Traveling around

Like always, Donald's travel schedule keeps me on my toes. I just received an email saying that he is coming a day early b/c of a typhoon that's approaching Vietnam. Yay, I can't wait for him to get here!

I've been traveling since yesterday morning for work, by car, plane and train. First stop was a factory about an hour outside Jinan, which is the city that I flew into. We drove about an hour out of the city to get to our destination. My manager, Diana, and I saw another nice factory. For those interested, here is what a clothing factory looks like.

 Workers on the line, sewing and what not.

The machine closest to us is a welding machine, glues material together,
and the machine with the operator in the background is a seam sealing machine.

Rarely, do I see a factory with so much unused space, we are walking over to the cutting area

Here's a laser cutting machine.

Fabric that has been spread and is now ready to cut

Screen prints drying!

Embroidery machine. They don't mess around,
 looks like this machine has 18 embroidery heads.

Then we caught a fast train to Beijing. This is me with our representative from the factory. His name is Wayne and is a very nice guy.

Once getting to Beijing and checked into the hotel, i found out I got upgraded to an executive suite...this doesn't happen often to me so I thought that I would document it. I've never had a hotel room with a separate living area and 2 bathrooms.

Then Diana and I explored a little bit of Beijing to find a bite to eat.

We came upon Lady's Street. You would think that you would either find something really dirty or some amazing shopping. In this case it was neither, a bunch of cheap trinkets so we didn't last long here.

We found Lucky Street for some Korean food, and had some pretty terrible service.

Today we had another visit with the same company but different factory.

Left: An automatic fabric cutting machine. Right: facilities of the factory

Lunch was a lot of fun. I got to try traditional Beijing style Hot Pot.

Iris, do you remember hot pot still or are you fully enchanted with American Cuisine!?!? 

This meal was centered around a pot of boiling broth, we were given thin sliced lamb and beef to cook in the liquid. Then mushrooms, cabbage, greens, tofu and potato starch noodles all showed up to be put in to cook also. We had a bowl of sauce (front right of picture) to dip everything in. I think the sauce must have had a tahini base to it. Totally fun! I'm already trying to figure out how to do this when I get home.

Here's the pot with some beef cooking in it.

I caught a flight back to Shanghai and now home relaxing, making sure that everything is ready for when Donald arrives tomorrow.

Oh the subway

I'm not sure if news traveled to all you back home but YES, there was a subway accident in Shanghai yesterday. Luckily, i was out of town traveling for work AND I don't take the #10 line. See article for more details.

Thoughts should go out to those that are still hospitalized.

Quiet Monday

As most of you know, Donald is visiting me in Shanghai starting this Friday. We have 3 1/2 days together before he needs to head back to Vietnam for work. Since Donald and I have never traveled together in China we decided to do a day excursion to a city East of Shanghai, called Suzhou (if you want to pronounce it correctly, "Sue Jo"). We will be taking the train there next Monday during the big Chinese National Holiday. B/c we are traveling during the holiday it is best to buy the train tickets in advance to guarantee that you can get on the train so after work my awesome co-worker, Oliver, walked with me to the train station, stood in line to then find out that you can only buy train tickets 6 days in advance, so they were only selling tickets up till Sunday :( Not a total wasted trip as on the way to the Metro we had to take a bus...my FIRST bus ride in Shanghai. I took pics for all my bus-riding friends to compare with PDX buses. Really about the same but not as many seats, more space for standing. Check it out!

For dinner I ate a fruit that is very uncommon in the US, Dragon Fruit. It's the size of a softball, oblong like a football and the taste/texture is a lot like a Kiwi Fruit with less acidity.

 I look forward to eating Dragon Fruit whenever I come to China.

P.S. I got my first postcard from Trisha today. It has the best cheesy Oregon picture on it possible...LOVE IT! Just in case anyone else feels like writing to me I will never turn down snail mail (or homemade jam, wink wink Mom and Trisha!).

Krista McLellan

c/o Somerset Xu Hui

No. 888 Shaanxi Nan Rd.

Xu Hui District, Shanghai

200031 CHINA

Photo tour of my Sunday

I had to go back to Taikang Rd for a look around in the daylight. It's just as impressive as it was at last night. There were so many shops that I actually got shopped-out by hour 2. Check it out!

  I was hungry when I got to Taikang Rd so my first stop was for some food. I found one of my favorite things so far. I think they called it Milk Skin?!? and I got mine with Red Bean topping. It was heaven in a bowl, a light milk based custard for only 12Yuan ($1.75USD). I have noted the location of this shop so I can go back.

Ally after ally of shops and people!

Most of the shops had steep stairs that led to more items to check out

Map of the shopping district.

Then I found the Liuli China Museum (Museum of glass). This turned out to be cooler then I expected when I first walked in.

The building was an installation all in itself,
called This Peony Will Bloom II. Has over 5,025 steel petals.

Japanese artist Kychei Fujita.

"Five Colored Dance"

Chinese artist Loretta Hui-Shan Yang
"A great wish"

 This was my favorite. US artist Jay Musler,

Called "City". It looks so modern but is from 1949!

The museum had a great outdoor space to relax in.

The founder of the museum was an artist and really into creating glass buddhas.

The one on the right has hundreds of tiny buddhas carved on the inside.

She also sculpted this guy. Really cool and ornate in person.

Here's a better picture of the Peony on the outside of the building.

I wandered my neighborhood a bit. Here are a couple picture of the tree lined streets in the old French Concession.

Then I found Fuxing Park.

 There were so many people using this park. Obviously a very well used community area.

People were flying kites, roller blading, kids playing, practicing Thai Chi, 

Ballroom dancing, walking, resting and playing Badminton. 

I even found a Holland, MI based company represented along my walk!

Last but not least, I had to get a snack so i chose this sketchy stand with bread-type items.

It was pretty yummy.

Another weekend under my belt.