Thursday, September 6, 2007

"Tips for Your Stay" at MSR



I got a few documents from Microsoft Asia the other day, including a few tips and pointers for my stay. I was pretty impressed with their organized packet, which included information about my lodging (a hotel, complete with maid service, and a desk "on which sits 2 tea cups") as well as location of ATMs (Bank of China is evidently very convenient, though I "need" to pay the extra service fee...what if I decide I don't "need" to?) and the best place for wireless internet in the area (depends on whether I want coffee, they indicated... I wonder if my practice of claiming a chair in the chain coffee shop and mooching internet without buying something will be scorned there...) and what a few good weekend trips would be (a 5-hr hike on the great wall, that ends at a place where I could stay for 10RMB/night...=$1.25....I wonder if that's a typo? wow, just wow). Other highlights from the "Tips for Your Stay" included that I "better not leave valuables in the hotel room!" (umm...or I'll be sent to the corner?) and the fact that the hotel is equipped with "safe drinking water that is good for instant noodles which you can buy from the first floor of the hotel." Well thank god! They are also very excited about the new Wal-Mart in town. But all in all it was pretty impressive that they cared to share all this information, and certainly helped me out (especially the 6-step instructions of how to get a cab from the airport to the hotel). I tried to ask the sender a question about the hotel, but he evidently doesn't know his own email address, or at least has entered it incorrectly in the replyto address. Every email I send him bounces back. Which could have been a big problem given that he is also the contact for VISAs for all MSR interns....

2 comments:

Jennifer Albinson said...

I call the bed by the window.

Emily said...

That bed may be claimed by "Shirley" or "Vicki," my female Chinese roommate I assume I will have