We’ll be time shifting blog posts for a bit, as I’m heading on a plane in a couple hours to scenic Edinburgh, UK, site of WWW2006! This should be a great conference, and looks like we’ll have a number of Microsoft people there. I suspect there will also be a decent number of Yahoo and Google people, so things should be fun.

Anyway, on the off chance that you, dear reader, are actually somewhere near Edinburgh or Cambridge (where I’ll be week after next), and would like to meet up for whatever reason, feel free to give me a ring on my cell:

+44 (792) 842-7225

(or from the UK: 0792 842 7225)

Catch you in Scotland!

Last year, we at MSN Search in concert with Microsoft Research Asia sponsored a contest for a number of interns at MSRA last summer. We thought a great prize for the contest would be to fly the winners of the contest out to Redmond to come see the US and meet some of the people on the MSN Search team. I was on point to coordinate this.

Silly me.

So, most of us in the US don’t think twice about visiting most countries… usually the biggest hassle is getting a passport the first time. And typically, the biggest hassle of getting a passport is finding your birth or naturalization certificate and getting some photos taken. If you’re going somewhere exotic, you might need to get a visa… which involves getting yet more passport photos and sending in an application, photo, some money, and your passport (it’s scary the first time, but afterwards it’s fine).

Now, let’s talk about what it takes to bring three Chinese students here to the US for a week.

First off, as it turns out if you’re a starving student in China, chances are you haven’t had need to go out of the country, and thus need to get a passport. Getting a passport is a bit more of a hassle… you have to demonstrate some need to go abroad, as opposed to just wanting to go for vacation. And it takes a couple months to process. OK.

Then, there’s the US visa. It’s not just sending in an application, photo, and some cash — $100, which is rather steep for someone from China. The applicant has to then go to the embassy for an interview… presumably so that some consul can ensure the person isn’t coming to the US to work. And then, assuming all goes well, a visa is issued. And this too takes a couple of months.

OK, so the prize is delayed gratification. But that’s all, right? And we’ll ignore the US-VISIT program where they get their picture taken and thumbs fingerprinted. Well, turns out there are a couple other things I never considered when we came up with a trip to Redmond being the grand prize for some students. For example:

• How do we get them some US dollars in case they need something? As Chinese students don’t have credit cards (turns out, most people in China don’t use credit cards).
• How do we get them to their hotel? Turns out, students in China typically don’t know how to drive, so you can’t just get them a rental car. Getting a driver’s license in China is actually quite expensive
• Where do you take them for dinner? Remember the first time you used chopsticks? Chances are, it was a huge pain, and you may have asked for a fork to help eat. Well, when you’ve used chopsticks for 20 years, turns out using a knife and fork is every bit of a pain as using chopsticks for the first time.
• How do they call home? I’m sure there are cheap pre-paid cards for China or other places from the US, but I’d never investigated them. BTW, turns out that direct dial from a downtown hotel to China is rather pricey.

There’s a bunch of others, but this should give you the idea. Certainly an experience. I wonder if there’s a site in Chinese that helps explain these problems… or hey, perhaps a global site with tips in all languages for visiting. I suspect so, but all I could find was basic sites that didn’t provide any real information. Perhaps an opportunity for someone?

Gotta eat something, right? Well, here’s our quick list of places to eat. Quality ratings are 0-3 stars with *** being best and 0 being something to avoid, and price ratings are a rough estimate of how much dining for two will cost (in US dollars, including 10% tax and 15% tip). Distance is from the Finisterra, map to come:

• Blue Fin, nice restaurant at the Finisterra. OK, and pricey for the area. Go if you’re staying there and don’t feel like walking or taking a cab into town. **, $125.
• Whale Watcher, nice bar at the Finisterra. Happy hour (2 for 1) from 4-6, OK but pricey appetizers. Go there if you’re staying and want to keep drinking from 4-6, but otherwise nothing too special. Nice view of the Pacific, but you’re probably used to that from your room if you’re at the Finisterra. *, $40.
• La Palapa, pool bar at the Finisterra. Slow service, which is surprising considering the waiters there all work for just tips. Happy hour from 2-4, which is 2 for 1 drinks. If you’re there, you’ll probably spend some bucks here. Swim-up bar is a lot of fun. **, $30 + $15 per hour while you’re drinking.
• Romeo Y Julieta, Italian, entrance to Pedregal (apparently a high-rent neighborhood). Don’t go here. The food is pretty good actually, and prices are comparable to other Italian places (such as the Galleon, which is at the base of the Finisterra, across from the Marina). But they’ll pitch you for a time share while you’re there. Bah. 0 (AVOID!), $80.
• Mi Casa, Mexican, another couple blocks up the street from Romeo Y Julietas. Really good, authentic Mexican cuisine. Open atrium dining room (so you can see the night sky), prices aren’t too bad either. Didn’t like it as much as last time we came, but I’d still go again. ***, $80
• Pancho’s, Mexican. Corner of Hidalgo and Zapata, kinda close to Mi Casa (2 streets over and down). Probably the best Mexican we had there. It’s run by an ex-pat out of California and his wife who decided to retire early in Cabo. To fund his love of tequila, he opened a restaurant. Reasonably prices too. ***, 60
• Margaritaville, in the Marina. OK food, but far too expensive. However, service was good. Also turned out for lunch, instead of the 380 peso coconut shrimp plate I got the 165 peso shrimp plate appetizer — which still had 6 shrimp and stuffed me. The guy owned up to it and corrected it… so he got a big tip for chopping the price of my meal in half. I think we ended up spending 700 pesos there (550 + 150 tip). **, $80
• A-something, right next to Margaritaville (and next to some shrimp place), Mexican. OK, nothing too special, medium price. I think next time I’ll try the shrimp place. **, $40
• The Corner, just up the street from the Giggling Marlin (not on the main drag, but in towards town). A nice Internet cafe / coffee bar / real bar. Friendly staff, cheap beer. Can’t go wrong. Also, apparently you can get calls to the US for $0.35 a minute, probably a voice-over-IP thing. **, $? (we just had 2 beers for $4).
• The Shrimp Factory, Mexican (mostly shrimp-based, surprisingly enough). One of my favorite places to get into trouble. Coconut shrimp are always good. ***, $40
• Edith’s, east side of the bay, just up the street from the beach front restaurants (Billigan’s Island, The Office, and Mango Bar). A nicer restaurant, but you need a reservation, even on a Sunday. We didn’t know this. Oops. ???, $100
• The Office, east side of the bay. We didn’t actually go here — on Sundays and Thursdays they do Mexican Fiesta, which is a Mexican band that plays, and probably some other stuff. You’ll need reservations on these days. ???, $50
• Mango Bar, east side of the bay, far side (in the same line as Billigan’s Island and The Office). We ate here on our last night, and I suspect this is where I ate something that gave me a small case of Montezuma’s Revenge. Either that or Margaritaville, which is where we had lunch. A lot of fun if you want to eat on the beach, but you have lots of street vendors coming up to you — all beaches in Mexico are public, so there are lots of people right there to offer their trinkets. Prices are OK. **, $50
• Los Adobes, Todos Santos. Overpriced and average. We thought we’d get a fun, amazing meal in a small town, and, were, well, wrong. Pretty surroundings though. *, $50 (lunch)

Conclusion
This brings me to the end of our trip log for Cabo… I”ll see about not being lazy this time and putting some pictures up, but it’s me, so I’ll probably take some time in doing that. Hope you find this useful for your trip!
Continued from Part I, Getting There, and Part II, Things to Do

Well, once you get down to Cabo, you’ll probably want to do something besides just lounge by a pool and drink. Or not, but perhaps your husband will. Anyway, here’s a quick list of what we did:
Getting Money:
We withdrew money from the ATMs there. At the time, it was $286.xx for 3000 pesos. My bank doesn’t appear to charge me for using a foreign ATM, but the local bank there did — I want to say it was 7.50 + 10% + 3, or about 13 pesos for the transaction. Still, under $1.50, which is what most people pay for using ATMs that aren’t their bank. There is an ATM at the airport as well.

Note: I recommend coming to Cabo with a decent amount of US cash (say $1000, but at least $500) and getting some pesos there, and try to avoid using a credit card. Most credit cards will charge 3% on top of the transaction, so save yourself some money and use cash. Also, you can usually get a discount if you pay with cash!

Exchange Rate:
When we went, the exchange rate was about 10.50 pesos to the dollar. However, you need to be careful when buying something to see whether or not you should buy in pesos or dollars. Most people would have a 10:1 exchange rate… it’s easy for everyone, and tends to favor the vendor for the US customer paying in dollars. However, they are nicking you by about 5%. There are other times where you’ll see people offer an 11:1 or even 12:1 rate… but watch out! These guys will give you a price in US dollars, and THEN multiply by the conversion rate. For example, let’s say the bank will give you 10.50 pesos to the dollar. Here’s a quick chart to illustrate when you should pay pesos or dollars:

Price            10:1     10.5:1    Difference   You should...

1000 pesos       $100     $95.24    $4.76        Pay in pesos!

Price            11:1     10.5:1    Difference   You should...

$100 US          1100       1050    50 pesos     Pay in dollars!

In general, know the exchange rate. When someone offers a number below that rate, pay in pesos. When someone offers a number higher, pay in dollars. Now, the above illustrates that you’re basically losing $5 off a $100 transaction — which is 5%.

Activities:
Scuba Diving, with Amigos Del Mar (Friends of the Sea). It’s a dive shop pretty close to the Finisterra. The one we used last time, Neptune, appears to have gone away. It boasts the most comfortable dive boat in Cabo… and while this may be true (certainly it was the nicest I saw while out), it’s still pretty crappy. It’s just a trimaran with a covered bench seating area and a head for midgets. There is a decent amount on both sides to get geared up though, which is nice. The other boats are just covered dingies, so Amigos is a step up, but it certainly isn’t as nice as say any of the sport finishing boats or booze cruise boats. Seems that the dive shops in Cabo all operate on a shoe-string budget… the other ones I looked at were equally packed and muddy. At $75 for two local dives and $20 for rental, you figure they should be able to make some money, but I suspect it’s not nearly as popular in Cabo as say sport fishing — and divers aren’t chartering boats for $300 - $600 per day!

Todos Santos, with Rancho Tours. MK and I trucked out to Todos Santos, a little farming and art town about an hour north of Cabo San Lucas. It’s famous in theory for the Hotel California from the Eagles’ song, but I’m highly skeptical that it’s the actual one. Nonetheless, they do talk it up — with a huge gift shop to match! There’s also a bunch of art galleries, jewelry stores, and other souvenirs to be had. Worth the $45 a person excursion cost… we had thought about renting a car and going up for the day, but a shuttle with someone else driving and providing beer was a much better idea.

Shopping:
OK… Cabo San Lucas is rather expensive — meaning the prices are pretty similar to what you’d expect to pay in a US city, not what you’d expect to pay somewhere rural and in Mexico. This is because most of the places tourists go sell to only tourists, not the locals. You can buy the same souvenirs at multiple stores in the area, which includes Todos Santos at least, and probably San Jose del Cabo and La Paz. Mass-produced for-tourist stuff available everywhere includes little hand-made dolls, T-shirts, jewelry (silver and otherwise), blankets, Mexican-style clothing (such as panchos), and so on. It reminded me a lot of the vendors at the Great Wall in China — hundreds of vendors, all selling the exact same stuff, and clearly most of it was mass produced.

Bargaining:
Street vendors (both the hawks in the street as well as those that have small booths in public markets) will bargain fairly easily. Store clerks won’t as much — but they will typically give you a cash discount - about 5%. For street vendors, the easiest way to bargain is to ask the price… they usually don’t have it on the items. Then say that you saw it at the other store for less. Mexico isn’t China, they won’t go down to 20% of the actual price — it appears to be more like 2/3 to 3/4 of the price. There appears to be much less negotiation on the price of silver though. So start with half or 2/3, depending on how you feel, and come up. It’s OK to walk away… again, there are tons of folks selling the exact same thing. Oh, important note: never show that you really, really want something before you start bargaining. The vendor will know you want it and won’t move much. But they’ll move when they think you don’t care that much whether you buy it or don’t — they’d rather have the sale than nothing.

Continued from Part I, Getting There, and to be continued in Part III, Dining

We’re here in Los Cabos, and I spent the morning diving. Since I forgot my trusty log book, I figured I’d jot down the normals here:
Dive 1
Pelican Rock, Cabo San Lucas
Diveshop: Amigos Del Mar
Dive Master: Erik (perhaps Erique)
Gear:
5mm wetsuit, no booties / gloves / hood
27lb weight

Start: 2/9/06 8:58 AM (MST)
End: 2/9/06 9:23 PM

Max depth: 59 ft
Duration: 24:41
Ave depth: 32 ft
Water temp: 65 F
Vis: 20 ft
Dive 2
North Wall, Cabo San Lucas
Diveshop: Amigos Del Mar
Dive Master: Erik (perhaps Erique)
Gear:
5mm wetsuit, no booties / gloves / hood
30lb weight (+1 weight)
Start: 2/9/06 10:18 AM (MST)
End: 2/9/06 10:51 PM
Max depth: 53 ft
Duration: 32:41
Ave depth: 33 ft
Water temp: 66 F
Vis: 20 ft

Mary Kaye and I headed out for our first adult vacation in 2 and a half years… yes, just the two of us in Cabo! MK’s mom & step-father flew out from PA to take care of Laura, so we’re alone for a week! These entries are going to be a bit time-shifted… no Internet down here! Well, there is, but it’s a pain to set up, so I’m just not going to.do it. A week without the Internet… yow!

My brother Scott is currently in Pakistan, with a group of 6 others from his church helping build shelters for one of the remote villages. I just got a quick update that I thought I’d share, as it really illustrates what is still needed in the area. Bryan is the lead there, I believe, and John is the local pastor.

Bryan has some prayer requests. The most important is the physical safety of the team. They are working in incredibly steep areas where the possibility of dangerous falls is always present. Trails and roads are falling away in after-shocks. Currently they are cut off from any ground transport, even by hiking. This is part of the reason they will do all their work in this one village. A prayer concern is that a helo comes in that can take them out on the 18th. It is their only way out. Apparently communications are iffy at best. Right now there is a lot of helo traffic but that is going to decrease because the team and construction gear has already been dropped. They are also concerned about resupply. They have three days of fuel for their stoves and three days of food, primarily power bars! They are assuming, hoping, they will be resupplied by helo’s coming in. (In fact one landed while we were talking) The helo’s in their area are Swiss and German, by the way.

They are linked up now with 7 members of a Swiss team making a total team of 14. They are building their own shelter right now and then will continue on building others. They are relieving another Swiss team who had a medical emergency.

The positives: They continue to be greeted with overwhelming grace, thankfulness and courtesy by the people there. They were introduced this morning to the villages’s second oldest citizen, 120 yrs old. They will meet the oldest sometime this week, 135 yrs old!!! The village has a population of about 7000 right now, 60% men, 40% women. Somewhere between 1400 and 1500 were killed
during the quake.

They desperately need at least two female doctors - please pray for that. Many women are injured and not being treated due to the rules about male/female contact.

Bryan reports that there are medics there from Cuba who are doing a great job with the men. Many Korean teams are in various areas doing great work. They have a great working relationship with the Pakistani military who are present in the village. They are working directly with a 22 yr old Lt. who is a great guy. Bryan said that all the military officers he has met are first class and would be leaders in any military. The military presence is necessary because of an unexpected problem. The outgoing Swiss team reported that the first shelters they built were taken apart and the pieces then sold by various persons in the village! The military is now choosing who will receive shelters and is watching over them. The officer is disgusted with the behavior of some of the village people who seem clueless about what is going to happen to those who don’t have shelter.

Praises: Team morale is high. No one is sick. They have been keeping their rules about drinking only bottled water and eating very carefully, mostly their own stuff. The Swiss teams have had major sickness due to not being so careful! As Bryan and I talked the weather was beautiful but about to change. They are expecting rain over the next three days. (not snow yet even though the altitude is 6000 feet where Bryan was talking to me.) I told him of my prayers about blocking with the snow - he reports that appears to be working! Keep on praying and commanding the weather.

Confidence level is high that they will be able to get enough shelters built to protect this entire village. One other good news thing - one of the guys brought a whole bunch of balloons with him (I think it was Scott) and that has proven to be important. They have been handing out balloons to kids and playing with them and the whole village has turned out to both watch and play themselves. I gather that play has been hard to come by with so many dead.

That’s about it. Bryan’s main concerns are that the guys keep safe as they fatigue over the next 10 days or so, that they receive resupply on food and fuel, and that they get timely helo transport out so they can make their return plane trip!

I think that is about it for the summary. They feel our prayers and we need to continue to pray in earnest. God keep them and help us all to hold them up.

John

It was indeed Scott who brought the balloons; I was down visiting him last week while he was priming them. i wasn’t sure if the kids there would appreciate it, but looks like they are, which is just great. He also brought 3 0-degree sleeping bags from Wal-Mart for $40. His plan was to give two to whomever needed them back there, and when they were done in two weeks to leave the other.

This has been a pretty bad year as far as natural disasters go. We started off with the tsunami that killed well over 200,000 people. We then had Hurricane Katrina, which while it only killed about 1,000 it pretty much destroyed New Orleans. And then we have the earthquake. The current tally is about 80,000n dead. What’s worse is that unlike the tsunami and hurricane, the survivors have winter coming which is likely to kill many more.

I’m pretty proud of my brother for doing this. It’s something to spend your two weeks of vacation building emergency shelters in December, especially in an area that’s been in the news due to the conflict over Kashmir between India and Pakistan. But it needs to get done, and I’m really thankful that Scott is able to help how he can — from building shelters to balloon animals.

Today, we did the Forbidden City / Great Wall trip. The Forbidden City is amazing, and the Chinese are rennovating it in preparation for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing . They’ve done the west half it looks like, and are working on the east half and will then do the north. I’ll see if I can’t upload some pictures to tell the difference, but when it’s done, it’s going to be fantastic.

I’ll talk more about this later, but first, let me tell you about the Ju Yong Pass.

Back in May, my pal Nick and I went up to the top of the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. I thought it was steep. It was. However, en route to the Ju Yong Pass, our guide laughed at me, at which point everyone else did too.

Then we saw the climb. And it is a climb.

The wall near the Ju Yong Pass is actually a large oval around the pass (which contains a decent sized river). We climbed up one section of the oval to the top, and then down again. You could also climb down the other size and make a loop. The high point we went to was the high point for the region, and somewhere between 1500 and 2000 feet up we estimate. It’s a hike. The nice thing is that there are very few merchants hawking things, as it’s not a high tourist area (and I thought Mutianyu wasn’t bad). But the climb is physically challenging. I’m not in great shape, and while I did heave my butt up there, I was puffing. But once at the top — woot! It’s always a great feeling to make the climb.

Until you see the guy in a sport jacket chain-smoking and holding his girlfriend wearing a miniskirt and 3-inch heels hop on up.

Yeah, OK, some people are in better shape than others. Maybe I do need to join that 20/20 program

We headed down, and met our hosts at a local market for some shopping, then went to the Duck King restaurant (I’ll need to track down the Chinese later) for Peking Duck. I’m normally not a fan of duck, as I find it too fatty, but the stuff there was amazing. Quite good. Although they also had this lobster-meat that was more like spaghetti or ramen that was amazing!

Afterwards, we went to Bodhi at 17 Gong Ti Bei Lu, where we had nice foot massages. This was a treat… you get a room (we had a 5-person room) where they do the massages, and everyone is chatty. It’s a nice social event. I had a lovely massage by #30… they go by number vs name as apparently it’s easier to keep track of, especially for foreigners (Bodhi is near the embassies, so they get a lot of foreigners). Apparently, you need to make a reservation as they’re very busy — +86 (10) 6417-9595. Ask for #30, she’s great, and she’ll get an extra 10 RMB. Apparently, for a random person to give a massage, the commission is only 20 RMB, but if you’re asked for, it’s 30.

We headed home, and everyone except me headed out back to Seattle. I’m here until Tuesday, and today, time to go exploring a bit on my own. Woot!

[update: sorry for the half-post, looks like it somehow got eaten. Here’s the full deal:]

Some of our colleagues took us to the Bai Jia Da Zhai Man (白家大宅门), located at 海淀区苏州街29号乐家花园内 海淀桥南300米 路西. I don’t know where that is either, but I’m sure if you’re in Beijing somebody there can give you directions. The room we were in had two large tables, separated by a large area the size of another table. This is used for some Peking Opera bits to entertain the guests. The table I sat at started with a round of beer. The other table started with moutai.

Moutai is a lovely Chinese liquor, normally consumed via a shot (although normally just half-ounce). It comes in a couple different varieties, including one that’s 106 proof.

We had that one.

Well, we at the beer table had just finished a toast, when the folks at the moutai table, having just done about six shots themselves, started toasting us. OK, moutai all around. Not to be outdone, I went over to their table and had another round with them. Then people started moving between the two tables to have a round with each other.

In the 80s they coined a term for this. MAD.

I’m sure they had lovely food there… I remember a sea cucumber and this dish called monkey brains that was really just a big mushroom. And this fried chicken thing that was kinda close to General Tso’s Chicken without the sweet and sour sauce.

Oof.

You’d think that after a dinner like that we’d be done, right? Nope! Off to Baby Face, it was! Baby Face is a new disco in Shanghai and Beijing. Chinese apparently aren’t into bars, which are just sitting around and drinking. They prefer to do something while drinking, so discos with dancing and karaoke are good, as are restaurants with lots of food. So discos are where things are happening.

We got a private room that seated about 20, and started up the karaoke machine. Those of us able to stand started to sing, and had a great time. Some of our crew took the opportunity to rest for a bit, recovering from the ethyl alcohol deluge. It turns out I can sing pretty well. At least, that’s what I believe. And everyone there. But then again, we may not have had all our senses with us.

We finally stumbled home about 1 AM and sacked out. Meetings for the next day were moved to 11, as we knew we weren’t getting up early.

Except for one… he was flying out that day. So approximately 4 hours later, he got up, checked out, and headed out for a 16-hour 2-leg flight back to Seattle. That’s gotta hurt…

Sunday, a bunch of us in Shanghai went to the final Formula 1 race of
the year at the Shanghai Circuit. It’s the second year of the race in
Shanghai, and it’s a nice track for approximately 200,000 close friends.
Even though Ferrari had a bad year, there was plenty of red for the fans.

This was my first race of any kind (F1, IndyCar, NASCAR, etc.), and I
picked a good one. The driver championship had been decided the previous
race (the #1 Renault driver), and today was the manufacturer (team)
championship, between Renault and Maclaren / Mercedes. The race was
good, although it was decided early — one of the Maclarens pulled out
about half-way through, so that decided the championship there.

Something I hadn’t considered… even though it’s early October,
Shanghai is a hair further south than San Diego / Tijuana. So it was
sunny and warm with no shade.. bake bake bake! And to think I
intentionally took out the sunscreen from my toilet bag because I didn’t
think I’d need it in October… oops.