End of China/Hong Kong

Coming home, ah…

So the last days in China were a bit of an adventure.  Monday morning we left for a ferry ride out into somewhere west of Hong Kong.  It was about an hour and a half on a stifling hot ferry boat.  When then ate some yummy chinese and got in a car for about 3 hours, going who knows where into China.  

This was about the highlight of the drive, notice the one guy up top trying to escape.

We visited 2 factories, had dinner, and it was about 10 I think when I finally got to my room.  Where the AC had not been turned on.  Where we are in the middle of China and everything is in Chinese.  But, I mastered that AC and got it cooling off the place in a jiffy.  It was a pretty nice hotel, I was sad to have to get up and leave by 7am the next morning.

Tuesday we left early for another long car ride.  We visited some more factories including one making High School Musical lunch boxes!

I am sad to say this made me a little excited

Man, China is hot!  The factories were horrible, I don’t know how they put up with it!  We saw some interesting sights in the factories, much different work conditions than here.  You won’t see routine stretching and safety guards on machines.  After a few more factory tours we headed to Shenzhen.  I sadly did not catch on camera the most exciting part of that drive which was a bus with its back end smoking horribly.  Weirdly the bus driver did not seem to care because he was still chugging down the highway.  And then the highway would end we would have to drive through a pothole ridden dirt road for a stretch.  Then back to the highway.

We got to the last company visit in Shenzhen much later than expected.  It is very hard to find places over there.  We had a quick meeting and then had to make our way back to Hong Kong for dinner with another company.  Well, we had some issues getting back.  Just a few days before we had been dropped off at the border where you walk through immigration and then hop on the train on the other side.  We asked our driver to drop us off there.  We did not get dropped off there.  Instead we were at a scary bus station building and this evil security officer kept telling us there is no train.  Well, a nice man helped direct us to the right bus to get us back to the area of our hotel, which is fine and we were happy.  We bored the bus and as we were pulling away down the road I saw the other building maybe 1/4 mile from where we were.  Stupid security officer.

My coworker kept thinking everything would go really fast, but we kept being late for everything.  Late for the Shenzhen meeting which made us late to the bus which took longer than expected and by the time we got back to the hotel it was 7:30 and we were supposed to meet at 7 for dinner!  We held them off a few minutes longer to check in, bring luggage to the rooms, and change quick.  I was so hot and sweaty I took off my jeans, tshirt and tennis shoes and put on a cute skirt, top and sandals for dinner.  

I found out in the taxi we were going to the Peninsula Hotel and eating at their famous Felix restaurant up in the top of the restaurant with a great view of Hong Kong.  Sweet.  Well, we got there, and they decided that having my toes showing was vulgar and against their dress code and would not let me in the restuarant.  Never mind that my companions were wearing jeans and sneakers, and I was wearing nice black sandals.  So, instead of sitting down to a nice meal already 1 hour late, my sales rep who we were visiting took me down to the street and we tried to find somewhere open selling shoes.  This is not so easy because all the stores are high end, and that was not going to happen.  We found a department store in not too long, but then I ran into the problem of having big girl feet in China.  Yeah.  I didn’t have many choices for a fast and speedy shoe purchase.  The guy helping us was very confused and surprised when I squeezed my feet into a pair of shoes that would work, we handed him money and ran.  So, we ran back to the hotel, now all sweaty and gross again.  We were having dinner with the BIG bosses which made me so embarassed with the whole shoe debacle.

Dinner was good, insanely expensive, insanely over done in plating and presentation, food was fine but not great, but it was long and just too much for my last night in Hong Kong.

So Wednesday was the day I actually got to start heading home!  It was cool, from our gate at the airport you could see the cable cars I rode in to go see the big buddha.

If you look close you can see the cable cars

The plane ride was pretty uneventful which was nice.  The worst part was the stereo connection at my seat was a little messed up so I couldn’t hear the movies very well unless I had the plug in only 3/4 of the way.  But besides that, it was San Francisco and then Portland!

View of San Francisco shortly after taking off

The Golden Gate Bridge

Mt. St. Helens with I think Mt. Rainier behind it?

Mt. Hood kept hiding behind the wing, but I finally got her

Overall it was a good trip.  Work wise I did not get done everything I went to do.  But two trips in about a month is too much when going to China.  I would love to go back again, but lets wait a few weeks, huh?