Just as the work part begins to get heavy duty our trusty MacBook Pro begins to blink, I mean really blink. It was flashing lights and making sounds that could be considered an alien landing, then the screen went black. Not a good sign, I am sure. I knew it was a risk to hope it would last for yet another year and Jessica dutifully warned me that it was beginning to show signs of "old age." Ever the optimist I was hopeful that we could squeeze one more year out of it in China. I did however make a new computer purchase just before we left for China on the outside chance that the MacBook Pro might not make it. I was ready to admit defeat and limp along with one computer.
Sunday night my nephew Keith called to say he would be in Hong Kong on business for a week. We were excited for a good excuse to go to Hong Kong and Keith had just provided that for us. Craig and I both have clear schedules on Wednesday so we decided to take a quick trip to Hong Kong to see Keith. On Monday night it occurred to me that there was an Apple Store in both Hong Kong and ShenZhen, I should make an effort to take my black computer screen to the Genius Bar to see if any magic could be done. I made an attempt to schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar however, not being able to read Mandarin proved to be a stumbling block. I was unable to schedule an appointment at either location. We decided that ShenZhen would be less crowded than Hong Kong so Keith made arrangements to meet us there.
Craig and I left Guangzhou on the train to Hong Kong with our computer and high hopes that a small miracle could be ours. We dutifully filled out the departure cards from China and the arrival cards to Hong Kong, got the appropriate stamps on our passports then met Keith to hop on the metro for the Apple Store. Interesting fact, the Apple Store in ShenZhen is designed exactly like all other Apples stores; the products are displayed in the same order the big difference being that the employees only speak Mandarin or Cantonese. That's where Keith steps up to help massage the trauma, he skillfully explained the symptoms and before we knew it they were running a diagnostic on the MacBook Pro. More that I had hoped for but that is a bonus! Through Keith’s skillful translation from the Apple employee to us, I am sure it looked like a tennis match back and forth English to Chinese, Chinese to English with lots of technical terminology being thrown around we left the computer to have them work on it for about two hours.
Keith did try to improve our Chinese skills on the metro, we had a pen but not paper so immersion Chinese at its finest on Keith's hand would be the crash course we would get to navigate the day.
Lunch with Keith is always entertaining, however this lunch was better than most. Keith picked a Japanese restaurant in the area, it was a delicious treat to say the least only to be surpassed by the conversation. We had many questions about China and surviving, I am sure it was highly entertaining for Keith. He is a great sport to take care of his senior relatives!
The phone call came before we had finished to pick up the computer. We all raised our eyebrows about just what that could mean. When we arrived at the Apple store they had installed snow leopard operating system on the computer and suddenly it was able to update all the programs that previously had been unable to update and a small miracle was ours! I opened the laptop, small problem, it was all written in Chinese! A few more quick tweaks and we are happy campers on our way to the metro with a working computer in tow. Thank you Keith.
Sounds like Keith saved you in more ways than one! So cool that you had the chance to visit and have him as your guide, translator, computer technician, procurer of food, entertainment, etc. I'd say that's the best way to travel and experience a foreign city by far!! Is it safe to assume that your computer will be running for a bit longer?
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