Another day in Paradise :)

Finally some time to sit down and write about the first couple of days in the hotel. As expected, the experience is very eye opening and very exciting! From the referral to VIP guests as "Big Potatoes" to the meetings that are translated into Chinese (or English of course) and therefore take twice the time. Really cool all together and exactly the thing I was looking for!

Monday morning I started work and was welcomed by the Exec comittee in a meeting together with 2 other expats that started the same day as I did. All together we are 5 foreigner now in the hotel and the rest is Chinese. Everyone (95%) speaks English, even though sometimes it is hard to really communicate clearly and quickly because it takes time to explain yourself, choosing the right words etc. Still, THEY really want to learn and are literally waiting for you to tell them something or show them something they don't know.

After the meeting I walked into my office and a girl came to see me and said "Hi I am Wendy, I am your secretary :)" So I introduced myself and went on. 5 minutes later I got introduced to Annie, who claimed to my secretary.... wait, hold on... I thought Wendy was my secretary?.... "right, but you have two secreatries boss, a Senior and a Junior"..... OOOOHHH, OK... duhh, why didn't i get that in the first place. Seems like that kind of stuff is very common here. LOTS of staff. This actually makes it nice, there is a huge opportunity to do a real good job, there is more than enough labor and they are VERY willing to learn. Just take the time to teach and I think we can do really well.

Tonight I went out to Puxi with the chef. Chef has been around the block in many asian countries and knows his stuff. So he took me to a Chinese contemporary restaurant where we had a couple of dishes and a couple of beers. We could have had 10 hookers each if we wanted, but that's besides the point. It was really nice to get out of the hotel this evening and just relax and talk about all kinds of things. We have been doing that this week almost every night. The director of Sales and Marketing is a German guy, very nice (I know, hard to believe, but really, very nice guy ;) and then there is Dean, director of rooms from Australia. Also a young guy, very much fun! I think we can have some good times all together. It will take 2-3 months to really work hard and get our act together, and after that I think we can all get out sometimes and tear it up a little!

Ok, many more impressions, but it is time to go to bed, another early morning tomorrow and a LONG night tomorrow evening. Going to a party at 3 at the Bund, appearantly THE place to be for luxury and high end part... I LIKE IT A LOT! And then Sunday I am meeting Jin and TingTing, which I am really looking forward to. I havent seen Jin since we left the MBA class in '04.

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