Day 3...I think

After going to be at 8:00PM for thesecodn consecutive night, I woke up this morning to feel like I've been hit by a train. This is supposed to be my last day of feeling jet lagged, and I'm sure the combination with the cold has not helped. I can barely keep my eyes open right now.

Yesterday we worked in the office and traveled to a couple of nearby factories. I didn't take any photos because I wasn't sure if it was okay, I'll try today. We toured through the first factory yesterday with a feeling of unwelcomeness. The factory supervisor wasn't very friendly and the workers seemed to give us 1 of two extreme vibes; The men looked like they wanted to stab us, and the women fluttered their lashes like they wanted to marry us. 

Our second stop was a factory that produced mostly Puma shoes. After the tour we sat down for tea, which seemed very ceromonial. I can't tell you how much green tea I drank, but I was pretty buzzed and at some point I think the fish in the aqarium were talking to me.

We ended the day with another great dinner with some great fish back at the office.

Today we will visit several factories an hour and a half away. I'm going to try and catch up on some Zs in the car.

Day 2

Yesterday I woke to relentless horn honking and firecracker expolsions. The honks were nothing out of the ordinary for the city. It seems like there are no traffic laws whatsoever and the only way to survive is to lay on the horn. The firecrackers however marked a special occasion. There seemed to be a celebration of prosperity in the new year. No one at the office could explain it to me in English, and I tried to look it up to no avail. Nonetheless it was pretty cool to be a part of. 

I worked in the sample room for most of the day to clear of the problems I'm having with color on my MLB promo shoes. I can't tell you how difficult it is to battle the language barrier, even with those that speak pretty good English. We worked through it though.

The food here has been great so far. While I have not been out to a restaurant yet, the bfreakfast buffet here at the hotel as well as the HUGE meals at the office have been wonderful. Nothing too bizarre or gross...yet

I put my photos on flickr now because it is easier. I'll be updating those photos throughout the day and I'll add the narration  here every morning to explain the pics.

Here's the link, happy flickring

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35793320@N07/

Day one

I guess this is more like the first 24 of the trip rather than day one. I never thought I would travel so many consecutive hours in my life. It doesn't help that I have a head cold as well. 

The flight from Chicago to Shanghai wasn't terrible.  The longest flight I've been on previsou to that one was just the 4 hour trip to L.A. So about 5 hours into the Shanghai flight I started to freak out, then I fell asleep, and then freak out again at about hour 11. When we finally landed in Shanghai, I felt like my leg muscles had atrophied over the 15 hours, but I still had some traveling to do, an hour busride to another Shanghai airport, another 1.5 hour flight to Fuzhou and then the 1.5 hour drive from Fuzhou to Putian.

Not much to mention yet, other than I've learned 2 things about the Chinese.

1. They have much smaller personal space bubbles than Americans. They don't mind standing so close to you they are touching, especially in line. Which brings me to No. 2

2. There seems to be little concept of lines or taking turns here. This pretty much amounts to bottlenecking, and me about to pee myself waiting in line for the restroom, because people have no problem jumping in front of me. 

I'm going to go work on my boxing out skills now.

Some pics.

Shanghai Airport

My bed. I'm pretty sure it has a sleep number of 1000

You can see into the shower and bath from the bed, how.....interesting

Place to drink tea

Nee How

I am making my first trip to China on Monday. I will try to update the blog everyday while I'm there. I'm also considering setting up a flickr account. Stay tuned

Bright Idea

I would love to meet the dim wit person who came up the current concept for lightbulb packaging. I would punch that person in the mouth....

Last night I went to Home Depot and purchased among other things, a 6 pack of lightbulbs. As I walked toward the checkout counter the bulbs slid out of the packing and shattered onto the floor. The cashier just stood there and shook her head.

Why isn't there some strip of carboard or something there to prevent such a disaster? I'm not talking action figure style packaging, but a little more protection for something so fragile....