Just a quick post about our socializing this past week.
On Wednesday, Muir and I traveled to a trendy shopping area close to the area where I work called Sanlitun. Muir's language partner, Nora, had invited us to attend a presentation (in English) hosted by an international common interest group under the moniker of "Web Wednesday." The group has a small chapter in Beijing and last Wednesday they met at a Belgian-owned bar called Nearby Tree. The topic was group buying (think Groupon) and the speaker was the Korean CEO of a group buying aggregator who extolled the potential profitability of the future of group buying services in China. Neither Muir nor I were impressed with the speaker's argument. As the moderator noted, the explosive growth the speaker talked about could also describe the increase in China's consumption in general, not just with regard to group buying. We met a few characters after the presentation, and will probably attend the next Web Wednesday. Hopefully, it will be more compelling.
On Friday, Muir and I had dinner with some Aruba employees since a few folks from the Sunnyvale office had been in town during the past week. We again ventured to Sanlitun and dined at a Mexican restaurant called the Saddle Cantina. Everyone had appetizers and frozen margaritas. Unfortunately, the drinks proved too much for the Chinese HR woman who fell ill and had to leave early.
On Saturday night, Muir came with me to Flow's offices while Gontran (Flow's CEO and my boss) and I met with an Australian client. Afterwards, the four of us went out for dinner at a Malaysian restaurant near HouHai called Cafe Sambal. The restaurant was located in an unpretentious hutong and the food was expensive and only of fair quality. Muir did a great job socializing and I was glad that he was there to meet my new boss.
Did the Sunnyvale folk tell you about the earthquakes we've been having around here?...mostly in Berkeley.
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