Ma monkey trip to Panama (part I)

Finally finished my first business trip, 10 days in Panama, and now I'm back in Taiwan. As my first business trip abroad, I found it overall, quite interesting. Especially when it comes to dealing with the "unexpected" people and events that one may encounter.

Honestly, what's fun and good about Panama? I have no freaking idea. How so? Because we were all stuck with the expo for our entire stay. And even if we did have some free time, we would be assigned or being last-minute scheduled for meetings. It was basically working for 10 days straight. Add the flight time and the work days that I had back here in Taiwan, then I had been working for 3 weeks non-stop. Normally, what makes people slightly happier after all the work is to indulge themselves with some exotic food from the new country; but nope, that didn't happen either. Nope. Zero. Nada. We had freaking CHINESE 80% of the time!!! Argh...

Here's a glipmse of my itinerary/journal while I was in Panama.

Friday, March 2nd:
3 people from TAITRA , Paul (head in charge the expo), Charmine (designer of the pavilion) and I (the apprentice noob) arrived Panama in the morning. Dropped our bags in the hotel (too early to check in) and went straight to the embassy to meet w/the counselor. Mr. G is one of the bossiest, nosiest jerk ever. Definite suck-up to his boss (the ambassador), but an absolute tyrant to his subordinates and us. Gave us a very cold welcome by first criticizing the design of the pavilion (without seeing any of the blueprints and graphs that we had sent weeks and days before), then ordering each of us who to do what at when moment (we "obeyed" his commands out of respect, but we can heck care what the embassy wants to do because we don't work for them). Later he cordially invited us to lunch—Chinese takeout lunchboxes—but there was this whole drama of how other colleagues took away some lunchboxes instead of laying them all on the table so Mr. G can see what are the dishes of the day. He nagged and biatched at his employees and then generously asked all of them to join lunch at the same table (WTF?! Hypocrite!). As for us, we didn't swallow that luch easy either. We were forced to eat some not very good Chinese food with the obligation of tasting/selecting the better dishes (AKA. guinea pigs) so he can later tell the travel agency what to order for the exhibitors.
In the afternoon, we headed to the expo to see how the pavilion was coming along. Mr. G was still not very happy because he finds the whole structure was too cold and frigid. I mean, of course you find it like that, you brainless ass, because the workers had only set up the initial skeleton!!! It was only the 1st day of set up!!! UGH!

Evening, he "extended his welcome" by inviting us for dinner. Regardless of how tired we were from the 1 1/2 day flight and jetlag, we accepted his invitation (Charmine and I passed out a few times in the car nonetheless). We were driving to Amador, this man-made stripe of island that was originally US territory. It had an amazing view of Panama skyline, similar to the Seattle waterfront view that one would have from a ferry. But here's the kick: it was a Friday night, party of 5, WITHOUT reservation at any restaurant. All the restaurants were packed (at least the decent ones), we were really tired, wanted to give up, yet he insisted on treating us. So we finally ended up in this ok restaurant, had our first taste of local food: yuka (Panamenian French fries, tastes like a combination of yam and potato), ceviche (cured raw fish with lemon), and asado (BBQ. Ok, this was not really Panamenian). We started dinner with 3 servings of fries, so by the time we finished the 2nd serving, we were almost full. I guess this is a good tip on how to invite people for meals with low budget: just stuff their stomachs with some cheap food, like a bunch of fries to share, so what you order afterwards won't mean anything because they'll be full.
After dinner, instead of directly sending us back to the hotel, he stopped at the supermarket and asked us to join to see if we wanted anything from the store. The grocery store was nice but we already have all the necessary things. All I wanted at the time is to go back to the hotel and SLEEEEEP!! In the end, we kept Mr. & Mrs. G company for their grocery shopping. How fun. T___T

fried yuka and ceviche. and this is how yuka looks like

Saturday, March 3:
We woke up early to be at the expo to make sure the pavilion was on schedule. Around noon, Mr. & Mrs. G took Paul and I to tour around Panama while ordering Charmine to stay in the expo for oversee the workers. For lunch, we had Chinese gyoza, dumplings, pancakes and other side dishes (yay, how exotic...). We drove around and got dropped at this place where we could see a part of the Panama Canal.
Despite that Panama holds the narrowest section of land between Atlantic and Pacific ocean, the distance between one side of the ocean to the other is still quite long; hence the Panama Canal is actually split into 3 sections: the largest one located in Colon, with 3 “steps” that the cargo ships need to go thru; the second largest one in Panama, with 2 steps; and the smallest one with 1 step in xxx (forgot the name because, well, it's insignificant).

To the least of my surprises, Paul and I saw the smallest, least impressive one. Why? Because Mr. G dropped us there since it's free (it was alongside the road) while it requires admission fee for the other 2. The Panama Canal charges $5-8 dollars for the admission, which is not that bad, I was willing to pay. But I guess this has always been a problem when you're travelling abroad, if your host doesn't feel like taking you around or did a not-so-good job when arranging your tour itinerary, then it's very likely that you won't enjoy much of your trip. We toured around some more, nothing very interesting, and were finally dropped off at the expo so we could help Charmine with the pavillion.

Dinner was at a tradicional Panamenian restaurant (that was the only once we enjoyed authentic Panamenian food) that offers performances while we dine. The show was ok, seems a bit short now for some reason, and the food was ok too (too salty for all our tastebuds).
Felt like a long yet unproductive day, but oh well, what the heck.