a rickshaw tour of Hutong, which is a very “authentic historical” area of Beijing, at least for one that is currently being lived in.

The area is famous for its very narrow streets (more like alleys or walkways) and 400 year old architecture. Since Hutong is in the heart of the city, this run down, dilapidated area boasts some very expensive real estate, and it was not unusual to see a new Audi parked outside of these houses, with boards leaned against their tires to stop dogs from peeing on them.

The name Hutong comes from the sound water makes when being pumped from a well – the place was established by invading Mongols (ala Genghis Khan) and, due to the fact that they were horsemen, the first job of settlement they did was to dig wells for both the horses and themselves. The homes are made in a square, courtyard fashion, with 4 living areas all pointing inwards towards a well.

After this, we went for lunch – which was perfect timing because the chill had suddenly turned into a pretty good snowfall, much to the shock of Beijingers, since it’s unusual at this time of the year. Unfortunately, I felt right at home.

Lunch was very tasty, with one surprise being that halfway through it a large fish (About 18 inches long) jumped out of a tank and began to flop across the floor. In China, the food is often VERY fresh – the tank was not ornamental – it was where you choose what you wanted to eat!

After lunch, we went for tea. By this time the snow had turned into a flurry, though it was still melting as fast as it hit the ground. The Spring Tea Art House (Chun Lai Cha Yi Guan) is a very nice place, though of course in typical fashion it manages to blend a nice tourist experience with the opportunity to spend your money. We did a nice tea ceremony, and tried several types of tea (including monkey tea – so named because often monkeys are used to collect it form the difficult to reach places it grows in), then did some shopping. The snow stopped and the sun came out just was we finished – with no traces it had ever happened.

The next stop was the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. I won’t go into all the details (anyone who has ever been there knows that it’s breathtaking), but there were a couple of interesting things that happened. First, it turns out that the Forbidden City is getting a facelift in time for the Beijing Olympics – to the annoyance of many residents, who feel that historic artifacts should look old, rather than fresh painted, no mater how skillful. Someone mentioned it’s starting to look like a movie set rather than a historical site. The restored buildings do look very nice, but I hope they at least leave a few unrestored to show people what it looked like before. Several buildings in and around Tiananmen were also undergoing restoration, and were covered in scaffolding.

On a more personal note, near the North Gate there is a high quality museum/shop with some very nice art for sale. Also there is a fellow who does calligraphy, and also happens to be Chinese royalty – he is the nephew of the last Emperor of China. I could not pass this up.

For the equivalent of $200, he wrote a note and signed a very nice scroll for me. While he was doing it, one of my companions on the tour mentioned that I was the nephew (actually great-nephew) of Norman Bethune, the most famous Canadian in China (Mao wrote a very nice essay about self sacrifice on Bethune that was required reading in China for many years) he shook my hand and asked for a picture of our encounter. Very cool. That’s an experience you don’t get everyday…

The other interesting point for me was my shadow – an undercover police officer (I assume) posing as a Biejinger that stuck up a conversation with me as I was walking in the underpass towards the square, the followed me for a while in the square until it was painfully obvious I was just a tourist playing with his new camera. He was very polite and unobtrusive, but it was an interesting experience none the less. A good portion of the “tourists” you see in the square are undercover police, making sure there was no trouble. The “Peoples Congress” is going on right now, and is the one time of the year where the representatives of the people approve the policies of the Communist Party. It’s basically a rubber stamp session, though there are some changes and suggestions made and implemented. I imagine that explains the more obvious presence of the undercover police – normally they are less noticeable.

By the way, the story about Starbucks being in the Forbidden City or Tiananmen Square is a myth – though we did spot both a McDonalds and a KFC a couple blocks away. Trust me, it was very cold and we all had the finely honed SEM “hot coffee” detectors on full alert – nothing.

Next, we went to a silk factory and got a tour on how silk is made. I asked for (and was given) a raw cocoon as a souvenir – kind of cool. I recommend the tour – silk making is fascinating. After the tour (and requisite shopping experience – I got a very nice handmade silk shirt) we went for supper, during which a fairly lively discussion on the nofollow tag and the idea of the SMA-NA certifying SEO training programs was discussed, then off to bed.

Ian

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