Zinch

After a marathon day working in the office, Al and I headed over to the Bird’s Nest to watch some football. It was a “friendly” match between FC Barcelona and Beijing Guan (China club champs). We were entertained by the worlds best footballer, Lionel Messi aka La Pulga.

As soon as I heard Barcelona was in town earlier this week I jumped at the opportunity to attend. I absolutely love to watch high quality football. Last summer in Europe I had the opportunity to watch two Real Madrid matches. So much fun.

Barcelona won 3-0 tonight. Two of the goals came in the first 15 minutes. We thought for sure we’d be in for a high-scoring game. But for whatever reason, Barcelona cooled off until the ’89 with a pretty Ibrahimovic goal.

I was just a little bummed that Barca didn’t bring their “A” team. So many of their superstars were absent: Dani Alves, Pique, Bojan, Puyol, Xavi, David Villa, Iniesta. This Barca team is such a star-studded squad — many from the Spanish national team (World Cup Champions). It would have been a real treat to see them all play. I’m guessing they’re still on holiday.

But still…overall I had a wonderful experience tonight. I got to watch Messi (Yes, THE Messi), Ibrahimovic, Abidal and Milito. What a great way to end such a wonderful week. I’m sure i’ll be back soon enough to visit our team here in Beijing. We catch a flight back to SF tomorrow. It’s late and I wanna go to bed. Peace.

The Bird’s Nest

The pitch.

Barcelona jerseys in the subway. Yes, that’s a vuvuzuela. They have somehow caught on in China. It was annoying (yet fun) to hear them live. Most of the Chinese didn’t know how to properly use them though so the buzzing was off and on (unlike Johannesburg). :)

I was on my feet pretty much the entire day today. This is what happened…

Lisa (a zincher) took us around today. She is so, so awesome. We did a lot of walking and she was a trooper. I really appreciate her taking the day to help us not get lost in Beijing.

We kicked things off with the Forbidden City. What seems to be calm and quiet in this picture is…a lie. It was mad chaos inside. Sooooo many people.

After the Forbidden City we went to a shopping district (forgot the name). I needed to get something for my wife and son. I can’t say I was super successful…but I made a few purchases as fall-back for if that was the last chance i’d get. We also had lunch in the area and I had no idea what 80% of the food was. That’s always frightening.

We also saw a dude do the Rubiks cube blindfolded. Nuts. Basically he memorizes the layout of the cube first, then gets blindfolded…then does it. I got video of it but was too lazy to upload it.

After shopping/lunch, we hopped in the subway and headed to a College Fair. A group of American Universities were there showcasing themselves. We had a booth there so I went over to help. It was great talking to the Chinese high school students. So many of them were already on Zinch and they love it. I get the sense that it means much, much more to a Chinese student. So much more is at stake. It’s cool to hear the difference it’s making for them.

By far the best part was watching our crew in action. Loved it. I’ve mainly been getting to know product/tech. But today I saw marketing in action. Wow.

The materials, language, buttons, shirts, country and people are all different. But the hustle is the same. They preached it pure. The more I get to know the team, the more impressed I am. They did a flawless job today. Props to Tiffany/Chris/Team. The people are what make Zinch so great.

Not everyone from Zinch who attended is in the pic/vid below. Here are a few.

After the college fair, our small entourage headed out for dinner. It somehow grew to include groupies from the fair. It was funny.

Dim Sum was delicious.

Then we went to some sort of show at a local university where study abroad students (from Harvard/Yale) were performing skits and talents. They were here during the summer learning Chinese so all the performances were in Chinese. It was fun but I couldn’t understand a word of it.

That was the day. Today was a little bit of a breather from work…but still exhausting. Tomorrow we’ll be back in the office with the team.

Another productive day with the team here. I didn’t get many pictures at work so i’ll just share the pictures I did take.

Al and I enjoyed dumplings for dinner with Eric and Alan. The plates of dumplings kept coming and coming and coming — an endless barrage of dumplings. Delicious. The picture below only represents about 10% of the total dumplings we consumed. I’m fine not eating dumplings for awhile.

It wasn’t so much the food but the company we were in that made the evening enjoyable. The team and the folks here continue to impress.