Factory tour

Today was a productive visit to a factory about 2 hours west of Qingdao. So the day started and ended with a long drive. I met with the representatives for our company and talked about some of the styles that we are currently developing. One of the places that I stopped at is a factory that makes our bug repellent clothing. The General Manager of this place is an American man in his early sixties and seemed very happy to have another American show up today. He lives in the village where the factory is located (a village in China that has over a million people...they really call it a village!) and is the only white person that he knows of that lives there. It was nice to head out to lunch with him b/c I got to ask all sorts of questions about living in China. It's funny, I'm already experiencing some of the things that he mentioned. One, cravings for ice cream and two, find that you spend your free time working out (there were more, like feelings of loneliness and getting hooked on The Dog Whisperer on National Geographic station...one of the only US stations that you get here on satellite). He also shared with me an interesting fact about shipping things to China. Take note, apparently the Chinese government is not fond of processed food being shipped here. So anyone that was thinking about sending me food...let's hold off for now. I know that Miki's package with the granola showed up just fine but maybe that is b/c it wasn't in official packaging. I'll ask a few people in Shanghai if they have any problems with this. And maybe the Shanghai customs office is more lenient then the Beijing customs office who knows. I will have D3 do a test run with something and share what happens.

After awhile maybe my factory pictures will start to look the same but I'll share anyways:

This is the sample room where they make all my prototypes.

This room has lots of really long table where
the fabric is spread and cut.

It was a "power-off" day at this factory so there was no electricity. Each worker was doing tasks that didn't involve machinery. It was weird to be in a sewing room and not here the constant hum of the machines.

   Now i'm back in Qingdao. I took a tour of the park that is near my hotel (one that was built for the 2008 olympics in Beijing, Qingdao hosted the sailing events) before getting a western style dinner from room service and watching this weeks episode of Psych! I'm excited to go exploring tomorrow.