Team Building 2013 - Wuzhen

It is mandatory for companies to have an annual team building event for its employees.  We allocate a portion of our annual budget to this offsite, overnight event.  This year about 200 of us headed on a 2 hour bus ride to Wuzhen.  Wuzhen is considered a 'water town' since its buildings are built alongside canals to assist in transporting people and goods throughout.  

Token toll booth heading into the area.

The buses stopped for lunch about 15 minutes from the hotel.  I'm not really sure why we didn't eat at the hotel but as with many things, you just don't ask since there probably isn't a logical answer.

Group #9 organizing for the team photo.

During lunch we were organized into our groups for the afternoon's team-building activity.  The event was a treasure hunt through the water town area.  The teams each had 10 people with one member being a foreigner that would have the pleasure of eating the local food (e.g. stinky tofu).  It ended up being a great way to tour the city.  Albeit a little fast for some who wanted to soak up the sights.  

A couple of my work team members.  

Walking out to the 'town' area.

Getting our bearings.

Every tourist location has to have a pagoda.

The attraction of Wuzhen is the water town concept and it being old.  It was about 100 years old - not really old like we would think but they thought it was.

Small streets made for walking only.

This was a ricey cake thing.  It wasn't too bad.

Lots of nice bridges over the canals.  Also many couples on boats
getting toured around the city.

Map of Wuzhen.

One of the scavenger hunt findings.  An old
'British' like mailbox.

Many pictures being taken with the nice walls and scenes.

Photo opportunity.

Restaurants and bars along the canal.

Night life was quite but the building were beautifully lit.

After a night of dinner and drinks we had a really bad breakfast and heading to Nanbei Hu.  Nan = North, Bei = South, Hu = Lake.  But first we did some cherry tomato picking and eating.  It was an interesting event  where we were given a bucket and then told to go pick tomatoes.  They were safe to eat, so we were told, and they were sooo sweet and yummy.

Tomato and other veggie greenhouses.

Simon about to eat one.  Not the red one!!

Ziad through the vines.

Cherry tomatoes and pickle sized cucumbers.

 Then we had lunch near the lake and given about an hour to tour.  So many of us rented a power boat for $5 each and had a 30 minute ride around.

Zong Zong, John and me.

Some locals enjoying some water sports.

Another group of colleagues enjoying a boat ride. 

Boss's American BBQ Party

My team is comprised of half foreigners and half local engineers.  To help build team relationships I had a cookout at my house.  The theme was an American BBQ - mostly since for my birthday Yangmei bought the family a gas grill.  

About 20 engineers with their families showed up so about 40-50 people total.  We had a great time eating, playing, jumping on the trampoline and getting to know each other a bit better. 

Kids and people from all over the world - USA, Canada, New Zealand,
Shanghai, England, Egypt, ...

All of the local engineers live in apartment buildings so dwelling being a 'villa' with a yard is unique to them.  

Yangmei bought a Majong table here in China.  This was it's first accurate use.

Pretty intense game.  In the parks around Shanghai you can see crowds
of 20 people around a Majong table watching the action.

That is our trampoline - donated from a neighbor but huge fun (as you can see)!

They even had dessert on there - Magnum Ice Cream bars.

There was a variety of foods brought by the guests.  I asked them to bring a traditional food from their country.  So there were many fun treats.

I should have gotten a photo earlier of the cheeseburgers but I was too busy
cooking them to photograph them...

Jinqaio 8k Running Race

Shanghai, or China, is not known for their runners.  There are about 25 million Chinese and less than a million foreigners but the you see about the same amount jogging.  The locals also like to walk while hitting themselves, walk backwards and wave their arms alot.  So when it comes to an actual organized race, they are anything but organized...

This race was about 200 meters from our house so there was no excuse to miss this one.  We live in Jinqaio, aka-Green City, where there are many foreigners.  

This is the second race that I've entered here in Shanghai so I knew a little more what to expect.  For example, the race organizers don't put the fast people in the front.   As a result, the front-runners will run for about 1k then walk the rest.  Runners find it like running for your flight in a crowded airport, you have to dodge all the walkers - and most of them are walkers.

The local media was invited.  They were standing in front of the racers within seconds of the starting gun.  When the race started they moved partially to the side so the runners had to navigate around them.

Here is the media.  I don't watch the news so I didn't see the
coverage.

This was a celebrity in the yellow shirt, no idea who.

It seemed like most runners were excited to have this guy in the race.

We were on the Baobei team.  It is a local charity for Chinese babies that need life-saving operations.  Each one of us had a 'cape' of the sponsored baby.

This is Angelina, she was born with an esophagus that wasn't
connected  to her stomach.  The surgery at birth was botched
 so the donations were going to her new surgery.

 

This kids did the 2k distance, Dad did the
8k (about 5 miles)

Our capes.

The locals love flags at races.  It was a fun atmosphere.

Science and Technology Museum, Pudong

There is a great museum close by to our house called the Science and Technology museum.  It is on Metro line 2 and is also famous for the 'fake' market.  The fake market is where you can buy every type of Gucci bag, polo shirt or Oakley sunglasses for less than $5-$10 but it's all fake.  That will be the topic for another posting.  This one is about a day out at the museum.

The front of the museum

The back of the museum is very unique with a large glass ball
in the center.  (photo from internet).  

An amazing collection of taxidermy animals in action poses.   

North American scene with deer, elk and turkey.

This was a wolf enjoying a venison dinner.

The walk through the museum was very well done with a
rain forest-like area.

This robot was one of the highlights of the visit.  He would hand you a rubics cube for you to mix up.  After you think that there is no way that he can solve it, you place it in his hand.  He pulls it in, observes it for a couple minutes and then proceeds to turn the squares to solve the puzzle in a minimal amount of moves.

Handing us back his proud completion of the cube!

Here is the finished product.

Mom's favorite section, the spiders!  Many hands on exhibits
for us to play with.  They even had real spiders in drawers,
kinda sad actually.

This was in the genetic engineering section.  They are very proud of their
progress when it comes to food modifications.  This is a mouse with a human
ear on its back ---- I'm sure that's tasty!

A two headed cow.  Not the most productive part to have more than you need.

In the lobby they had some impressive dinosaur skeletons.

This is just a small sample of the museum.  It was quite impressive and included a space section, IMax theaters, exercise exhibits for testing coordination, environmental sciences research etc.