Taiwan - Day 2 (Happy New Year's)

The National Theater at Memorial Hall Square

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Unfortunately my sleep didn't get much better this past evening.  I'm probably drinking way too much tea at night.  Steph met me for breakfast near the hotel, for $1 eggs and some pork thingie, which were quite delicious.  We then met up with her mom to walk around a local traditional market.  Supermarkets are not very common, so most people shop at traditional markets, where the food is fresher.  So fresh that there were lots of live chickens in the area.

Ready to slice the head off a duck at lunch

We had a lunch with the family had a well known Peking Duck restaurant in the area, a reservation that had to be made two months ago.  The duck was outstanding.  Other side dishes that we consumed family style included frog legs and fish heads.  We had a ton of leftovers, which ended up being a dinner for the evening too.  After lunch, Steph and I walked back to Memorial Hall Square which we had previously passed through at night.  The area featured the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, a theater, and a concert hall.  There was a huge event going on with stages set up, celebrating the 101st year anniversary of Taiwan.  I really enjoyed this area because the architecture seemed so traditional and stood out from the more standard city landscape I had been exposed to thus far.  We also took a walk through the Botanical Gardens afterward right before it closed, and then got some tea in the museum attached to the Gardens to relax after a long day of walking.

Let the New Year's drinking begin

As mentioned, dinner was mostly leftovers in the family apartment, with a few additional food items added in.  We also had lots of whiskey and ice wine, which were poured into cordial glasses.  Toasts seem to be the traditional way to drink.  Before taking almost any sip, it seemed like you were supposed to raise your glass either for the whole table or specific people, wish them good health and then take a sip with them.  We went through a lot of drinks this way, and it was good times throughout.  It's become customary for me to just repeat things I hear in Mandarin that others say around the table, especially short phrases (I guess I'm like a little kid again), to fit in and also improve my word power.   But after one particular toast, I got a pretty loud reaction of laughter and looks around the table.  I was asked if I knew what I said, and of course I didn't.  But apparently I had said "thanks daddy" to her father.  Emma jokingly commented that this was the quickest for an outsider to be calling him dad, but also informed me that he approved of this comment.  So that's nice.

However, things got a bit more awkward for me in a less pleasant way a little later when her mom asked me how often I drink.  I tried to deflect the question with a joke, and a trip to the bathroom, but the question came up again later, so it seemed to be pretty serious to her.  I really didn't know how I was supposed to respond here.  As my faithful readers probably know, I do enjoy the occasional adult beverage.  From two days in Taiwan, I could tell that her dad and sisters' significant others all seemed to be enjoying lots of drinks as well.  However, since Steph rarely drinks and since probably my biggest goal for this trip is to leave having made a good impression on the family and do nothing to offend anyone, I lowballed the answer with "maybe twice a week?"  This got an angry scowl as she didn't seem to approve of this excessive drinking habit of mine.  The situation seemed extra awkward for me since this conversation was being had in front of the entire family and had to go through multiple interpreters.  The timing also wasn't great as I had both a glass of whiskey and a can of Taiwanese beer open in front of me.  To show that I'm not a complete alcoholic, I decided to stop drinking for the night at that point.  However, that may have  offended her dad, who kept trying to pour me additional drinks.  I was probably making a bigger deal of it this in my mind than it deserved, but it was a really weird situation for me because of the uncertainty from the language barriers, cultural barriers, and parental expectations.  Oh well, can't win them all.

Taipei 101 New Year's Eve Countdown

The atmosphere improved quickly as the family started building a gingerbread house, and then around 10ish, Stephanie and I headed out to New Year's Eve Countdown at Taipei City Center and left all the older people back at home to watch a movie.  Despite getting there only 90 minutes before midnight and there being a ginormous crowd, we found a spot really easily where we were able to sit until midnight, and then get a great view of the fireworks.  A screen was projected on Taipei 101 (at 101 floors, its the tallest building in Taiwan) for the countdown, and then at midnight a spectacular (although fairly short) fireworks show shot off in all directions from the building.  Really cool stuff.  We then had to fight the crowd to get back home.  Many of the large nearby streets were blocked off from car access for the night, so the crowd could get around.  We walked pretty far to avoid the first few overcrowded metro stops, and the whole trip back to the apartment only took about an hour.

I consider 2011 a really good year for me for a variety of reasons, but I'm feeling pretty optimistic that 2012 is going to be even better.  Happy New Year's everyone!

Taiwan - Day 1 (Jiufen)

View from Jiufen

Friday, December 30, 2011

Whether it was jetlag or excitement I'm not sure, but I had trouble sleeping my first night in the Taipei Teachers' Hostel.  I got out of bed at 6:30 and went across the street to a 7-11 to pick up some water and a pastry to hold me over until breakfast time.  I was then able to get the free Wifi code from the guy at the front desk using no Mandarin at all.  Stephanie stopped by the hotel around 8 am to meet up for breakfast at a Chinese cafe attached to the lobby.  Rice soup, doughy bread thing, hard boiled egg?, and some broccoli/cauliflower plate.

Fish ball soup stop in the Jiufen market

After the meal we walked a few blocks down the road to the Chan residence where I met Stephanie's mom, her oldest sister, Emma, her brother-in-law Nick, and her 1.5 year old nephew, William.  Nick was born in Sweden, where Emma was studying abroad when they first met.  He only spoke spotty Mandarin and was fluent in English, so at least there was someone I could relate to.  The three of them had come in from their home in London for the week.  We hung out in their living room for a little bit.  Her dad had bought me a winter hat, and also lent me a sweater for the day because I was ill prepared for the inclement weather that we would face during the day.

The early plan for the day was for Steph, Emma, Nick, and I to head to Jiufen, an old mining village in the coastal mountains around 25 miles east of Taipei.  We took a combination of taxi cab, train, and then a bus ride to arrive at the village a couple hours later.  Unfortunately the weather was awful (cold, windy and pouring rain), so what should be spectacular views from the mountaintop of the coast and town below was covered by clouds and mist.  We walked around the market, which was mostly covered by canopies.  Our lunch were piecemeal as we made various quick stops at random eateries along the way, including a place specializing in fish ball soup, another restaurant specializing in red bean soup (a Chinese dessert) and other stops for sausage and random peanut butter stick thing.  I apologize that my explanations of food I eat are very unspecific and incoherent, but I can tell I'll rarely have any idea what I'm eating most of the time on this trip.

As far as food goes, so far the family has seemed impressed that I'm willing to try anything, although this rule was quickly put to an end as I met my new nemesis, "stinky tofu."  When we walked past the food stand for this fermented tofu, I thought that we had walked past a dumpster used to store dead bodies.  I was informed that this is the normal smell of what is considered a delicious Chinese treat (listed as the #41st most delicious food in the world according to CNN).  The stench was so overpowering that not only did I refuse to go inside to sample the treat with Steph and Emma, but I had to stop eating the candy I was working on and hold my breath at fear of gagging on the spot.  While the two Taiwanese girls enjoyed their cuisine, Nick and I went as far from the area as possible to wait them out.

Eventually it was getting too cold, so we hopped on a long bus ride back to Taipei.  We got off somewhere in the newer section of Taipei (the hotel and their apartment are in the older section).  This area had a much more New York City feel to it, with large commercial district and lots of people walking around the streets.  We walked around for a little bit, got some tea at Birdcage, and then hopped on the MRT (metro) back to the hotel.  The metro stations were impressive in how they looked like underground malls, in how clean they were, and in how orderly everyone is to get on the subway (there were designated lines where the trains would stop and people lined up, rather than everyone making a mass push to get on when a new train arrived).

Family dinner at Iki

I went back to the hotel for a quick nap, and then headed back to their apartment.  There I met her other sister, Amanda, who actually lives in the apartment, and her fiancee who came in from Hong Kong.  After some small talk, the whole group (minus Nick, who stayed home to watch the baby) headed to a nice Japanese restaurant, Iki, in Taipei (we couldn't get a reservation until 8:30, apparently because it is so popular).  It was one of those fixed priced menus, this one came with 7 courses (I think, I actually lost count).  There was soup, salad, sashimi, salmon rice bowl with roe, chicken on grapefruit w/ special sauce, grilled beef, sorbet, pear pudding with cream, and of course flavored tea.

To properly digest we walked back to the hotel area, cutting through a park, and through the town square (?) area, which featured some really cool architecture. I'll get some better pictures when we return in the daytime.


Blog note: I'm planning on updating the pictures on my blog after the trip after I collect photos from Stephanie and anyone else that was taking pictures during the week.  For now I'm just sticking with a few of my lower quality iPhone pics.

Taiwan - Day 0 (Travel Day)

If you look closely at the 24th window from the left, you can see me unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep

Wednesday, December 28 - Thursday, December 29

The most intense travel day(s) of my life begun Wednesday morning when my alarm woke me up at 5 am.  It would take me another 30 hours from that moment before I reached my final lodging destination in Taipei, of which over 20 was spent on airplanes and another 7 in airports.

I think it's worth first mentioning the reason and timing of this trip.  Stephanie (a Taiwanese native, current UCLA Anderson 2nd year student, and my girlfriend of six months) had family from various parts of the world coming together to celebrate her Dad's 70th birthday party in Taipei.  Her parents don't speak much English, but her two sisters and their significant others are all fluent.  For this reason, Stephanie reasoned that if there was ever a time for me visit Taiwan, this would be the best time to do it.  I would have more people who I could interact with and a slightly younger crowd to do sightseeing and other activities with.  I knew it was very important to her that I visit her homeland and meet her family, so after sorting out my other logistics for winter break, I booked my tickets.  I love international travel and exploring other cultures anyway, and this situation provided a unique opportunity to make my first trip to Asia and explore the area and culture with an entire family of natives.  I knew it would definitely be a much different experience than grabbing a Frommer's Travel Guide, hitting the top 5 tourist attractions, 1 authentic meal, and then calling it a trip.  Plus, aside from my airfare, most of my expenses for the trip were being graciously covered, so who am I to say no to that?  I had prepped myself for the language barrier with a few hours of Rosetta Stone lessons, a few Learning Mandarin mp3s, and a Google Translate app.  Which means at this moment, I can say "hello," "goodbye," "may I please have a beer" and, probably most importantly, "the boy has a pencil." Anyways, back to my day of travel...

My first flight (Miami to Detroit) was relatively painless since the seat next to me was empty and I was able to lounge out a bit.  Nothing else worth reporting here.  The second flight (Detroit to Tokyo) was a little more intense, weighing in at almost 13 hours.  There was considerably less leg room and my overhead light didn't work which limited reading opportunities.  The girl next to me was nice enough to offer to switch seats with me so that I could use her light and read, but I recognized this as a dirty trick for her to get out of the middle seat.  No amount of intellectual curiosity from whatever new investment book was in my bag could get me to sit for half a day in a middle seat on a plane, so I politely declined.  At a later point when we both had to get up from our seats to let our window passenger companion to the bathroom, Middle Seat again offered to switch seats with me, this time moving her bag to my seat, saying she insisted.  I declined again, although slightly less politely this time.  Aisle seat or not, unfortunately I was unable to get any sleep on the flight.  The only movie I watched was Just Go With It which would have been a terrible waste of time if not for the fact that my goal was to waste as much time as possible.

Very important sign in the Tokyo Airport bathroom

I arrived in Tokyo sore and tired with a 3 hour layover.  I decided the only way to salvage this day was a trip to the Delta Sky Club.  As a Delta credit card holder, I was able to get a discounted one-day pass for $25, which was worth every penny.  After enjoying the free Wifi, sushi, other assorted snacks, and more than a few whiskey and cokes, it was easy to declare this the highlight of my day.  I started to update this blog entry while in the lounge but ended up going back and reading some of my old road trip blog entries.  I enjoyed reminiscing on my old adventures and it made me remember why I started the blog in the first place.  My Taiwan trip might not be quite as exciting as that, but it made me want to keep better records of my vacations in the future.  We'll see if I can stick to that on this trip.

Flight #3 (Tokyo to Taipei) was a relatively quick 5+ hour flight.  I think I got a tiny bit of uncomfortable sleep on this one, but my mind was too fried for me to remember anything interesting happening on this flight either.  Finally on Thursday night at 10:45 pm Taiwan time (9:45 am Thursday in biological clock time) I arrived in the Taipei airport.  Disembarkation and customs was quick and painless, and I was easily able to meet up with Stephanie and her dad.  I threw in a quick "ni hao" as a greeting to win him over right off the bat.  It was another hour drive to where they lived in Taipei.  As their home was already packed with other out of towners, they put me up in a hotel down the block from their apartment.  It was labeled as a hostel, but seemed fairly nice for that.  I made it to the hotel around midnight and after unpacking, off to bed for me.

Winter Break - The Sunshine State (Dec 20-27)

Santa looks on at Tara and Rob during our Christmas Day kayaking trip

The Florida segment of my trip got off to a bad start the following Tuesday morning (December 20) when for only the second time in my life I missed my flight.  I arrived at the airport around 55 minutes before takeoff, which would have been plenty of time to go through security, but unfortunately I missed the cutoff to get my checked bag to the plane by 5 minutes.  (Sidenote: A little research later uncovered that JFK airport in NY is the only domestic airport where you have to arrive 60 minutes before the flight with checked luggage.  Some have a 45 minute restriction, all others are 30 minutes.  Therefore, I would have made my flight if I was in any other airport in the entire country).  The next flight to Miami that day was already full, but luckily I was able to find a spot on the next one after that.   I was also able to switch to a seat in an exit row with infinite amount of leg room next to a friendly Aussie who kept feeding me Gummy Worms. Another bonus was Tara was also able to get out of work early to pick me up at the airport.  So although it was a very frustrating start to the day (especially considering my 5:45 am wake up time to catch the first flight), it wasn't such a terrible experience and ultimately only amounted to a four hour delay. 

South Beach in December

Since Mom and Dad would not arrive until later in the week and Tara had to work during the day, my transportation options were a bit limited.  I decided to get up early enough (7ish) on Wednesday to accompany her to her office in Miami, and then take her car for the rest of the day.  At the recommendation of her roomie Randy, I headed to the Lincoln Road Mall down in South Beach.  Not surprisingly, the outdoor mall area was pretty dead when I first arrived in the morning since most stores were closed, so I headed to the beach for a few hours to enjoy the 80 degree December weather.  Around 1 pm, I had sufficiently burned myself at the beach so I went off to find lunch for my first Shake Shack experience.  Super tasty, but a little overpriced for a tiny burger is my opinion.  I wandered around the area a little bit longer since it was starting to get more lively, before heading out and running a few more errands and then finally returning to Tara's office to return the car.  Later in the evening I met up with Jay who lived only 5 minutes from Tara's condo to check out his new apartment and to go out for dinner and drinks with him and some of his friends.  

I opted against stealing Tara's car again on Thursday, so I got to sleep in and then met Jay for lunch at Laspada's Original Hoagies for what is now definitely one of my all-time favorite subs.  My Hero has nothing on this place.  I met up with Jay again at his apartment a little later that afternoon after he got out of work early.  When I got back, it was just in time to join Tara on a trip to the Ft Lauderdale airport to pick up Mom and Dad.  Two more guests meant the condo was starting to get a little tight with four Schaafs, Randy, and his girlfriend there for most of the evening.  The next day was spent mostly running errands or hanging out around the condo and the community pool. 

Rest stop during the kayak trip

On Saturday we headed to Aunt Diane and Uncle Wayne's house around 1.5 hours north in Stuart, Florida, to celebrate Christmas weekend with them and Marisa and Rob. As expected, it was a delightful two days and I'd list it as the highlight of the trip up to this point.  A Christmas Day kayaking trek around the surrounding neighborhoods was the most unique activity.  Of course, we still covered the more traditional holiday pastimes of massive amounts of delicious food, sports on TV, church services, driving around looking at Christmas lights, opening presents, and a game of Apples To Apples.  We also indulged ourselves in a Family Feud marathon that more than filled our quota for 2011.  I will forever remember the Sloan family after every high ten or chest bump I give anyone in the future.

Merry Christmas from the Schaaf kids

We left the Turner household Monday afternoon (Dec 26) to head back down to Tara's condo for a day and a half of poolside relaxation, errands, and the occasional French restaurant.  By the time Wednesday morning had rolled around, another week of my vacation was in the books, and I was off to the airport again.  The American portion of my Winter Break was nice and mostly relaxing.  It was especially great seeing Tara for the first time in a full year, and also the rest of the family that I hadn't seen since July.  But, alas, it was time for new adventures, in new cities, in new countries.

Next stop (after more than a full day of travel and a couple layovers).... Taiwan.

Winter Break 2011 - New York, New York (Dec 13-19)

Pre-Christmas dinner at the Schaafs

With the stress of meeting with corporate executives behind me, it was time for a full winter break of rest and relaxation (and a whole lot of airplane rides).  My winter break is basically cut into three segments: New York, Florida, and Taiwan, each portion lasting around a week.  The New York trip was intended to coincide with the UCLA DOJ trip mentioned in the previous post, and a chance to celebrate the holidays with family from the Northeast, and see some assorted friends in the area.  With Tara unable to travel for the holidays, the official Schaaf Christmas celebration became scheduled in the Sunshine State this year with the rest of the Floridian family.  And finally, vacation is always better with a little international travel, so the final leg of break brings me to Taiwan to experience Asia for the first time, and also *gulp* to meet the girlfriend's family for the first time.

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

Our winter break story picks up after the second company visit in NYC on Thursday the 14th. I opted to skip the 3rd visit and instead met up with Mom and Dad elsewhere in the city for a cultural evening that included the Museum of Modern Art, Rockefeller Center, and Chipotle. I still don't enjoy modern art (nor the fact that the three of us were separately yelled at by museum security during our visit), but Christmas and burritos are still cool with me so it was a lovely evening.

Friday afternoon was the first "do nothing day" that I've had in months, and it was as glorious as I had hoped it would be. At night I caught up with the boys for some Dave and Busters and Cheesecake Factory action. As always it was just the right dose of good times and dope rhymes.

Saturday was Christmas festivities with the Muzykas and Quicks, and Dan even drove up from DC to join in on the fun. Sunday was featured by having some of the guys over to watch the Giants get trashed by the Redskins.  Monday was another mostly chill day, and Tuesday morning I was off to the airport again after a quick week in the Empire State.

Other highlights of the trip included five relaxing hot tub sessions, two winter jogs around Merrick Mountain with Hal, my mandatory stop for authentic New York pizza at La Piazza, plenty of tasty home cooked food, and experiencing the parents' new 3D TV.

New York City DOJ Trip

One of the offices we visited in Lower Manhattan

One of the biggest criticisms of Anderson and a factor in why it isn't ranked higher as a full-time MBA program is that such a large percentage of students end up accepting jobs on the west coast.  There is a combination of factors at play here.  Part of the reason is that students enjoy Southern California, and the west coast in general, and want to stay out there.  However, less students looking for jobs in other parts of the country, diminishes the number of companies from other parts of the country from recruiting on campus.  This limits the number of students from the east coast (who know they want to return there post-graduation from applying or enrolling), which could lower the overall level of student body.  A lower quality student body could further hurt the school reputation and impact companies from recruiting on campus.  Less companies recruiting on campus, means more students will end up accepting local jobs.  It's a sick cycle carousel.  This isn't a significant factor in many industries, but the one it does affect the most is in finance, where companies are most heavily concentrated in New York (and to a lower extent, Chicago, Boston, or Charlotte).

One of the goals of the career center to reverse these trends (and being spearheaded by the Anderson Investment Association) is to create stronger connections between Anderson and the investment community on the east coast.  So for the first time this year, Anderson had an Investment Management "Days on the Jobs" (DOJ) trip to New York.  DOJs have existed at Anderson in a variety of industries in a variety of cities, and involve a group of students visiting a number of firms in a day (or over a course of multiple days) to meet management and learn more about specific companies and industries.  It is supposed to be a more personal setting than when recruiters come to campus and go through a standard Power Point slide deck in one of our classrooms.  These aren't recruiting trips because the companies aren't necessarily hiring, but it is supposed to create relationships and increase students' education of the industry. 

Our trip was organized as a two day, six firm visit on the first Wednesday and Thursday of winter break (December 14th and 15th) and around 25 students signed up. I flew into JFK Airport late Tuesday night, and early Wednesday morning I hopped on the LIRR donning my best suit (not saying much) with business cards in hand.  On the first day we visited with Credit Suisse, Oaktree Capital, and Ares Capital.  The meetings were informative, but Credit Suisse was the only one who said they would be hiring over the next year.

The second day we met with SunAmerica in Jersey City and a small startup hedge fund, Loch Cliff.  I found these a lot more interesting than the previous day's visits.  SunAmerica had four people meet with us including the Chief Investment Officer, the head of trading, and two portfolio managers.  The hedge fund was the type of place I would most be interested in working at, and I enjoyed their talk the most because they were especially open and honest about their investment strategies.  Alas, neither of these companies are currently hiring.  There was a third visit with a fixed income shop scheduled, but I wasn't as interested so I didn't go there, and instead met up with my parents for a Christmasy fun evening in the city.

I left my resume with Credit Suisse, and have since contacted someone with SunAmerica, but I don't necessarily expect these visits to lead to my next job.  Still, it was an enjoyable trip.  The weather was good for a lot of walking around the city. I got to spend some time with some of the 2nd years that I don't normally hang out with, and it was nice meeting all the first years (they made up the majority of the group).  I'll probably be working with a lot of the 1st years on various AIA events and a bunch of them will be the new class of SIF, so its good to get to know them now.

Despite enjoying the trip, I was also relieved to be done with the visits, because in my mind that marked the unofficial start to my winter break vacation.

Life as a 2nd Year - Fall Quarter Recap

Tailgating for UCLA-Arizona State game in November

One interesting part of a program as short as the MBA Program is how different things change from the 1st Year to the 2nd Year.  As a 1st Year, everything seems new, you're just trying to keep up with everything being thrown at you, and soak in as much as possible.  As a 2nd Year, suddenly you're the "expert" on all things MBA and career-related, and are supposed to be a mentor for the new kiddies.  As early as this October I had freshly admitted 1st Year students sending me emails asking me if I could sit down with them for coffee and share my Anderson experiences and dish out career advice.  Of course, I find this funny because it was only a few short months earlier where I was still scrambling around wondering if I would ever find an internship.

There's a bigger range in how involved people are in their 2nd Year too, usually based on how soon they've locked down a full-time offer.  A lot of 2nd Years either start the quarter already with an offer from their summer employers in their pocket, or lock one down quickly during the busy fall recruiting period for the larger industries.  Once you get a full-time job, its easy to shift into relaxation mode for the rest of the program since grades don't really matter, professional clubs become less important, and time doesn't have to be spent on recruiting.  Unfortunately, I already knew my internship was not going to turn into an offer (the fund is too small), and there wouldn't be much on-campus recruiting in the fall. I had one interview a couple months ago, but that's the only company to come to campus that I was interested in this quarter. It's still early in the recruiting process for asset management so I'm not sweating it... yet.   Even without the recruiting efforts, my quarter was probably busier than most 2nd Years because I was still working part-time at Dalton Investments, to go along with my time-intensive roles with the Student Investment Fund, the new Anderson Investment Association, the AMR consulting project and a full-class load.
 

Photo booth at the Anderson Halloween Party

One of the more fun Anderson events of the quarter was the Halloween party.  It was fun, although it turned into a bit of a disaster for the school.  Some genius decided it would be a good idea to host a five-hour open bar event for 400 MBA students at the Petersen Automotive Museum.  We all knew something would go wrong eventually, and that proved correct as some 1st Year wanted to pose for a picture with a roped-off half million dollar motorcycle on display and knocked it over.  The Anderson School of Management is no longer welcome at the Petersen Automotive Museum.

The Kennedy crew in Milwaukee for Adam's wedding

The two highlights of the quarter (unrelated to anything MBA) were the two wedding weekends: Evan and Liz's in DC/Baltimore in October and Adam and Melissa's in Milwaukee in November.  I had a blast both weekends catching up with my college and high school friends, respectively, and getting to celebrate these momentous occasions with two of my best friends.  As part of the wedding party in each, I like to think that I really left my mark on both occasions.  As the first person to walk down the aisle at Evan's wedding, I lined up on the wrong side, and a month later I was one of the people who dropped Adam off his chair during Hava Nagila, causing him to split his lip open and bleed all over the dance floor.  Good times. 

Back in MBA-land, the end to the quarter was especially stressful.  Within a week, I was responsible for a 20 page real estate paper, an 8-essay question take-home behavioral finance final, a mid-point presentation for my AMR consulting project (30 minute group presentation followed by 30 mins Q&A), a full corporate valuation report (our group's report ended up being about 35 pages including exhibits), a 3-hour real estate final, and then finally the last day of my internship. 

Finishing all that work up was such a huge relief because of how busy the quarter had been and how much I was looking forward to winter break.  It's already been off to a good start with a Section A end of quarter party, a more routine exercise schedule, and trips to a West Hollywood comedy club, a UCLA Bruins basketball game, and a Sugarcult concert.  I'm even more excited  for the travel portion of my break starting up on Tuesday when I will be flying to New York for a week, spending a week in Florida, and then finishing the break up with a little over a week in Taiwan. 

Here's some more pictures of the Foo Fighters concert, Halloween party, a UCLA football tailgate and game, and the DC and Milwaukee weekends.   Fall 2012 pictures

The AMR Consulting Project

 

All University of California graduate programs have a final thesis-style requirement for graduation, and UCLA Anderson's version of this is AMR.  This Applied Management Research project is a two-quarter consulting assignment where teams of Anderson students match up with a specific client to help them overcome a real problem within their organization.  For the client it is a way to get cheap consulting help from business school students to help them with significant issues within their organization.  For the students, it is a way to utilize all of their business school skills in a real world situation with actual results.  In addition to full-time job recruiting, it is the most significant aspect of a student's 2nd year at Anderson.

We self-selected our teams back in the spring of last quarter.  I'm working in quite the diverse group of fellow classmates from Section A, two of whom I worked with on my original learning team last fall.  We have two students born in China, one in Korea, one in Sri Lanka, and one other asian from San Francisco.  As a big proponent of diversity, that leaves me as the only white boy.  One weakness of our team is that we're all on the more introverted side of Anderson students.  After several months as a team already, I've clearly the top 1 or 2 as far as team leader and outspokenness goes, which is something that I wouldn't be characterized in any of my previous Anderson team settings over the past year.  We've nicknamed ourselves Team Quietly Awesome.  Overall, it's a solid team and we all get along great.

We chose our client last spring, and since several of our team members were born and raised in developing countries, and since I had just returned from hanging out in African tribes over spring break, we decided to do our project with the Global Child Nutrition Foundation.  GCNF is a school feeding non-profit organization focused on fighting hunger in children in emerging market countries.  Despite having expertise in this area, and having set up school feeding programs in many countries throughout the globe, their problems are numerous, including poor relationships with their parent organization, an undefined marketing plan, and a severe lack of funding.  Our goal is that through our research of the industry and other similar organizations, to better identify their core competencies, identify potential partnerships, and create a strong marketing and communication plan to help increase fundraising, revenue generation and overall awareness (sorry for any business school jargon).

The project has been off to a bit of a slow start, however.  It took us months after we initially signed on for the project to realize this, but our main contact (Chip) who was initially setting up the project and funding it for us, didn't actually work for the client.  Chip was actually just a very passionate and significant donor in the child nutrition space who wanted us to help GCNF's cause.  This created problems, because when we started communicating with GCNF directly, they seemed unsure of who we were, what we were asking for, and did not want to send us any sensitive internal information.  Communication with the actual client was iffy at best, causing us to miss our first internal UCLA deadline to hand in a signed copy of our Letter of Understanding (basically a contract detailing what the client wants from us and what we plan to deliver) by a month and counting now.

The good news is that the communication issues seem to be behind us.  The executive committee of GCNF finally became aware of the entire situation and flew out this weekend from Baltimore to meet with our team.  It didn't make for a very relaxing Thanksgiving weekend, but it was a productive, two days of  meetings filled with lots of information sharing.  Following an all day meeting yesterday, we took them out to dinner last night, and had a follow up meeting this morning to finalize and have them finally sign our LOU.  We met with the three top executives in the organization, three people who had dedicated their entire lives to fighting hunger, which was inspirational and got me re-excited about the project.  We all wish this meeting had happened two months ago instead though, because the project deadline of late February is not very far off, and there is a lot of work left to be done with finals and winter break in the near future.  Hopefully we can build off this momentum from the weekend and start making some strong progress.


Mini-plug (since I'm trying to improve their marketing now).  Feel free to check out their website for more information and Like their page on Facebook!

http://www.gcnf.org/
http://www.facebook.com/GCNFoundation

The New Digs

Outside my new apartment, on busy Ohio Ave in West LA

It took awhile to fully settle into my new apartment, but I've been here for about a month and a half now so I thought I'd post a few pictures.  Since I was squatting in my friend's apartment over the summer, and living in furnished grad housing last year, it's nice having a place that is my own again, but it hasn't come without a handful of issues.  I like being in a different (although not as nice) neighborhood with new nearby restaurants to test out.  Overall, I've gotten used to the apartment and it's a fine place to live, but thought I'd share some of the negative and wacky aspects of this place, since those make for more interesting stories.

Living room

The biggest problem early on was with my landlord.  Albert is a sweet, old, foreign man with an endearing, raspy voice, but he also might be senile and he's not really good at running a property.  Communication is the biggest issue since he has no email address and rarely picks up his cell or office phones, and is very slow to return voice mail.  Before moving in, I was supposed to meet him to pick up my apartment keys and give him my security deposit.  I waited an hour for him, with him not answering his phone, before going home.  He later told me he was waiting for me at a different property that he thought I was renting.  I agreed to meet up with him again later that night, but when I got there, he said he didn't have the keys and we'd have to meet up the next day.  He also said we should draw up the lease and sign it, even though we had already done that a few days earlier. I've requested new screens on the door and windows b/c they were pretty ripped and also the mailbox is supposed to get a new key and lock.  But that was all 6 weeks ago, and the maintenance guy keeps saying he's very busy and will get to eventually.  I don't see that happening any time soon.

Haven't cooked as much as I'd like so far, but the kitchen has potential

Apparently the problems with the landlord go a lot further than lack of communication though.  A few weeks ago I was walking to my apartment when another tenant introduced herself to me and promptly said how sorry she was that I decided to live in the apartment.  This woman, who happened to have no teeth and later told me that she had brain damage in the past (seriously), went on to explain how she had an active lawsuit going against the landlord for charging too much rent for the amount of service he provides, and for being negligent.  She also said there are a lot of plumbing and other issues that I should prepare to see (I haven't had any major problems yet) and that I should sue him too.  So that was an encouraging conversation.

The master bedroom

In addition to the toothless woman, the other neighbors I met have been kinda interesting too.  There are approximately 15 Mexicans in the apartment next door (pretty sure their apartment is same size as mine), a couple shady people on the other side that are always taking their bikes out at all hours of the night, and then, of course, there is Crazy Carl downstairs (another old, possibly senile man).  Carl helped me move a couch when I came into the apartment, so I appreciate that, but then he wouldn't leave my apartment.  He was also especially proud to tell me that the landlord pays him $60 a month to organize the building garbage cans.  Also, every time I pass by his apartment there is a very strong odor that reminds me of a specific, illegal plant.  Possibly related to this, I see him wandering the alley behind our building and in other odd locations fairly often. 

The home office

And if meeting wacky people in my building wasn't enough, another effect of moving to this apartment has been to meet lots of even wackier people on the city buses.  Since I no longer am in walking distance to campus, and decided not to pony up the hundreds of dollars for a parking pass for the quarter, I take the bus to campus pretty often.  It's not too bad when I can find a seat b/c then I can do some reading before class.  However, if its during rush hour, then I'm usually standing between two people competing to see who has the most toxic levels of body odor. And that's a game where truly no one wins.

Summer Recap

The second of two boards I bought this summer

With tomorrow's "Re-orienation" for 2nd year students, summer break has officially come to an end.  The basic sentiments from my last post still hold.  Happy with how the internship went, enjoyed the schedule and work/life balance, and I felt I had a fun and relaxing summer overall.

Minus5 Ice Bar in Las Vegas

One of the highlights was definitely Reich's bachelor party weekend in Vegas a couple weeks ago.  I helped plan the weekend for the 12 dudes making the trip, which was a bit of work, but everyone had a really good time.  We stayed at MGM, rented a cabana at the Wet Republic pool party, went to an ice bar, had a nice dinner at Olives, watched opening weekend of the NFL season at the Hilton Sportsbook, and had lots of other good, clean, Vegas-related fun. 

The living room of my new apartment

 The other big recent news was that I moved into my new apartment in early September which was a bigger hassle than I was anticipating.  It's a one bedroom, about a mile away from where I was living before, just west of the 405.  The big change was that its the first unfurnished place I've lived in since moving to LA, which means I had to do a lot of furniture shopping.  I scoured Craigslist and made multiple trips to Target, over the past couple weeks but I'm finally just about done furnishing and setting up the apartment (still need to find myself a dresser though).  It looks a lot better now that it's set up and the furniture I got (even the used ones) is pretty nice, but its still an old building, on a noisy street, owned by a very unresponsive landlord and maintenance dude.  My hope is that if the post-MBA job search goes well that this is the last crappy apartment I'll ever live in again.  But for student living, the place is certainly liveable, and I like having the place as my own.

I re-read my post that I wrote before the summer started to see what I was expecting out of and saw that I wrote the following: "Although my main goal for the summer is to do a really awesome job at the internship (dedicate myself, make a good impression, and learn a ton, blah blah blah), there's been a list of other things I want to do. . . Things like spending more time exercising, reading, hiking, exploring LA, going to the beach, playing guitar again, catching up on tv/movies, or even trying out some new hobbies (more surfing perhaps?)"

As these things usually are, it was a mixed bag of what actually happened compared to the goals I had set out.  I think I did a good job at the internship.  For most of the summer, I exercised almost every day after work.  I read less than one book.  I made a few (but less than I wanted to) hiking and beach trips.  I think I explored LA (tried a lot of new restaurants, went to various new attractions and events).  Saw a bunch of new movies, and caught up on one tv series (Breaking Bad).  Obviously didn't play guitar once, but did start a new hobby of surfing, which I've stuck to.

Santa Monica Pier with Allen during his visit in August

One other thing I wrote in that blog was: "One little curveball with some of my plans the rest of the way though is that almost all of my hangout crew from the past couple quarters have scattered throughout the country for internships, so I'll probably have to branch out who I spend my time with."  

This ended up being true but worked out well.  I certainly hung out with the few of my closer Anderson friends that were based in LA for the summer less frequently the past few months.  However, I started dating a girl from school early in the summer, which has more than filled what could have been a void in the social part of my summer schedule.  About 3.5 months later it's definitely been going well, and here's hoping that the busyness of the school year ahead doesn't provide too much of a distraction and that we can all find a good balance in our schedules between school, recruiting and the social side of things.

Anyways, I really do consider it a great summer overall.  If there is any regret it's that I didn't take more time off from work so that I could travel more, but otherwise I don't think there's much of anything I would have changed about the past few months.  I've been kinda sad about the summer ending and getting back in to the school grind, but school was pretty fun last year too, so I just need to get used to the more jampacked schedule again.

The Summer of Eric Continues

The first of two surfboards I've bought this summer

 
I'm currently over two months removed from finals, and seven weeks into my internship.  The time has been flying by and overall the summer has really enjoyable.

I've been pleased with the internship experience thus far.  For whatever reason 8 am classes were unbearable, but I've quickly adjusted to arriving at the office at 7 am everyday and have actually embraced the schedule because I am usually back on the road by 4 pm.  (This is in sharp contrast to many other MBA interns, particularly those in investment banking that routinely work 120 hour weeks.)  I like the portfolio manager (Mark) that I'm working with, as he's a genuinely good guy who really wants to teach and see me succeed.  I've definitely learned a lot so far between talking to Mark, overhearing him interact with analysts and clients, and from all the reading and research I'm doing every day.  His style is a little different than the more traditional investment managers, so not everything will be transferable when I start doing full-time recruiting, but I know I'll be in a much better place than I was a few months ago.

My new office building in Santa Monica.  Not too shabby.

I think the one negative aspect of the job is that I don't feel like there I'm not really creating much output and its tough to tell how I'm doing.  Mark will casually mention stocks he's interested in, I'll research them, compile notes and data and pass it along.  But two days later he may no longer be interested in that stock, so I'll be looking into a few different ones.  This keeps the work varied, but makes it tougher to become as knowledgeable in any particular area or company.  He always says I'm doing a good job, but knowing what actual impact I'm making is hard to tell.  I guess I'm just used to a more structured work environment at Cambridge where I created specific products and had an easier time evaluating my work.  Overall, it still has been a very positive experience so far, and Mark has asked me to stay on after classes start up in the fall and work part-time, which I plan on doing.

Outside of the work hours, I've managed to stay busy, but in a totally different way from the school year.  This has been the most stress-free I've felt in a really long time, and I've been filling the past few weeks with a bunch of fun activities.  Because of the favorable work schedule, I've been able to fit a regular exercise regiment in right after work, which still gets me home in time for dinner, just as my other classmates are getting off from their jobs.

Some of the summer highlights so far:

- Skydiving weekend: As part of my buddy's 30th birthday celebration, a bunch of us rented a cabin  in the mountains at Big Bear Lake (2 hrs east of LA).  The cabin was nice with a hot tub, pool table, grills, outdoor patio, and large living and sleeping arrangements.  We also rented a boat on the lake one day.  But the highlight was my first ever skydiving experience.  It was something that has always been on "my list" so I couldn't pass up the opportunity, and it was the nerve-wracking, awesome experience I was hoping for.  Here's the video: Skydive Video

Hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa in Pennsylvania

- 4th of July Weekend:  Went back to the east coast for an extended weekend to celebrate Lindsay's wedding, which was quite lovely.  The weekend served as a nice family reunion, highlighted by a very exciting surprise appearance by Grandma and Grandpa.  While in NY I got to see some of the old crew, eat some authentic NY pizza, go pitch and putting, hit up the LI nightlife, and attend a 4th of July BBQ.

- San Diego weekend: Last week Evan received the honor of being the first person to come out and visit me since I've settled in LA.  It was a pretty jammed packed few days as we made appearances at several local eateries, the San Diego zoo, Mission Brewery, a San Diego Padres game, hiking trails around Griffith Park, and the LA Rising concert (Rise Against, Muse, and Rage Against the Machine).  Good times.  Rock on. 

- Surfing:  I decided to make this my new hobby for the summer after attending a lesson by UCLA Recreation around a month ago.  I currently have purchased two surfboards on Craigslist (one was the wrong size, so I'm trying to resell it now), a wetsuit and various other accessories.  I've gone out twice since then, and am trying to make it at least a weekly routine the rest of the way.

Showing some Mets pride in Dodgers Stadium

- New Apartment: Nothing exciting to report except that it's a lot more spacious than my old one and has a balcony.  I'm subleasing it from a friend over the summer while he's on the east coast, so I need to find a new place for the fall quarter in the next month or so.

- Other fun events: MBA Entertainment Mixer; brunch parties; the Getty; lots of movies; free passes to Paramount lot to see Captain America premiere and tour of the sets; Mets-Dodgers game; dined at several new LA restaurants.

There are still another six weeks until fall classes start up, so I'm hoping the positive momentum from the summer continues until then.

Summer Outlook

Santa Monica Beach

"Out the door just in time, head down the 405, gotta meet the new boss by 8 am... Well, I know what I've been told, you gotta work to feed the soul, but I can't do this all on my own, no I know, I'm no Superman." - Lazlo Bane, Superman (aka the theme song from Scrubs)

Yesterday was the first day of my summer internship and when I met the new boss at 8 am, he told me he would be out for the rest of the day.  He gave me a quick overview of some stocks he was thinking about and showed me some printouts, and then ushered me on to meet with HR and Compliance to go through fun administrative stuff.  Since Mark (the portfolio manager) and I are the only two that work on this specific fund at Dalton, there wasn't anyone else in the office to give me work to do, so needless to say it was a very easy going first day.  Day Two was probably a little more typical.  Mark and I share an office and he loves to talk about stocks, and his philosophies and strategies all day long.  He talks really fast and right now he seems to be way over my head and I find myself nodding and smiling a lot and trying my best not to sound like a clueless intern.  I'm sure eventually it'll click, but right now I'm just trying to keep up with the conversation, let alone do actual work.

Although my main goal for the summer is to do a really awesome job at the internship (dedicate myself, make a good impression, and learn a ton, blah blah blah), there's been a list of other things I want to do. Over the past few weeks, especially after I heard I'd be done with work for the day by 3ish, I've thought of a ton of other things that I want to get done. Things like spending more time exercising, reading, hiking, exploring LA, going to the beach, playing guitar again, catching up on tv/movies, or even trying out some new hobbies (more surfing perhaps?).  I think just because free time was at such a premium the past 9 months during the school year, I seem to think that working 40-50 hour weeks is like a vacation.  I'll find out pretty quickly that isn't true, and I'm not going to be able to do a lot of those things I mentioned with any regularity.  But hopefully once I get my work routine down, I'll get to some of the fun stuff and have a relaxing, but still varied and fun summer.

So far its off to a good start, in my one week in between classes and the internship.  I went to our Section A rooftop party (a little too much fun), the beach, Universal Studios, a random Anderson party, the movies, Man Dinner at Spago (where Flava Flav was two tables away), Reich's new apartment, and had a really fun birthday celebration. (I also just recovered from a weekend of food poisoning, so I guess it hasn't all been perfect).

One little curveball with some of my plans the rest of the way though is that almost all of my hangout crew from the past couple quarters have scattered throughout the country for internships, so I'll probably have to branch out who I spend my time with.  That could end up being fun actually, and I'll probably try to see Reich a little bit more too.  As of now I don't have any huge summer travel/vacation plans, but I do have a confirmed visit from Evan at the end of July, a potential upcoming visit from Hal, and I will be heading to NY and PA for several days over 4th of July weekend to see family and celebrate Lindsay's wedding.  I'd also love to get up to San Francisco at some point this summer since I know a lot of people interning up there, I've never been, and it's on my To-Do list before I leave the west coast permanently.

Post-Finals Section A Rooftop Party

Following my mini-vacation between school and job last week, the start of the "real" part of the summer now reminds me a bit of the start of the school year last September.  It's a new beginning where I feel I have to make a good impression and prove myself again.  My social scene is going to be a little undefined.  I'm moving into a new apartment.  And I have a long list of things I want to get done, but not sure where I'm gonna fit it all in.  I think that makes it all pretty exciting, and right now I'm looking forward to the challenge and seeing what comes from the next three months.

Spring Quarter Recap

Section A Happy Hour at the Huntley Hotel Penthouse in Santa Monica

Just finished up my last two finals of the quarter today, which, aside from the group paper that I'll need to help finalize this weekend, signifies the end of the quarter and of my first full year as an MBA student.  I'll use this post to recap the spring quarter, and do a full-year reflection at a later time.

The classes again were a mixed bag.  8 am Strategy class was probably my least favorite of the year, but Organizational Behavior was definitely one of my favorite (entertaining professor, heavy on psychology, and a lot of in-class simulations and interactive activities).  I also took my first two electives: an excel modeling class (Decision Analysis) and Global Macroeconomics.

In the Student Investment Fund, we have moved from the research side to actually having the power to invest the $2 million portfolio how we see fit.  My role as one of the founding board members of the new school organization the Anderson Investment Association (AIA), which will be open for enrollment in the fall, has been pretty time intensive so far.  We're trying to coordinate some big, national events (a stock pitch competition and an investment conference, are our two biggest ideas).  To get it off the ground and make sure it's first year is a success a lot of planning has been necessary, and will continue into next year. 

As a quick follow-up to the Ghana Trip, in a previous post I had mentioned that we would be flying to Denver to meet with possible donors to pitch our business plan.  Supposedly we're still going to do this, but there has been difficulty with scheduling all the investors at once, so it's been postponed until the summer right now. 

So overall the interviewing and recruiting process definitely stands out the most from the past few months, but looking back I realize that I did a decent amount during the spring quarter, and it's been a fun couple of months.  For one, I felt a little more connected to a default group of classmates who have become my normal hang-out crew this quarter.  I felt that was missing a little bit in my first several months in LA as my social schedule was a little more scattered.  Not that one way is necessarily better or worse, but throughout my life (whether it was in NY, college, or at Cambridge) I've always been used to having the smaller, closer group of friends, rather than a larger, but less strong circle of friends.  Some of the social highlights of the quarter:

- My first Dodgers game
- First golf experiences in LA (two trips to driving range, and one 8-man, 9 hole round in Huntington Beach)
- Bunch of outdoorsy stuff.  Went on two hikes (Sandstone Peak, and Pacific Palisades - link to pictures below) and hung out at Griffith Observatory (we saw Saturn through their mega-telescope) with one of my friends from the Ghana trip.
- Attended my first Passover Seder, emceed brilliantly by Mr. Adam Reich
- West Hollywood BBQ/party
- Trip to Arcadia for Taiwanese food and bowling
- Meeting up with former UMD roomie, Adam Storch for mini golf
- Bunch of Anderson events (fashion show, cabaret, IFA mixer, international food festival, Section A happy hour, etc)
- Trip to casino in downtown LA
- Trip to San Diego with SIF to visit companies
- SIF Annual Alumni Banquet
- Volunteered for A-Days (admitted students weekend) at the career fair and a couple of panel discussions about the finance program at Anderson and some of the new initiatives we're trying to start up with the AIA

One final big social event is on deck for this quarter, our quarterly Section A post-finals party.  It's especially significant this quarter because since we've completed all our core courses now, Section A as a group of classmates will be a thing of the past.  Also, with much of our classmates scattering for internships throughout the world over the summer, and then many people studying abroad in the fall quarter, this is the last time we will all be together for a long time.  Should be a fun celebration.

Sandstone Peak Hike
(I have pictures from the other hike too, but they're not posted yet)

The End to the Internship Search

This is what someone with a job looks like.

It took longer than I would have liked, but finally my internship search has come to an end.

They told us on the first day of our ACT Team meeting (our career sessions led by 2nd years who interned in our specific industries the previous summer) way back in September that if we wanted an internship in Investment Management that a good chunk of us would have to sweat the process out.  A lot of 2nd years hadn't gotten their summer jobs until May or June.  Many more bowed out earlier than that to find positions in industries that had more openings.  They told us very frankly that if we didn't have the stomach to wait things out that we could save ourselves plenty of time and stress if we looked elsewhere earlier.  Even now I'm not sure what combination of dedication, stubbornness and overconfidence it was that made me to decide to stick with it from Day 1, but the warnings of my ACT coaches proved true in our class as well.  Our ACT Team of 30+ people was down to single digits by the winter quarter, and even some of those students came out of interest but were looking at other types of jobs too.  Even half of the students who had found a place on the Student Investment Fund, the most prestigious investment management activity at Anderson, had eventually decided to take internships in other financial verticals. 

So by the time mid-May had rolled around I felt that I was no closer to an internship than when I started looking in the fall.  It's not that I hadn't found opportunities or put in effort.  My resume looks pretty good on paper which helped turn my 30+ applications into 10-15 1st round interviews, a decent conversion rate compared to what I heard from peers.  There were a couple trips to Orange County, multiple 7 am interviews,  countless stock pitch revisions, a timed real estate modeling case study, and lots of close calls (I was down to the final two with both Oaktree Capital and Green Street Advisors and was pretty convinced I had those jobs), but alas nothing had turned into an offer.  As other students continued to solidify their summer plans, I was really starting to feel stressed out more than I had in recent memory and was wondering where exactly I had gone wrong.  Should I have diversified my job search a bit more earlier on?  Should I have put in more legitimate networking efforts in the fall and winter rather than assuming job openings would just materialize?  Or maybe most simply I had just misjudged my skill-set and wasn't actually cut out for this industry.

But whatever the case may be, or whatever mistakes I may have made along the way, the bottom line is that I did finally lock down an internship.  Even during the process, I drew similarities to my job search senior year at Maryland.  I was convinced I wasn't going to find a job then and thought I'd have to move back to Long Island jobless and stay at my parents' home while looking for jobs post-grad.  I ended up getting a late offer at Cambridge, which turned out to be a truly great experience for me and the rest is history.  The point being, that at that time I was very stressed and really doubted myself but looking back I can barely remember it, and it all worked out.  People who I talked to regularly over the past couple months know how down I was about the whole search, but in the grand scheme of things it'll end up being a blip on the map, and hopefully will work out just as well.

My office building this summer

Anyways, enough looking back.  The quick summary on what I will be doing in the future is that I'll be working in a research analyst role for a sub-fund of Dalton Investments, a hedge fund just a couple miles from my apartment in Los Angeles.  The fund itself is a really small long-short domestic equity fund which will have two employees this summer (me and the portfolio manager), although the company/office have several others working on other funds.  I don't know all the details quite yet, but I'll probably be starting up shortly after finals in early or mid June and working around 40 hours a week (getting home by 3:30!) throughout the summer.  Working with just one other guy and sharing an office with him will be a big change of pace from my previous experience at Cambridge, but the portfolio manager seems super knowledgeable about investing and I think it'll be a really good learning experience.  We'll see how things go, but I'm definitely glad to have finally cleared this significant hurdle of my first year of business school.

Spring Break in Ghana - Part 2

Outside the orphanage

The "work" portion of our trip was a key aspect of what made this a rewarding and great spring break overall, but much of our time was actually spent exploring the culture and sites of Ghana and also just relaxing and enjoying ourselves.  Going into all the details of the 10 day trip will take too long, but hopefully this post will give a fuller description of the cultural and recreational activities of our trip to Ghana.

The team left for Ghana at 1 pm on St. Patrick's Day, about 24 hours after our last final of the winter quarter, and arrived in Africa around noon (Ghana time) the following day. Isaac had a lot of Delta points and was able to upgrade us to seats with excellent legroom which would have made for a very pleasant flight, if it wasn't for the arctic-like temperature of the plane.  We landed in the only airport in Ghana, in the capital city of Accra.  We had a pleasant lunch at Frankie's, "the best restaurant in town," which was tasty and had air condition, but was basically a diner.  Afterwards we did a major grocery shopping trip to get food for the week since we didn't want to trust street vendors for most food, and there weren't any grocery stores closer to where we would be staying.  Accra itself seemed more developed than I was expecting, but as we drove towards the orphanage where we would be staying, the environment increasingly felt like a 3rd world country.  There seemed to be more buildings that were partially completed (but no longer being constructed) than finished, and no real businesses to speak of.  The roads were swarming with goats and street vendors selling every item under the sun (ranging from fruit, to sunglasses, to coloring books to action figures).  Traffic was a nightmare (as apparently it always is near Accra), and it took us 3-4 hours to get to the orphanage. 

I was very impressed with the size and quality of the orphanage.  It was a two story building on a 17 acre property and had a multitude of rooms.  There were enough bedrooms that each of us got our own room (except for the two girls, Kate and Daphne, who decided to stay in the same room).  There was a large dining/living room area with several ceiling fans, where we spent most of our time, eating meals, playing games, and getting our work done.  There were no children staying at the orphanage, but 3 young men, who were watching after the building, and served as our hosts and guides for the week.  Still, conditions were far from what we were used to.  Even with the fans, we were hot and sweaty throughout the stay.  There were insects (we had to sleep with mosquito nets over our beds) and the building (less than 10 years old) had lots of structural damage.  Privacy in the group bathrooms was limited in that some of the toilet and shower stalls had only thin curtains that didn't cover the entire stall, but many of them had no privacy at all.  There was no hot water for the showers (although this normally felt pretty refreshing). The electricity was spotty, and went out for around 12 hours one night (which would make the area pitch black if it wasn't for the moon) leading to an especially sweaty sleeping situation.

Overall, we actually ate very well on the trip. Our breakfasts and dinners were all put together ourselves in the orphanage. Isaac whipped together a delicious fish dinner one night which was designated as the best meal of the trip. We had one authentic Ghani dish, Fufu, which took several hours and a lot of pounding to prepare. We ate at Frankie's on our return to trip to Accra, and made two other lunch stops at restaurants during the trip. The fresh fruit was outstanding (we ate a ton of pineapple), and I stand by my claim that the mangos I ate there were the best I've ever had. 

Latenight game of cards

As far as nighttime activities go, we wasted little time in setting the precedent for the trip.  Even on the first night, we realized that since we couldn't leave the premises, we'd have to find ways to entertain ourselves.  Luckily we had several decks of cards and multiple bottles of alcohol.  It became our nightly tradition after dinner to make some cocktails and play some games.  We usually started with a large communal game that all 7 of us could play (occasionally Ben, one of the Ghanaians staying at the orphanage, would join too).  This usually involved games of Mafia, Family Business, or Kings/Queens/Pauper.  Occasionally people would start getting sleepy and when there were 4 of us we would start playing different games (Turnip, a Arab game similar to Spades, was our late-night game of choice), and after that ended a couple of us would just hang out for a bit.  Partially because I struggled to sleep in the heat, but mostly because I found these nights highly entertaining, I was always one of the last to go to bed, usually after 2 am, and as late as 4 on one occasion.  More because of the amount of time spent hanging out than because of aggressive drinking, we managed to average a bottle of whiskey a night, but luckily liquor stores were prevalent in the closest town, Kasoa.  And although these nights had very little to do with Ghana itself, they ended up being some of the more fun, laugh-filled parts of our trip, and wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the conditions we were staying in.  Sometimes you just need to get away from technology and city distractions to get grad students to enjoy the simple pleasures of a night of games with some friends (and a couple glasses of whiskey, of course).   

Some of the children at a local village

On our first full day we stopped at several small villages to visit a couple children that Suzie had worked with on previous visits to Ghana. These communities were a stark contrast to Accra, or even Kasoa. The villages were just as undeveloped as you might imagine when trying to picture a 3rd world country. The shelters are basically just one room huts and there seemed to be way more people in the towns than there seem to be room to house them all. Many villages didn't have electricity or any other amenities. But despite the conditions, the people seem happy, and were especially friendly to us. We played with some of the children in the first village for awhile, and they seemed very receptive to us taking their pictures and hanging around.

This wasn't until later in the trip, but in one community encounter that I found especially interesting, we went to the area chief's village. The chief himself had actually recently passed away, so Suzie wanted to pay respect to the family. We were greeted very warmly when entering the village, and then were ushered into the chief's house where we met his wife, brother, and other family members. The chief's family were all clothed in extravagant robes and walked with large staffs. It's really tough to explain, but it was a fascinating experience that was partially ceremonial in nature, and seemed almost otherworldly.

Our second day featured a trip to a local beach.  It took us close to 2 hours to get there (our hired driver kept getting lost), but eventually we arrived.  We had to walk through a village of gawking locals to get there, but the beach itself was fairly nice.  There were some solid waves, and a lot of area to walk around.  We played Frisbee with some local kids, and just relaxed and soaked up the lovely weather throughout the afternoon.  The walk back to our van was a little more interesting.  The tide had come in, so we needed to pay the locals to take us back on their canoe to get us back to town.  We also may or may not have walked past lots of human waste products throughout the village, which made us question how clean the water had been that we'd just spent the day swimming in.

Boti Falls

Our business plan work started on the third day, but other recreational/sightseeing activities during the week included a canopy walk over a rain forest, feeding crocodiles at a restaurant, touring an old slave fort, browsing a food market and a craft market, a trip to Boti Falls (this was an 11 hour excursion in all, and we only spent 15 minutes at the waterfalls before a monsoon-like storm came through and forced us back to the van), and a final relaxing afternoon swimming and hanging out at the nicest hotel in Accra. 

There are plenty of more details and stories that can be said about the trip, but I think I've captured my main thoughts and impressions.  I'll let the photos speak for themselves to fill in the blanks of the rest of the stories and activities.  The link below is the condensed album for the trip (I took 300 pictures, and Isaac, with his new SLR camera, took 1,500).  Enjoy:  https://picasaweb.google.com/eric.schaaf/Ghana2011#