Blogs from Hangzhou , China, Asia - page 30

Today was a Business day. Yeah, I know, It’s Sunday. But do you think that stops anyone here from business and deals? Nope! Today I met with Mr. Zhou and his engineer and production manager. We discussed some business, and we agreed on some changes to my original design, adding some features. It was very productive. A good part is that they will have a working copy within five days! Then I went to another factory to discuss a comfortable seat for the kayak. We discussed material and fabric. Once again, we will have a working prototype in a few days. That’s the way it is here in China. If you are lucky, like I am, to have a trustworthy contact with whom you have already done business, then your contact will do everything he/she can ... read more

Well, I finally had to go to the expert, Jeff....who unwound my mistakes and got 'most of you' on the new blog. It is called CharM. If you did not get a blogless blog from me (ie, just a note saying you are on the list) and you would like to be on the new blog list, please give me a quick e-mail and I'll add you. My new address, for the few of you who don't have it, is mills.charlene@gmail.com. Hopefully, this time it will all work. With a week's rest in Qingdao next week, I'm hoping that I'll have time to do a few entrie. One of the problems here is finding someone to download the photos. Always, something. Happy Spring(less) spring to you all....I get news from Jeff saying they are still forcasting ... read more

Well it has been about 3 months since I first arrive back here in China. I finally finished my University and achieved my goal of getting my ass back here so that I could travel and study Chinese. The studying part has been going well but the travel part has be much less than I expected. I wanted it so that on the weekends I could travel to strange places around the province at least and head more to the west of China. as it stands now I am not doing much other than sitting around and studying and going to the gym. It feels like a little be of a waste to be doing things that I could easily be doing in Canada. My apartment is small here but it is in a nice location. ... read more

The day kicked off before the cock crowed with a wakeup call at five in the morning. We had a plane to catch at 8:30 and had already had our bags collected last night at 10:30. Naturally Chelle and I set our own alarms twenty minutes later and rushed breaky just in time to catch the bus. The plane flight was about two hours and passed over central China. It was a bit of an eye opener to fly up over the layer of pollution and to finally see some clouds and blue sky again. I was hoping that the pollution in China was only concentrated around the main cities, but the whole flight was over a sea of smoke. I could barely make out the mountains, fields and villages below through the thick haze. If ... read more

The start of "Scenic China Tour with Christina". Shanghai to Hangzhou to Huangshan to Guilin to Yangshuo to Shanghai. We started out to Hangzhou on Sunday and took the train from Shanghai. The fast train only takes 1 hour 30 minutes, departing from Shanghai South Station (44 rmb per person). I wish I took a photo of the train station. It's quite pretty and new. We got to Hangzhou and I guess a few trains arrived at once and the station was packed. The entire wide walkway was filled and we could hardly get down the steps from the platform. It was nuts. We waited in the taxi queue and when we got in, the taxi driver was totally bumping Chinese hip-hop music. I laughed as I told CL we were in the Hangzhou party taxi. ... read more