It has been a very busy past two plus weeks for me. I've had visitors here from Polaris for the last 18 or so days. These latest days have taken me to places in China like Chongqing back to Shanghai for a night with the family to Beijing to Qinhuangdao back to Chongqing back to Shanghai for a night with the family to Changzhou and back to Shanghai. First I want to really thank Sabrina for her complete support through this aggressive schedule and agenda. I love you, honey. They have been fruitful travels and this aspect of the job comes with the assignment. Just as I enjoy traveling and sharing experiences with my family, I too enjoy working and getting on the road with co-workers. Don't get me wrong it is work, but I would rather spend time on the road vs. in the office any day of the week.
So because this is a get down and personal blogspot - I'm only going to really "blog" about the personal aspects of my recent travels and provide a few pictures along the way. As every now and then I do stumble upon some free time while on the road.
As mentioned the first stop on my journey was in Chongqing. Jason (my colleague here in China) and Marc (from Corporate) & I attended a motorcycle show. Jason & I were looking for suppliers while Marc was doing some market analysis and assessment. Late one after noon we decided to take a walk from the hotel down what the hotel called the "harbor". Along the way we found this little side street that lead to a Buddist temple. The temple then opened to a street that led down to the harbor that is at the meeting point of the Yangtze & Jialing Rivers which eventually flows into the 3 Gorges Dam that you have probably heard about.
The following week Brad Clark and Chris Moen arrived in China and we started a whirl wind tour that took us to a number of suppliers. We then narrowly managed to not get trampled at the Shanghai Auto Show on a Sunday afternoon. I have never seen such a crappy job of crowd control and movement in my life. There was literally mob type movement, pushing & shoving, baracade busting, a fight, etc. etc. It was crazy and we happend to be right in the middle of it. No pictures though -sorry. Just too many people trying to go into too tight of space as they only had one door opened up.... Enough of that. As with all visits to China for my co-workers it ended with some Papa John's Pizza and beer at the Wixo household. The twins even like a little pizza too. Jason brought his wonderful wife, Jenny, over for a first time meeting, and we look forward to having them as neighbors as they are literally moving into an apartment that is just across the street from our housing complex. How ironic is that...in a city of 17 million people.
Just a quick thank you to the guys that visited our new office and home over here. I will say, both Sabrina and I look forward to all of you visiting. Just talking to someone face to face from back at the home office and the midwest is a treat for us.
Now I'm home for a little while as the first week in May is a national holiday here in China and most of the country will be shut down for a week or so. We were thinking of taking the family to Korea for a couple of days but I convinced Sabrina that maybe some R&R at home might just be the only ticket I'm willing to purchase right now. :)Until next time...
