It was bound to happen sometime

It was bound to happen sometime, I just expected it to at the beginning of my trip to China instead of at the end.  Allow me to introduce you to the food that made me sick.

We start off with a cute little plate of bamboo and...pigeon.  Yes, one of the sky rats.  Which by the way, I have yet to see in China.  There are no visible pigeons, squirrels, chipmunks, crows, seagulls, bunnies, etc.  There are sparrows.  Everything else was turned into food if it ever existed here.

Bamboo on the left, Pigeon on the right

Why yes, that is the pigeon's head.

(Okay, so Wikipedia says that squirrels are just in the Americas, Africa, Eurasia. I'm sure I would be eating squirrel if they were in China.)

Next up was fish, and is why I think I am sick today.

"I dare you to eat me" says this fish.

Fish bodies, no head

I couldn't eat the fish bodies.  I took a couple tiny bites of the tail then abandoned it.  Not my style of food at all, plus it was gross.

Everyone thinks they're such sweet little things....

Before I start you must listen to this song: The March of the Sinister Ducks.  Go ahead, click the link, I'll wait for you to finish.

You listened to the song?  Good.  This is a tale about ducks, specifically the Pekin duck I ate for lunch Sunday.  If you listen to the tale about Pekin Ducks from Wikipedia the tale is much sadder, it's one about baby ducklings raised in captivity, then forced to eat food four times a day to get plump.  My tale is one of a tourist who visited a restaurant known for its peking duck dish.

The Setting

The tourist must get a picture with the duck statue out front.  The duck statue looks so happy, probably because it's the mascot and not the main dish.

The Main Character

When your duck is ready to be served, the duck will be brought to you whole then carved.  If the cooking process didn't take more than the length of a meal the restaurant would probably let you select your own duck from a selection of living ones.

The...Antagonist?

The carved skin and meat are then brought to your table along with a plate of steamed pancakes, sweet bean dip, and spring onions.

The pancakes, the duck skin, the spring onions, the sweet bean dip, and some fruit (the meat hadn't arrived yet).

You put it all together...

Lay pancake flat on plate, dip meat into sweet bean dip and place on pancake, add onion.

...then fold it up and eat up.  Take that you silly duck!

Since nothing is left for waste, the restaurant supplied the bones and whatever meat remained for me to take home.

The Conclusion

Too bad my hotel room doesn't have a kitchen.

I am panda, hear me...bleat?*

No, I didn't get to see any panda bears while I was China but I did get to eat like one.  While at the Sichuan Opera this past weekend I had a plate of tender bamboo.

Bamboo and a Sauce to dip them in

The bamboo came halved so it was easier to strip the think outer layer from the tender inside.

The layers of bamboo - tear off the black layers

According to the San Diego Zoo, panda bears will spend an average of 12 hours a day eating bamboo (1).  Because the plant is so low in nutrients the bears need to eat 84 pounds a day (1).  That's a lot!

Yum!

Bamboo was only an appetizer though, the main dishes were much more interesting.  At the Sichuanese Opera house the main style of food is Sichuan Cuisine.  One of the eight styles of Chinese Cuisine, Sichuan is known for bold, spicy food (2).  This style of cooking originates from Sichuan Province in southwest China, the area my coworker J is from.  He says that he grew up eating spicy food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

For the main dish we had pig intestines (yes, pig intestines), corn, and beef with peppers you stuff into bread.

From left to Right: Beef with Green Peppers and Bread, Pig Intestines, Corn

Being not a fan of overly spicy food I ate around the red peppers to get to the pig intestines.  They were  pretty good, something I could eat again though I would never want to make it myself.  The corn wasn't spicy and I devoured it.  The beef with green peppers was also good, but I made the mistake of loading my bread with too many peppers and needed a lot of tea to cool my mouth.  The bread was a dense bread, coated with oil and lightly fried with garlic.  Even just bread and meat is delicious.

*Panda bears make a sound similar to that of a goat bleating (1). You can listen to them bleat on the San Diego Zoo's website.

Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) Breakfast Series

What are you doing on Thursday, September 1st from 7:30-9 AM?  If you're in the Milwaukee area I hope you will consider attending the first meeting of a series of monthly breakfast meetings.

This breakfast series will focus on the attrition and resiliency of women engineers based on findings from a study conducted earlier this year.  This study, completed by the Center for the Study of the Workplace, found that most women leave the fields of engineering and science because of the workplace climate.  Not what I would have expected but I've been fortunate in where I work.

The theme of this month's meeting is "How to be Heard" and will be presented by Mindy Ochs, P.E., Western Lime Corporation.  The meeting will be held at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee's downtown facility located on the 7th floor of the Grand Avenue Mall.  You can park in the Grand Ave Mall parking structure and the parking will be validated at the 7th floor reception desk.  The meeting will be held on September 1st from 7:30 - 9:00 AM.




The breakfast meetings will be held on the first Thursday of each month.  The cost is $60 for professionals and $20 for students (click here to register).

I'm going to be in China for the first meeting but I plan to be at the future ones.  I hope to see you there!

Ancient Chinese Water Town

Travel by Boat is Common Here

Today we drove to an ancient Chinese water town called Wuzhen.  It's in the same providence as Hangzhou from yesterday, Zhejiang providence (a bordering providence of Shanghai).  I say ancient because the ancestors of the current Wuzhen lived there during the New Stone Age 7,000 years ago.  Wuzhen as I saw it today was established in 872 A.D., a mere 1,100 years old.  

The Narrow Streets of Wuzhen

Wuzhen hasn't changed much in the last 1,000 years.  The total population is about 60,000; 12,000 of which are permanent residents.  The town is divided into four zones by a cross-shaped river and is the only ancient water town adjacent to the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.  I spent my time wandering around the Wuzhen Xizha Scenic Zone (Wuzhen West Scenic Zone) and thoroughly enjoyed seeing old traditional Chinese life.

There are ancient residential houses, workshops, restaurants, pawnshops, weaving and dyeing establishments, all in brown wooden structures with stone bases.  Rivers and creeks intercross with flagstone streets in all directions and extend as far as one can see.  Arch bridges, stone railings, arched gates, large courtyards, narrow streets - it amazes me how well everything has withstood the test of time.  Sure parts have been rebuilt after fires and wars, but almost 82% of the town's total floor area has remained unchanged.

Koi are really interesting fish.  Perhaps not the most intelligent fish, but there is an area in Wuzhen West where once can buy fish food to feed the Koi.  They're so used to being fed that you can hold your hand over the water and the Koi will follow you along the bridge, their mouths gaping open, hoping you'll toss some food their way.  And if you buy the fish food and feed them they go crazy, pushing and fighting their way to the pellets.  

"Om nom nom" say the Koi

For lunch we ate at the Xuchang Paste Company and our fare was common people food (apparently I've been eating wealthy people food).  The dish I had was called Zha Jiang Mian (black bean sauce noodle) and it originates from Northern China.  My coworker EL had it a lot growing up in South Korea.  It's thick wheat noodles topped with ground pork stir-fried with zha jiang, a salty fermented soybean paste.  I wish this type of Chinese food was available in the United States.  

About to eat Zha Jiang Mian

My Hotel Was a Buddhist Temple

The hotel that I stayed in Saturday night was a Buddhist temple, or at least part of a temple that was turned into a hotel.  Perhaps it's just a hotel with a Buddhist theme next to a temple.  I'm honestly not sure.  It was a pretty cool place though!


The temple next to the hotel was called Xiangji Temple, not to be confused with the Xiangji Temple in Xian.

Hotel Entryway

Sitting Area of Hotel Room

Bedroom Area of Hotel Room

Bathroom of Hotel Room

Xiangji Temple

Visiting Hangzhou

On Saturday I was in the city of Hangzhou, the capital and largest city of Zhejiang providence (a bordering providence of Shanghai).  It's one of the most prosperous cities in China (there are car dealerships for Aston Martin, Porsche, Maserati, and Ferrari) for the last 1,000 years and its most known attraction is West Lake (1).  West Lake is popular for its natural beauty and its association with many scholars, national heroes, and revolutionary martyrs (2).  It's surrounded by mountains on three sides and is absolutely gorgeous.  It was 44 deg. C (111 deg. F) outside when my coworkers EL, J, and I started walking around the lake and it was 45 deg. C (113 deg. F) when we got back to the car a few hours later.  It was hot!

West Lake in Hangzhou

After walking around West Lake we drove into the Wuling Mountains to the Buddist temple, Lingyin Temple.  Lingyin Temple is one of the largest and wealthiest Buddhist temples in China, and the largest temple in the Wuling Mountains.  Instead of visiting Lingyin Temple however, we took a cable car up the North Peak Mountain to the 1,600 year old Lingshun Temple - known as the God of Wealth Temple to most.  The view of West Lake from the top of the mountain is lovely, as are the tea fields the cable car travels over.

Lingshun Temple

After visiting the temple we walked along the Bamboo-Lined Path at Yunqi.  The name "Yunqi" means cloud lingering; it was said that a number of auspicious colorful clouds came flying here from the nearby Color Mountain and stayed.  Intermixed with the bamboo are large trees that I saw ranging from 200 to over 1000 years.  There weren't a lot of other tourists in the area so frequently my coworkers and I were the only ones present. 

Along the path there are several pavilions: Sanju Pavilion, Huilong Pavilion, Xixin Pavilion, Yuyu Pavilion, and Shuangbei Pavilion.  My favorite was the mind purifying pond/meditation pavilion.  

Meditation Pavilion

Yunqi Temple was built by the king of Wuyue Kingdom in the 5th year of Qiande Reign (967 A.D.).  The temple was rebuilt and revived by Master Lianchi, an eminent monk in the Ming Dynasty, and became one of the four famous temples in Hangzhou.  The tomb of Master Lianchi is located beside the site of the temple.  

Stopping to rest at a tea house, my coworkers and I enjoyed a glass of Longjing tea.  This green tea is also known as Dragon Well tea and its Wikipedia page says it's often called the national drink of China though J says that isn't true.  While at the tea house a palm/face reader came by and offered to tell us our fortunes.  J and EL had their fortunes told, and the palm reader, perhaps sensing that I was fresh out of RMB, did not offer to read my palm. By the time we finished our tea the sun had set.  

Longjing Tea Field

The next place we visited was Leifeng Pagoda, a seven-story octagon built of the summit of the south bank of West Lake.  It was first built in 977 A.D. but collapsed in 1924 due to covert digging at the base of the tower (people would steal the bricks and grind them into powder because they believed it would prevent illness and miscarriage) and was rebuilt in 2002.  

Aesthetically, Leifeng Pagoda marked the mature period of tower construction in China.  Its wood structure and pavilion-type octagonal shape was innovative and had a far-reaching influence.  

Leifeng Pagoda

In terms of folk customs, Leifeng Pagoda carries the image of feminine beauty of West Lake and features in the mystery and romance of love stories.  The story of Lady White Snake is closely related to this pagoda.  In the short version of the story of Lady White Snake, an immortal snake falls in love with a mortal man.  She transforms into a woman so she can be with him but a sorcerer (who is actually a turtle) named Fahai believes immortals and mortals should not be together and so he imprisons her in Leifeng Pagoda.  Wikipedia has a much better, longer version of the story.

By then it was quite late (8:30 PM) and the only place we could find for dinner by our hotel was a tea house.  This tea house had something special that one often doesn't see in tea houses (or coffee shops for that matter) - a kitten.  This kitten was named Maneki Neko after the Japanese sculpture believed to bring good luck/fortune to the owner.  We spent a long time playing with the cat and taking pictures of it.

Maneki Neko

More Strange Food

On the way back to the hotel on Tuesday, J and I came across a farmer's market of sorts.  At the market there were all sorts of new foods that a foreigner such as myself could try.

There was duck.

Duck Feet, Duck Legs, Duck Wings, Duck Bills

There was pig.

Pig ears; whole chicken too

And then there was chicken. Chicken still in the egg that was fried in the shell and sold three chicks for 2 RMB (approx. 0.32 USD).

Note the 'done' chicks on the left side of the pan and the still cooking  chicks on the right

I didn't try any of the available foods, would you have?

What's that smell?

Phew, where is that smell coming from?

Oh, it's coming from me?  That's reasonable considering where I was today.  Today I was at a plant in Sunny Nanjing where the temperature was a balmy 35 deg. C (95 deg. F).  It was air conditioned in the office area but as you would expect, not on the plant floor.  To make matters worse I had to wear this knee-length gown and baseball cap to protect my clothes and the items being manufactured.  What you don't see are the pants, tank top, and 3/4th sleeve cardigan I'm also wearing under the gown.  It was warm I'm telling you.

The personal protective equipment I had to wear.

After leaving one of the areas of the plant where a heating process was completed my coworkers and I were dripping in sweat.  Ew.  This was another instance where those tissues I brought with me came in handy!  The rest of the plant felt pretty cool in comparison after that.

My lunch

At lunch time we walked to the canteen, about five minutes down the road in the industrial park from where the plant is stationed.  After a week of Chinese fare I'm still not sure how to eat food with bones.  Three times now I've eaten food that has bone in it without realizing there are bones before I put it in my mouth.  I'm adequately skilled in using chopsticks in that I can pick the food out of my mouth using them but finding bone is not a pleasant experience.

One thing I'm really wishing I'd packed for my trip was very strong deodorant, baby wipes, and a travelling knife and fork.  They would allow me to smell fresh in a sea of bad smells and test my food for bones.  Have you ever worked in a plant or had to eat 'difficult' food?

Tourist On The Loose

Last Saturday I got to play tourist in Shanghai.  It started in Lujiazui, the financial sector of Shanghai, in the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC).  Lujiazui is the only financial and trade zone out of 185 state-level development zones across mainland China (1).  According to Wikipedia, there are more than 30 buildings over 25 stories tall that feature commerce as their primary function (1).

Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center

The Jin Mao Tower used to be the tallest building in China until 2007 when the SWFC was completed (2). I think the Jin Mao Tower is much prettier than the SWFC.  Accompanied by my coworker E, we rode the (very fast) elevator up to the 94th, 97th, and 100th floors of the building in order to look out at the city below. E has lived in Shanghai for the last two years but she had never been to the tower either so we were able to play tourist together.

The SWFC is the second-tallest building in the world, surpassed by the Burj Dubai in 2010, and the world's highest observation deck (3, 4).  What's interesting about the observation deck (100th floor) is that there is a glass floor so you can look down at the city below.  So many people were hesitant to walk across the glass!

View from the 100th Floor of the SWFC, the Jin Mao Tower and the Oriental Pearl in the background

The next stop was The Bund.  Earlier this yearI'd posted a link to side-by-side pictures of Shanghai, twenty years apart; those photos were taken from The Bund. When E and I arrived at The Bund the sun was out in full-force and it was very, very hot.

Looking from The Bund towards the Financial District

The Bund, or the Shanghai International Settlement, was originally a treaty port established under the Treaty of Nanking at the end of the first opium war in 1842 (5). First home to the British and later the Americans and French, the buildings along The Bund facing Lujiazui were primarily banks and trade houses from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Italy, Russia, Germany, Japan, Belgium, and the Netherlands (6).  Until the 1950s when the original building occupants began to leave, The Bund was a major financial hub of East Asia and it wasn't until the 1970s and 1980s that the buildings returned to their original uses (6).

Some of the buildings along The Bund

The trip to The Bund was cut short when dark storm clouds rolled in.  Only a few drops fell from the sky however so we continued onto our next stop, City God Temple of Shanghai (also called Chenghuang Miao).  This temple is located within the old walled portion of Shanghai and served as a temple for the spirit of Jinshan (7).  Surrounding the temple are many stores and shops selling everything from silk and paintings of your zodiac sign to KFC.

Behind me are pavilions and tea houses in the Chenghuang Miao area

Rain, rain, go away (photo taken at Chenghuang Miao).

Shortly after taking this photo it began to rain, and I'm not talking about your average light rain - this was a downpour.  It didn't end quickly either, this rain lasted for an hour and a half.  E and I fled with the rest of the visitors to take shelter under the eves of the temple.  Every time the rain lessened we moved to another shelter closer to the exit.

After finally reaching the company car we headed to Xintiandi, a lifestyle center (retail, entertainment, food, and residential) in Shanghai.  We talked around the shops for a bit before stopping at Paulaner Bräuhaus for drinks, dessert, and music.

The last stop of the night was at another old town (whose name I forget) in the west part of Shanghai.  It was similar to Chenghuang Miao in appearance but smaller in size.  It had two main streets: one full of shops selling products and the other full of shops selling things to eat.  Chenghuang Miao was full of tourists (like me!) but this area was void of them.  The only real downside to this area was the bathroom; this was my only option when I needed a place to go:

There was no toilet paper, no soap, no paper towel or hand dryer, just a hole in the ground, a door for the stall, and some running water.  This was why I brought a bottle of hand sanitizer and a pack of tissues with me.

Saturday was a fun day of being a tourist in Shanghai.  I hope to get to many other places still, like the Expo, Nanjing Road, and I'd like to go up the Oriental Pearl instead of just look at it.  Have you been to Shanghai?  Is there any place you would recommend visiting?

New City, New Hotel

Today my coworker J and I picked another colleague up from Shanghai Pudong International Airport and traveled to Nanjing for business.  We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant downtown at Nanjing 1912 before arriving at our hotel.  The hotel is pretty crazy.  I haven't been able to upload the photos I've taken to the internet yet (thanks Great Firewall of China!) but the room I'm staying in is their "European Continental Style Suite" - two rooms, 1.5 baths, a balcony, and what looks to be a larger than king size bed.  It's pretty wild.

I'm in Nanjing for two days this week then back to Shanghai.  I was able to do touristy activities on Saturday but I'd like to wait to post about that until I can put some photos with it.

EDIT 8/16/11: the amazing boyfriend G was able to hook me up with a way to share photos!
These are photos of my hotel room.  I made them small, but you should be able to click on them to make them bigger.

Powder room

Living room

Bedroom

Bathroom 

Bathroom shower - it's bigger than the elevator to get to the rooms.

View from the balcony looking into the courtyard

Do Not Tip

No need to worry about how much to tip someone while travelling in China - tipping is not necessary and frowned upon.  My first day I attempted to tip the young man who carried my bags up to my hotel room but he only looked at me strangely and shook his head when I pulled out my wallet.  Coworker J confirms that you don't need to tip at restaurants  not at salons, not at bars, no tipping anywhere.

The service has been very fast at all the restaurants I've eaten at - similar to the speed of fast food restaurants in the US.  Almost as soon as you've ordered one or two dishes arrive at the table and the rest arrive as soon as they are finished cooking.  There is no waiting until all the dishes are ready before they reach your table.  Since meals are family style there is no waiting for someone's meal to arrive while food sits in front of everyone else.  Besides the comfort in knowing that your food is fresh, it helps space out the length of the meal so you don't eat so fast.

Strange Food and Sales

I have escaped jet lag!  Last night I was able to sleep for a full night and woke up at a normal morning time.  My coworker J picked me up for work at 8 and gave me a tour of the my company's office.  I have my own cubicle now.  The walls of cubicles are proportional to the height of the average worker - short.  My face rises about the wall of the cube while I can barely see the tops of the heads of my coworkers.  I had a few meetings in the morning, meeting a lot of the engineers I would be working with in the coming weeks.

For lunch J and I went to a stir-fry place where I had soup (with chicken and chicken bones), chicken & tofu, beef and noodles, shrimp (with head, feet, tail, and shell), pork, and asparagus leaves.  The shrimp I ate did not sit well.

After lunch J took me to the Gomz and Suning department stores to see my company's products on display and the products of the competitors.  There weren't many competitors products on display and the ones that were were not in showroom condition (chipped paint, product faces falling off, etc).  What I thought was interesting is that my company rents out space in the store and staffs it with sales people.  At Gomz J inquired as to where a particular product was at and the sales people led us out of the store and across the street to competitor Suning's store to see the products.  You would never see a Best Buy employee taking a customer across the street to Circuit City (if any still existed?) to see a product.

I was under the impression that Shanghai would be very hot.  Everyone told me to pack my shorts and short sleeve shirts but I'm actually freezing.  It could be because I have an air conditioner blowing directly on me but my goodness, it's cold inside!  Outside is pleasantly warm, a nice temperature.  I would have been better packing the clothes I would normally wear in Milwaukee summers to work than the warm weather clothes I packed.

For dinner, J and I went to an individual hot pot place.  Each person gets a bowl with broth, little meat, and some veggies (onion and carrot in my case).  Then you select from many different thin slices of raw meet (beef or lamb or mutton or shrimp) which you dunk in the pot of boiling broth till it's cooked to your satisfaction.  It was actually pretty fun dunking the food in the pot and pulling it out.  That was my first chopsticks only meal (the previous places I ate at gave me a fork).

From Inside the Great Firewall

Is that what it's called - the Great Firewall? I can't get to
Blogger/Facebook/Google+ so I'm assuming China's firewall is the cause.
I haven't had a whole lot of sleep in the last day and the sleep I have had
wasn't very good. Monday morning I took a bus to O'Hare International
Airport then hopped a quick 13.5 hour flight to Shanghai, China. The
flight wasn't bad; it was a bit bumpy and the in-house entertainment needed
more spicing up for such a long trip. I can only watch "Water for
Elephants" and "Red Riding Hood" so many times in one sitting. My
flight landed at 1:30 local time and it was a breeze going through customs to get into the
country.

As I was walking through the snake of people waiting to pick up their loved
ones/co-workers I received a lot of "taxi, ma'am?" calls - I stuck out like
a sore thumb. My coworker had made the airport pickup and hotel
arrangements but I was a little worried about being able to find whoever it
was that was picking me up. My driver was one of the last people waiting in
the pick up line, the very long pick up line I might add!, so anxiety levels
were running high. He didn't speak any English, and my Chinese is
limited to greetings and polite expressions, so we stuck to hand
motions to getting out of the airport.

I haven't looked at a map to determine its exact location but the
airport is near the water - I could see the Pacific (I'm assuming) out
of the windows of the car for a good twenty minutes. I was surprised
by how many trees there are. Some must act as a wave break, there are
a line of coniferous trees next to the shoreline, but there are many
others intermingled with buildings standing well over four stories
tall.

I was also surprised by the number of street signs that are in Chinese
(characters) and in English. I would have thought they'd be in
Pinyin, or perhaps German (on account of the old European area of the
city), but I wasn't expecting English.
After an hour drive to West Shanghai I arrived at my hotel. It is a
very nice hotel, probably the nicest one I've ever stayed in. I'm
stationed on the 16th floor with my room overlooking what appears to
be a river. I had only two hours to shower, get ready, and take a nap
before dinner. The best showers are undoubtedly the ones after a long
bout of travelling.

I had dinner with my coworker J at a nice restaurant. The meal we had
was huge! There were peanuts and radishes to start, then out came the
dishes of tofu, fried fish, spicy mushrooms, beef, cabbage mustard,
steamed shrimp dumplings, a plate of assorted cold food, and finally
watermelon for dessert.

I really miss my best friend G and my cat. A month in China doesn't
seem so long in theory but in practice...

If You Thought My Posting Was Sporadic...

...then it's about to become much more so as I embark on a month long business trip to China!  I don't leave just yet so before I go I'll post about how I've been preparing and when I come back I should have advice about travelling in China.

If I can access Blogger in China I hope to give updates about travelling by oneself to a country where you don't know anyone or speak the language for business.  If I can't then I'll just have to enthrall you when I come back.

Published!

I finally got something published.  I'm only a second author but my name is now out there.  It doesn't come up when I simply Google myself but maybe one day it will.

Making Microbes Work

Tonight I'm trying out Blogger on my phone as I'm sitting in my research lab. I'm trying out something new with a reactor and I want to see how it preforms before I leave for the night. Microorganisms aren't terribly speedy though and watching this digital multimeter record a new voltage (at 1 microvolt incriments) isn't thrilling. I wish I could crack a whip and yell "Mush! Mush!" as one would to a dog-sled team and instantly reap the rewards of more power.  Pity things don't work that way.

I like where I work

I hear from a lot of my peers that they don't like their engineering jobs.  The hours are long, there is little reward for doing a good job, their co-workers and bosses are cutthroat, etc.  Everyday I go to work I feel lucky.  Lucky because first of all I have a job, but also because I work at such an awesome place.  I work someplace that values their employees, makes them feel special, and does a good job of balancing the negative reviews with positive ones.

Today I received an email from one of the directors of another group at work responding to an email I'd sent.  It read:

You rock.  Good thinking!  Thanks!

Little things like that completely brighten my day.

Poor Plants

I have several houseplants at work.  Most made their way there when I moved apartments this past fall and realized that I don't have the amount of light necessary to keep houseplants thriving.  A few other plants made the trek when my cat showed an increased fondness for knocking the plants off the windowsill and dumping dirt (and plant remains) everywhere.

Most of my work plants are doing quite well.  They're no longer full of brown/yellow spots, one is flowering, and all are much happier in their new home.

Except one.

It's dead!

This one was the victim of Improper Glassware Cleaning.  The fear of every person who works in a research facility.  Improper Glassware Cleaning occurs when people don't wash their beakers as well as they should.  Residual chemicals lurk inside the glassware, waiting to contaminate your next sample or *gasp* kill the plant you were nursing back to health.

You think ivy grows like a weed, that it's hard to kill, that it's hard to stop from climbing all over your garage.  I'm here to tell you that's a lie.  A misconception!  All you need is some improperly cleaned glassware and you too will have dead plants on your hands.

RIP ivy.

PS.  It's probably best to keep a dedicated watering can for any plants you keep at work rather than relying on containers already in close proximity to the plants.  Just in case.