December 2011: Apple MFi Development Summit in Shenzhen, China:
I made it back to Shenzhen - only five days this time. Same hotel, new(ish) problems - but at least my boss is here and already at the hotel for this trip.
This time round I made it all the way to mainland ferry port (the correct one...) before anything went wrong. And again there are taxi issues.
I contact my boss, who has been assured that the taxi is there waiting for me. They know my flight and ferry schedule as I've been sending updates (yay, Kindle again). I confirm that I am at the right ferry port, but there is no sign of anyone waiting for me. Another call (company phone for this trip). My boss has been told he definitely there, and is there and has a sign with my name and the company name on it. I wander round the port, and end up just outside just to see if he's decided to wait there - no luck, and to top it off I'm not allowed back in to wait. Third call; my boss has now been told the taxi driver is running a bit late, but will be here in ten minutes. As this is the third time she has called to see where he is, neither of us are happy that we weren't told this to start with - or at least told they don't know.
Ninety minutes pass - this is a very long ten minutes late (from the thirty minutes I spent going round after arriving). During this time all the regular taxi drivers are offering me lifts (for the usual fee of course) or to look after my luggage (I don't think so), but they slowly dwindle in numbers as it gets dark, and the last ferry arrives for the evening (this was about an hour after I arrived). A final call out to my boss, and I'm told to just get one of the taxis that are there and make sure I have a receipt from them. There's only one left at this point - from 10/12 when I first arrived, so I give him the hotel address and promptly get scammed again when we arrive - 400RMB for what must have been a six mile journey. At least the hotel is sorted fairly painlessly this time.
The first day was spent getting the lab ready for inspection - which ended up being postponed due the inspectors being on a delayed flight. At least everything should be nice and ready for it.
The guys at the lab decided to take us out for a meal - MoMoTeas again although I don't complain. We're then taken to what can only be described as a karaoke club called KTV - except instead of one big area on each floor, the building is split into a huge number of medium sized rooms. Each room has a large TV for the music video and lyrics, and a smaller touch-screen monitor for selection etc. Three decent sized bottles of vodka were bought out, along with a small bottle of whiskey to share, all to the delight of my boss; this is going to be a fun night.
I reluctantly (honest...) did my share of singing and more than my share of losing at the drinking games, I think the main one was similar to Yhatzee. Quite a way through, one of the engineers tried to get my attention while I was 'singing'. Thinking she wanted to top up my drink, I smiled and waved to say I was ok and just carried on. What I later found out is that she was trying to tell me my boss was filming me on her iPhone... ah well.
The next morning there is a slight hangover, and the inspection. Luckily it all goes well and it's not long before we're back near the hotel exploring the local restaurants. After finding one that had picture in the menu (none of the places outside the immediate vicinity of the hotel had any English at all) we sat down to eat what I guess was a mix of beef and pork strips with a selection of fried veg. It was only after we'd eaten that I noticed a meat stand outside that had a shaved and bisected dog on meat-hooks... loverly...
The last three days were spent at the summit, listening to what new things are being introduced and all sorts of other marketing information. I also bumped into a few customers that I regularly email, so it was good to put faces to names and companies.
Next to the Summit was a fairly decent shopping centre, a little larger than the main complex in either Basingstoke or Woking. I spent the breaks walking round stretching my legs, and seeing just what weird and wonderful shops there were (a far larger variety of shops than the shopping centre I went to before).
At the end of one of the days, some of the Apple team took us to a fancy dinner - intending it to be a dim-sum type place, but ended up being far more up-market. One of the delicacies bought out was a 'Century egg' or pidan. Watching the reactions of other people trying to eat it (yes, trying...) I decided to pass (only Scott ate it without baulking).