Day 10 in China: Baoding

Monday took us on another factory visit in Baoding (pop. 1,700,000). This time it was an investment casting foundry that is run by an old Communist guy and his two sons (and one of their wives). It is a success story for the privatization of Chinese industry. The family is warm and very dedicated to growing their business.

All over China you see people using these brooms. At first, it's funny - "Look at that! That guy just tied a bunch of sticks together for a broom." But then you realize that it makes sense, and they mock our need to pay money for a store-bought broom. They both do the same thing - why would I spend $10 for something that is growing in the yard? All over China this is the norm - they use things that get the job done and no more.

Baoding is known for their dog and donkey meat. On the way to lunch, one of the factory guys stopped off at a street vendor and picked up some donkey sandwiches. It was very tasty - much like a greasy pulled brisket. However, later that night my stomach disagreed with that assessment.

At the foundry, we noted that their metallurgy lab looked like it was from the 50s. They acknowledged this and explained that their intention was to upgrade their equipment last year, but then the air quality laws came out, so they instead invested in pollution control equipment. Many of their local competitors did not have the same foresight and thus did not become compliant - they are now out of business. We heard similar stories at all the factories we visited. The pollution control laws put a ton of factories out of business, but the remaining ones are now stronger and have more business than they can handle. The old buildings are being torn down in order to support the never ending growth.

Day 9 in China - The Great Wall

Sunday, we hired a guide to drive us to the Great Wall north of Beijing. It was a fantastic blue sky day with no wind. I think the cold kept the crowds at home - there were barely any tourists there, and the street vendors at the bottom were very eager to deal. I picked up some Chairman Mao pins for CP for a buck and an "I heart BJ" t-shirt for $3.

The challenge of a border wall is the support it requires. You can't just simply build a wall and expect it alone to keep out the invaders; it must be staffed and maintained. The Great Wall has guard quarters every few hundred yards. I can't imagine the resources that were required to keep this all in operation.

There is a feral cat colony at the wall. They all want attention, but cannot allow themselves to come closer than out of arm's reach.

After visiting the wall, we boarded a bullet train and went an hour (at 180 mph) southwest to Baoding. The restaurant there hat a cat motif on their seat cushions.

Day 8 in China: Hot Pot

After going numb from the cold at the Forbidden City, we sought out some hot food. Our guide took us on a wild goose chase in the blocks surrounding our hotel in search of a restaurant he had heard of. After 45 minutes of wandering around in the cold, we finally found it on the third floor of a sketchy looking office building. We were nervous going into the building, as it looked only partially occupied, but once we turned the corner and smelled the food and heard the din of a packed restaurant, we became excited.

The place specialty is Hot Pot. Now that I've had it, I'm severely disappointed that I missed having it while I was in Chongqing two years ago. It's AWESOME. Here's how it works: There's a cauldron of boiling soup stock in the middle of the table. Half is normal, the other half has an inch of red hot oil floating on top. You order whatever ingredients (or you can go buffet style) and then cook whatever you want while you chat. After a long day in the cold, this was a welcome meal.

The secret to Hot Pot is the Sichuan Peppercorn. It has a flavor known as Mala, which is hard to describe. It's hot, but it's so much more than that. It's also tangy and it actually numbs your mouth. In old times, it was used as a local anesthetic. Never in my life have I had anything like it. 

I'm no stranger to hot foods, so I dove in and indulged - why not? We had an everlasting flow of tasty Chinese light beer for coolant. As the heat kicked in, the numbness and a new weird sensation kicked in. I don't know how to describe it - just trust me and try it.

Day 8 in China: Forbidden City

While in Beijing, we hit Tienanmen Square and The Forbidden City. It was a nice Nebraska day: 30 degrees with a solid 20 mph wind.

These guys looked like they were not enjoying the cool breeze. They also looked like they are 16. 

A view across the city like this would not have been possible only a couple of years ago. In addition to banning coal, the government is also doing everything to curb particulates in the air. Any bare ground or piles of dirt at construction sites has to be covered up with tarps. Same for truck loads. The improvement in air quality is simply amazing! And yet we have a ding dong in charge here that wants to bring back coal. 

Day 8 in China: Shanghai to Beijing

On Saturday, we boarded the bullet train and headed north to Beijing (pop. 11,700,000). It's a two hour flight, or a 4-1/2 hour train ride in a comfy seat. Our train seated 1,000 passengers and ran at 190 mph with only a few stops. It rocked!

There are about 50 of these Shanghai to Beijing trains that run every day. That's 50,000 people a day! We really need to get serious about making hi-speed rail a reality in the US.

Our sunny blue skies disappeared as we neared Nanjing (pop. 7,200,000) where they're still burning coal. This is how everywhere was the past two times I visited. 

There's a food car on the train that serves up some pretty tasty train TV dinners. 

After we cleared Nanjing, it was blue skies and sunshine all the way to Beijing. (Chinese lesson: Nan means south, Bei means north, and jing means capital. Nanjing was the southern capital of China before it was moved to Beijing).

The countryside looks not too different from our countryside, except that all the fields are small plots. There are no 640 acre fields. Same goes for large ag equipment - everything is done manually or with small powered equipment. This has allowed the rural population to remain intact.

Day 7 in China: More Shanghai

The factory we visited on Friday in Shanghai is run by a very proud Communist. It was a world-class factory with modern equipment and competent people running it.

After work, we took the subway from Hongqaio to Pudong, which is the metro area of Shanghai on the other side of the Bund. It's where all the super tall buildings reside. Most of the subway riders are commuters, but with the large airport and railway station at Hongqaio, there are a lot of travelers. This little girl rode the entire way sitting on her mom's suitcase. It was obvious that she knew the drill.

Getting around on the Shanghai subway is intimidating at first, but once you understand how it works, it's totally excellent and easy to use. I'd rather take the subway than drive any day. One of our company guides liked to drive, so he drove us everywhere - it's not for the faint of heart or those that suffer from carsickness. The other guy didn't like to drive, so we took the train and subway everywhere and relaxed along the way. 

In Pudong, we hit the Fake Mall. It's a collection of hundreds of small shops that sell fake stuff as well as normal nice Chinese stuff, like scarves and Mahjong sets. I was amazed at the number of fake Star Wars Lego kits we saw: Star Wart, Star Plan, and Star Wnrs.

Thank goodness the boys have outgrown this - I would have had to send home a crate of lego kits for them.

Day 6 in China: Suzhou

On Thursday, we took the bullet train to Suzhou (pop. 10,700,000). Driving would have taken over an hour, but the train only to 15 minutes at 180 mph. The Hongqiao railway station is the largest in Asia; it's also connected to the Hongqaio airport and Shanghai subway. I'm glad it wasn't busy.

We visited one of our suppliers that makes radiators for one of our suppliers. They also gave us a tour of their other plant that builds heat exchangers - Wow! What a cool factory! They make radiators for the bit Caterpillar mining trucks as well as heat exchangers for extreme chemical processing plants. Some of them have stainless steel pipes running through huge blocks of graphite. The biggest one they made was over 80 feet long.

When we got back that evening and explored "The Hub" which is the center of a new metro area. I'm not sure how they do city planning in China, but they do a good job. In this case, the story is that downtown Shanghai is maxed out, so the area immediately west of the Hongqaio airport is being developed as the next high-density metro center.

Day 5 in China: Nantong

Wednesday, we drove north two and a half hours, across the Yangtze River to the city of Nantong (pop. 7,200,000) to visit another factory.  

At lunch, this pitch-black stuff made it around three or four times on the lazy Susan before I got up the nerve to try it. The only thing that it looked remotely close to was deep fried dog poop. I was relieved to find that it was just pitch-black deep fried fish that was as tasty as Mrs. Paul's finest fish stiks. I was told that the black color comes from black sesame. 

This is a typical dining room in a Chinese restaurant. All of the tables are round with a lazy Susan in the middle. Large ones, like this one, are usually self-powered. Servers bring the meal one dish at a time and everyone shares everything on the table. 

Chinese food rule: It's impolite to ask WHAT it is, but perfectly normal (and expected) to ask HOW to eat it.

Also - never use your chopsticks to point.

With the crackdown on pollution and burning coal, all of the currently operating power plants and factories have undergone modifications to curb emissions. Those that didn't step up and conform have been shut down. All up and down the Yangtze River are HUGE industrial plants. I know the sky looks murky here, but it's a thousand times better than the previous two years.

Day 4 in China: Ningbo

On Tuesday, we drove from Hangzhou to Ningbo (pop. 3,500,000) and visited two factories: an investment casting foundry, and the machine shop that machines their parts. The casting factory was top notch, but the machine shop was sketchy. It was one of those places where they were really trying to put on a show, but we could tell that what we were seeing wasn't their normal day-to-day operation. That's why it's so important to visit our suppliers' (and their suppliers') factories.

As usual, lunch was an adventure. The ordering room featured lots of dead fish as well as some live ones.

The Chinese aren't bothered by bones in their food. Most meat dishes are either cooked entire animals (like the fish below), or diced animals. Whereas we tend to separate meat into different cuts and types (steak vs. ribs vs. tripe), in China it's all just chopped into chopstick-manageable cubes. 

After lunch, we drove back to Shanghai across the bridge the Hangzhou Bay Bridge, which is the longest ocean-crossing bridge. Instead of staying downtown Shanghai, we moved our base to the Hotel Intercontinental by the Hongqaio airport. I LOVE 5-star hotels. I can't afford them in the states, but in China, they're under $200 per night.

Day 3 in China - Hangzhou

One of the first things I noticed when we arrived in Shanghai was how clear the air was compared to last year. I actually saw the sunrise from the hotel in Hangzhou (pop. 6,200,000). Last year, I could barely make out the shape of the hills.

This year, China has essentially outlawed coal. As we attempt to spool up coal here, they are working to improve the air there. It was noticeable everywhere we went (except for Nanjing, where they are still burning coal - it was murky and dark). 

We toured two of our supplier's factories in Hangzhou. One of the produces 30% of all the lockwashers used in China. That's a lot of lockwashers! The other factory makes parts for us. This was the third time I have met with them. The old guy that owns the lockwasher factory is quite a character. At dinner he goes around the table with a pitcher of baijiou (Chinese 80-proof white liquor) and does shots with each person at the table. Fortunately, the baijiou shot glasses are very small (about 1/4 of a normal shot).

Day 2 in China: Shanghai to Hangzhou

I Love Shanghai! It's such a fun city to wander through despite a population of 24 million. It's ultra modern along Nanjing Road, but very traditional Chinese just a block off the street. I ventured down an alley and found a luggage shop where I picked up a Tumi backpack for $32.

For lunch, we strolled down to the Bund. 

Later in the day, we drove to Hangzhou. Dinner was at a place with an expansive ordering room. They had live lobsters, crabs, shrimps, salamanders, turtles, fish, and even something that looked like a cross between a shrimp and a trilobite. Eating in China can be like eating at a pet store.

China Day 1: Arrive in Shanghai

Going west, we lost a day. We left Lincoln at 6 AM on Friday and didn't land in Shanghai until 7 PM Saturday night. We made it through immigration and customs in good time, but we had to wait for some guys from another company to show up. It's different waiting for someone there than it is here. No phones, no readable signs, no one to ask for help. We talked with them about the plan before we left, and hoped that we met up on the far side. 

We grabbed a bite and a brew while waiting for our colleagues. At 9:30, we were about to leave when they finally showed up. There were several shady cabbies hassling us to take their cab. They assured us that the train had long stopped running and our only option was to take their cab.

Per my research, the train had not stopped running yet, so we were able to take the MagLev into town. During the day it tuns at 240 mph. At night, only 190 mph. It looks like this one encountered a pigeon on the tracks earlier in the day.

The MagLev only runs halfway from the airport to downtown, so we had to take a subway for the last leg of the journey (and then walk two blocks). We stayed on East Nanjing Road, which is a huge pedestrian mall in the heart of Shanghai.

Busy Travel Month

December was the busiest travel month of my life. In 32 days, I took 14 flights through 10 different airports, visited 14 cities, 8 factories, rode on 5 bullet trains with wheels, one without wheels, and rode around on the Shanghai subway. Needless to say, I was glad when the last trip was complete and I could sleep in my own bed every night. 

The first trip was to China. Lincoln --> Minneapolis --> Los Angles --> Shanghai. When I booked the flight, there was no option for going thru Seattle. The flight from LA is three hours longer due to LA being further south and the fact that we are nearly at war with North Korea, so we had to fly further west in China and basically go right over Beijing. Total flight time: 10 minutes shy of 15 hours. Ugh.

At least all of the flights were scenic. On the way to LA, we flew over the Four Corners region and I got to see Shiprock. On the flight to Shanghai, I saw Yosemite, the coastal volcanoes, and even Denali's summit poking out of the noontime winter twilight.

I love the real-time map and flight information on the bigger planes. With a little bit of geographic knowledge, you know where to look to see some cool landmarks. The photo above is Denali.

X-Mas Tree

After we returned from Illinois, we had a full day to set up all the X-Mas decorations. CP and W helped. 

W the Cat

We went to Lanark for Thanksgiving and brought back W, the diabetic cat, to stay with us for a while. He made himself at home and seems happy, but the other two are out of sorts and slowly coming around.