Everyday – new – exciting – adventurous – China – & now Hong Kong
Nearing my hundredth day away from central Texas and the United States my honeymoon period continues. Each adventure of each day continues to excite me. Last week contained a bit of stress related to work. Monday, the 19th of July I flew to Guangzhou for several factory visits with vendors and (mostly) potential vendors of products I may (or may not) purchase. As I prefer, I woke at 5am to catch the 8am direct, non-stop to Guangzhou in order to not waste an entire day on travel. My first factory representative picked me up promptly at the airport, fed me an excellent lunch that included crabs, shrimp, and some other items before taking me for a tour of the factory. I realized at my hotel later that evening that all eight of the factory visits I planned on squeezing into two or three days would end up being three or possibly four different factories. Day two of the trip (Tuesday) had Sunny, from the stand factory picking me up at 10am. At 9:30am I received a text from Sunny about her 30 minute late arrival. At nearly 11am I hopped into the car with Sunny before heading to lunch on the one hour car ride to her factory. Once I arrived at the factory, we exchanged business cards. I asked to see the products that I had already ordered and paid for. Sunny explained that I had nothing on order and I had sent her no money. I looked at her card again and realized that she was a different Sunny. Woops! I quickly recovered, kept talking and decided that it was my time to head to Hong Kong to get my passport stamped for 90 more days in China. During the early hours of each morning and late hours of the afternoons leading up to the woopsy with Sunny I learned that I did not need to visit anymore factories. The folks I have been attempting to deal work very differently from me.
Hong Kong will be much better next time when I take a travel companion with me. It fascinates me how they get so many people into such a small area. There seems to be a Circle K or a 7-11 every 25-30 yards. The buses are all 2 stories and my hotel room was tiny. I enjoyed walking around and the shopping boggles me. The number of clothing stores overwhelms the serious shopper! I can’t wait to go back for several days.
Saturday hiking is still the highlight of each week. We hike some seriously challenging mountains outside of Beijing. The heat definitely assists in the level of difficulty. By far, the people I hike with make my world so wonderful. I have met some of the most kind, giving, wonderful, friendly people I have ever met in my life while hiking each Saturday. I can not say enough wonderful things about all of my new hiking buddies.
Tonight, Sunday, I finally made it to a swimming pool in Beijing. FANTASTIC – I know better than to go on a weekend. Oh well, I did go late in the day and by 7:30pm the crowd dwindled and I had a big chunk of pool all to myself. For a little less than $3 per person, the fantastic pool at Chaoyang park entertained me for well over an hour. My swimming companion and I enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. I found it fascinating that almost every single Chinese man at the pool had nearly the exact same swimsuit on. It’s almost like they stopped on their way in and received a uniform.
You are doing great, I love sharing your stories with the people I know, and can I get a china swim suit uniform just so I can up the bar at my locale pool, I think they will be a great hit in the U.S in about 100 years.