??! (Ni hao!)

No prizes for guessing where I am (hint: there’s a lot of Chinese food here, they speak Mandarin, and it’s not lower Manhattan or Vancouver).

In fact, this will be my longest work trip yet – 3 weeks away from home – bouncing around between Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Dongguan. I’m about a week in, and totally surviving. Having a bit more of the language under my belt each trip I take definitely helps, and at this point, I’m used to navigating the trains / busses / subways / borders crossings / etc. I’ve come to expect craziness on the work side of things, and particularly on this trip, craziness abounds.

I was hoping to make a bit of an escape next weekend and find a cheap flight up to Shanghai or over to Thailand or the Philippines, but it looks like I’ll be working a bunch, so I’ll have to stick with exploring Shenzhen. I may try to play at least a day at the 2nd Shenzhen Hat Tournament, which will at least get me out and meeting new people, and I’ll definitely make a trip back to the Shenzhen Electronics Market at some point, too.

I did manage to squeeze in a great birthday weekend before I left Seattle, though. Pi Day 2010 was spent lounging around the house, largely recovering from the previous night’s excursion to see what was described ahead of time as appalachian death metal and punk rock sea shanties; it totally lived up to the hype.

And I had a lovely crew with me at Hosoonyi for my birthday dinner proper, which was rounded out by an amazing, triple-decker pie (thanks RV!):