And Work Begins... 04.09.09

View from my Desk

Welcome Party

Well it's Thursday and we are 3 days into working for EDSA Orient. It's been an adventurous week to say the least. We started work at 9am on Tuesday morning. We were greeted by all the employees as we sat in the reception wondering if we had any sort of orientation or if we would go straight to work. Well, it was straight to work. First on the agenda, draw a free hand perspective/birds eye view of a project that is being constructed in South China. I haven't drawn a perspective in years so it definitely took a couple tries, but by Wednesday morning I had it complete and I guess it looked semi decent. The second day i had sections to draw, and today i was drawing some design concepts. Needless to say, we hopped right into the swing of things and there are some really cool projects going on here.

They had a welcoming party for us on Monday afternoon which consisted of a thousand types of candy, chips, and soda lined all along the table. We all made speeches about ourselves so i'm wondering how much of mine was understood. I would have to say that now i know how the employees from EDSA Orient feel when they come to our office. It has been one of the most challenging weeks I have endured, but as we keep telling eachother, it is a good challenge. We all went out with our studios to lunch (i went out for 2 lunches). They were ordering true chinese (chicken feet, fish head soup and such). My big meal was with studio yesterday when we ate ox stomach. It was actually pretty good. My studio is very young and very nice. I have an awesome view from my desk overlooking the city, so i can't complain.

We have also been thrown into the mix of meetings and such. Aaron had a meeting across town yesterday, greg took a train ride outside of the city this afternoon for a meeting tomorrow, and I'm scheduled to go on a trip Saturday & Sunday to southern China for a new project meeting. Should be interesting. All and all, work has definitely been a challenge, but i think we are moving into somewhat of a routine.

We also joined a gym connected to the office. Aaron, Nicole, and myself went to run on the treadmill, swim, and hit up the steam room/sauna this evening. Walking around naked is no big deal around these neck of the woods. Needless to say, there was too much wang! It's a nice gym though; nice pool, facilities, locker rooms and such.

The smog has finally gotten to me. I've been kinda sick the past few days, i had an awful sinus headache that lasted about 1.5 days and now i'm over it, but my throat hurts a bit. Nicole read in her lonely planet book that a day in Beijing is like smoking 70 cigarettes. We'll slowly get used to it!

Anyway, that's a quick wrap on the past couple days. It's pretty much been work and coming home and crashing. We are still not sleeping in, but we are slowly sleeping later than we were a few nights ago. We are looking forward to tomorrow evening as some of the employees want to take us out on the town! Hope all is well back home and we'll catch up soon.