China

I've been neglecting my blog for about a month. Where has the time gone? My week in China was a great experience. It was just the right amount of time to be away. By the last 2 days I was getting a little homesick for S.B, CA and a bit exhausted from being with a group of 11-14 people. It was a massive group of people to travel with. There are pluses and minuses to a group that size. The plus of not having to make any decisions or figure anything out logistically; helpful on a first trip to a foreign country. The minus of feeling like you aren't really having any decent conversations with anyone because there are so many people around. Being one of the few people on the trip without kids also is interesting. Having kids is an equalizer, it gives a common ground for co-workers to converse about.

China - Dong Guan, southern China - We spent the work week in southern China going to a factory each day reviewing 1st samples and getting a feeling of the factory we're working with and our company's China team. Then we would come back to the hotel and eat dinner at the hotel and do it all over the next day. Could have been anywhere, could have been in Iowa. The trip to the factory was mostly on highways so not much local culture to see. Except when we would get to intersections where highways converge instead of there being a circle, it's a free-for-all, a bit like a game of chicken. The factory visits were not mind blowing in any way. What I expected, lots of people working long days, in factory environment. Being that I 'worked' in a machine shop for a few years I think that prepared me for seeing a fairly basic set up in China. The workers also have housing accommodations on the same site as factory. The factory was clean, well lit, and a decent size of 3 buildings with 3 floors each I believe.

The hotel we stayed in was fabulous. The room was big, with a huge modern bathroom, veranda, and an enormous sunk in tub. The food in the main dining room was buffet style, but amazing food and everything you could really want. Chinese food, italian, sushi with a crazy dessert bar of just about any sweet you could want. The coffee at the hotel was really quite tasty, I was not expecting to have decent coffee in China.

So, we arrived on a Sunday night from CA into Hong Kong. I think my posting the night arrived had my times all messed up so let me clear it up if possible. We left SFO at 12:30pm (PST) Saturday. We arrived into HK at 6pm Sunday night. We were in the air for about 14 1/2 hours. When we landed at 6pm it was 3am in California. Coming home is crazier because you leave China and arrive in CA at the same exact time and same day that you left China! That is insane! I was very concerned I would have terrible jet lag when I arrived in China. But, I never got jet lag on either end of the trip. My payback for no jet lag was coming home and having a fever for 5 days.

So, on Friday of my week in China we flew from Shenzen to Beijing and went to visit a company store we have in an outdoor mall in Beijing. Being in Beijing I felt like I was in another country. The smog there is unbelievable, you can't really see all the way down a full city block clearly. And the traffic was like LA traffic, slow and constant.

We spent some time walking around shopping and going through a open food market area, looking and tasting some of the crazy things available. I split a stick of fried Scorpions with a co-worker. They weren't as gross as I thought they could be. They were little scorpions, so that made it easier to work up the nerve. They were very crunchy and salty and the inside was a bit soft shell crablike. They tasted better than the fermented tofu that we also tried as a group. The other unusual food item I had was pig's ears - I didn't know what it was but it looked like strips of a mushroom and it was at the hotel buffet in the hotel we stayed at near the factories. It was pretty gross - no taste just grisly, yuck!

We spent Saturday sightseeing, we had a bus and a tour guide from the hotel and we spent from 8-5 on the tour bus. First stop - Tiananmen Square - HUGE and the never ending line of Chinese people waiting to see Mao's remains was unbelievable. I tried to take photos of the line but only an aerial shot showing the immense size of the square and the packs of people would do it justice. The Forbidden City - fascinating, could have spent all day in there looking at the buildings and hearing about the history of it. I want to re-watch 'The Last Emperor' to get more of the story of the royal family and the life inside the walls. The Great Wall - Wow! I need to go back there and spend longer walking along the Wall. Unfortunately, it was very overcast when we were there so the view was not as vast as I've seen in photos. We took a cable car/gondola from the parking area up to the Wall and back.

On the way back the second you step out of the gondola atrium there are people hocking cheap stuff to buy, the 'I Climbed the Great Wall' tee-shirts, and all kinds of tchotchkes and the vendors are very agressive. One look at an item and they are telling you what the great price for it is and if you walk away they come after you, dropping the price and grabbing you and being relentless. It was a bit of a turn off to walk away from an ancient Wonder of the World to be harassed to buy cheap stuff for a few dollars.

To end this amazing day of sightseeing we went out for Peking Duck. Awesome! The restaurant was amazing, very New York-y, great space, fabulous food and I gorged myself (as I did at most every meal). One of my co-workers parents live in Beijing so they joined us for dinner and chose the restaurant. It was really nice to meet family of a co-worker and feel their generosity and be with locals which I love when traveling.

I was very fortunate to be able to travel for only a week, travel business class, and get a weekend of sightseeing tacked onto it. A wonderful opportunity and once in a lifetime experiences.

Pictures:

top - Me on The Great Wall

middle - seahorses on a stick to eat at Food Market in Beijing

bottom left - front of Forbidden City Palace entrance

bottom right - Great Wall

bottom movie - Live Scorpions skewered on stick at market in Beijing