(1)

A water pipeline busted in hotel the other day and about 2-3 rooms on each floor were affected with very little damage. My room was one of those “lucky” three on the 4^th floor, so they arranged my relocation to the 3^rd floor.  One thing puzzled me was that the hotel manager kept mentioning he thought I wasn’t in the hotel but on a business trip to Mexico.

(2)

This coming Monday is Labor Day holiday, altogether with the weekend, there comes a 3-day long weekend.  Quite some associates showed their hospitality by offering us various “local hangout holiday packages” , which Travelocity couldn’t offer :).  Austin, TX or NYC once was on my planning list a couple of days ago.  

Friday night, we rode with David, a pretty cool American fellow associate here. He has ever been to China before for his research project when he was in his MBA program last year. 

The famous bar & club street, Dixon St. became the destination of the night, where it’s nearby the state University campus.  One pitcher of Blue Moon (the beer sounded like a shampoo product to me ) was finished up in the pool house. After that we moved on to check out a famous piano bar on the street and I am glad we made that decision, yet I wasn’t quite used to showing securities my ID.  There was one doorman saying quite an increasing number of customers showing the similar type of passports recently, “it must be the Back-to-School factor that those international students returned” I told David.  

Our Mexican friends happened to be in a bar too.

(3)

 A while after midnight, we were on a free way heading back to hotel.  Everything beyond our headlight beam covered range was immersed in darkness, which altogether with Linkin Park impulse-accelerating music added a few more adventurous feel to our speedy travelling in the late night. Yet the best only came when we encountered the moment when rain drops hit onto windshield which further fine-tuned the taste of night color.  Not every moment in our life could be so perfect,  with unexpected combination of all elements; all the moments we experienced within that section of freeway pursuaded me " it must be an predestinated event". And due to uniqueness of this moment, “I wish this freeway never ends”, said Sean from back seat….

(4)

7:15 am this morning, phone rang right beside my bed. I thought it was from Stanley. Then a voice from the other end kept saying “ZS, ZS, ZS” my Chinese name several times with kind laughs.  I still couldn’t recognize this mid-aged male voice immediately until some seconds later. He passed the phone to his wife… The local Chinese couple would like to invite us to come over to their house for a dinner and the man who said my Chinese name earlier has the same Chinese name of mine (This figure and related story was narrated well in my another blog entry last year). 

“Do you know how we found out your room phone number?”  the hostess asked.

“….Not sure”  I knew I only told a few people.

“Was your hotel having some water problem recently?  ZS (her husband) received the personal message from your hotel, and it didn’t take too much long for him to figure out what happened”

“Right….oh oh” suddenly I was able to connect all dots -- I registered my Chinese name for hotel check-in here, and it was the other ZS who's on a business trip to Mexico at the time.

What an incident!