China - Driving in China

The biggest involuntary risk you take when in China is traveling by car.  It's best if you close your eyes and pray you arrive to your next destination in one piece.  Driving by car is unavoidable. Gasping and clenching your teeth is pretty much how you get by.  Every day it seemed we had a near accident.   It didn't help much that it rained most every day, all day. We did see two episodes where pedestrians had been hit by a car.  Crazy & sad. We drove on the wrong side of the road more than once for over a mile.  It's fair game for all types of cars, bikes, makeshift bikes, scooters and people to be on any type of road at anytime, including freeways. Once to two inches of space between cars is common. The car horn is used constantly - constantly!  It serves as a warning that you are coming, so everyman for themselves and you'd better watch out. In hindsight quite entertaining and more of an adrenaline rush than a roller coaster.

Something to note. Steve (a coworker from our China office and primary driver) keeps a bat in his car in case he needs it.  Comforting.

China - a week of posts #1

China post #1
I spent the first two weeks of November in China for work.  The culture is so very different and fun to embrace for a short time.  I really love the Chinese people, they are so welcoming and kind.

I brought my big canon camera but after the first day or two of lugging it around I decided to photograph most of my trip with the Hipstamatic app on my phone.  I had to set the phone to airplane mode the entire time I was in China but lucky for me the phone camera worked out great. No pressure photography and I think many of the photographs turned out pretty cool and pretty interesting.  I am planning to post photos for the next few days on varied themes.  Here are a few shots of random tools that I found interesting in a few of the factories.

Early in the trip we spent a day at the Canton fair searching out new vendors and opportunities.  We enjoyed local dining at McDonalds with a few folks from our China office.  McDonalds in China is pretty much the same as McDonalds in Utah but instead of an apple pie our only choice was Taro root pie.

I traveled with three other fabulous women from work.  Stay tuned for more to come...

images from factories

Here are a few interesting images from a few of the various factories we have visited. I have tons of process photos but do not think I can post here. These are shots of various inks, screen printing, molding, tooling dies, etc.

Greetings from China

It's been a few days since my last post. After about a 20 hour trip Cherie and I arrived in China and it has been non stop travel, shows and hotels since arrival. We walked the 105th Canton fair today and attended an accessory mart (the word mart is an understatement) yesterday. I've eaten "real" Chinese food and little else. Tonight for dinner we ate pigeon (I did not order). Steve and Fayer (our SU China employees) are great hosts and we have experienced much so far. More posts to come if I can make it to the computer, we've been busy. These are not the best pictures. I'll try better tomorrow.