Day Six - entering China

This was the first day into mainland China. The owner of the factory picked us up from our hotel for the car ride into China. It is interesting to note that you have to pass through two border crossings...one leaving Hong Kong and another to enter China...kind of strange since it's all one country now. We crossed the border at Shenzhen, which is a town of about 10 million people that basically did not exist 20 years ago. When China opened it's borders to foreign investment in factories about then, this became a major economic zone due to it's proximity to Hong Kong. We drove for about an hour through Shenzhen and to our factory and it was high rise after high rise and construction in every direction.

In Hong Kong they drive on the left side of the street similar to the U.K. but as soon as you cross the border it goes back to normal. Another contrast to Hong Kong is that jaywalking is illegal and you can even get arrested for it but in China there are bikes every where and people cross the street wherever and whenever they want. Also, there is basically no regard for driving laws...people routinely cross the double-yellow line and drive on the wrong side of the street, regardless of oncoming traffic.

We ate a two very nice restaurants again today...the only odd thing was a Peking Duck served with head intact! Tim and I have learned not to sit next to one of our hosts because they just keep piling on the food and they don't really take 'no' for an answer. Also, it is a beautiful sight when they bring out a fruit plate because that means the meal is almost over. The food today was actually pretty good but the food just keeps coming for 1-2 hours...usually at least 10 dishes!

We are staying at the Marco Polo hotel in downtown Shenzhen tonight and will see two more factories tomorrow.

Day Five - Lamma Island

Woke up this morning and decided to try to find a church here in Hong Kong. After a little searching on the Internet, I found an area fairly close to the hotel that had a Baptist Hospital and University along with a church. I took a taxi to get there and it cost me HK$50. The service was in English and there were a few other tourist-types there. The paster and worship leader were also Americans but basically everyone else was Asian. It was a contemporary service and we sang a lot of the same songs we sing at our church in the States. It was a great experience to worship with fellow believers in this foreign land. Like everything over here, it was packed with people. I would say the pews had a capacity for 200 but there were probably 300 people total including all the folding chairs in the back and in the isles. I don't think they have fire codes here in HK. When church was over I decided to take a risk and try to take the subway back to my hotel. Upon getting to the subway it took me about 10 minutes to figure out which way to go and then another American (carrying a Bible) asked me if I needed help then pointed me in the right direction. Once again the subway train was packed with people.

When I got back to my hotel, I met up with my Tim and Mike for a trip to Lamma Island. The island is a fishing village and has a nice beach. We took a pretty long hike over the island (very hilly) to see a village on the other side then headed back for lunch at a seaside Seafood restuarant. Once again, there were people everywhere...7 million people live in Hong Kong and you never really find a place without a crowd. The closest I come is the a jog at 5am. Today's menu included fresh lobster and scampi that were both alive in water tanks before being served to us for lunch! In true American fashion, I ordered some french fries and ketchup and used chopsticks to eat them! In all, we spent about 6 hours on the island before heading back. Tim and Mike went to Catholic Mass and I headed back here to update the blog.

Tomorrow we head into mainland China for the week to visit several factories.

Day Four - Stanley

I woke up this morning (Saturday) at 4am and could not get back to sleep so after laying in bed for about an hour I got up went for a 10-mile jog along the waterfront. I found a route that went for about 4 miles one direction. Again, the view was great and there were quite a few people out and about for a Saturday morning.

After the run, I met Mike and Tim for breakfast then we headed for a part of Hong Kong called Stanley. It is famous for it's shopping district where you can find a wide range of stuff from $6 polos to Chinese style clothes to luggage...all in street/market setting. It is interesting to note that there is absolutely no Olympics gear to be found. Olympics signs are everywhere you look in public places promoting the summer games but you can't find anything to buy. One shop owner told us that it is only available in Beijing. To get to Stanley we took the Star Ferry from our island (Kowloon) to the main island (Hong Kong island) then took a double-decker bus that winded back through the mountains (really just large hills) to the other side of the island. If you look at the picture to the right, we ate lunch at the restaurant with the blue awning.

For dinner last night a large group of us met at a restaurant called the Spring Deer. The highlight of the meal was the baked Duck. From start to finish the meal took about 3 hours and it seemed like they just kept bringing food out the entire time. That's it for today.

Day Three - chicken feet

We are meeting with 3 additional suppliers today in Hong Kong. (It is interesting to note that I have not met anyone in any of our meetings that is left-handed) When our first meeting was over, the supplier took us out to lunch at a very nice Chinese Seafood restaurant. I am starting to get used to chop sticks but apparently the waitress at the restaurant didn’t think so because she brought me a fork! Meals with suppliers are interesting because they just order a ton of food and then we just try a little of everything. Today it was mostly chicken, pork and beef dishes but I did try some squid and an entire fried chicken’s foot. The funny part it that they guy I was traveling with said to eat the entire thing because the bones are really just tough cartilage but after crunching through it and washing it down with a lot of Coke, I noticed that all the locals had little bones on their plates…similar to how we eat Chicken wings. So far, no side affects but I will keep you posted. This is a picture of me eating a chicken's foot!


Tonight we went out to dinner with one of our co-workers who is native to Hong Kong along with his wife. We went to a restaurant famous for Roasted Goose called Chan Kee which is in the city/area of Hong Kong called Shan Tseng. The goose got brought to the table in one piece, head and all! It tasted pretty good…I thought a lot like beef. The meal also included a dish of broccoli & scallops, a dish of chicken and another of beef. For dessert we went to a famous place around the corner called Lucky Dessert. Every dessert on the menu had some type of fruit in it….not you typical American desserts of ice cream, cakes or pies. Once again, we ordered 4 things and we all got a little taste of each. The mango pancake was my favorite along with the baked banana.

We have the weekend to see the sights in Hong Kong and to do a little shopping (especially to make up for missing Mother's Day)!

Day Two - working day in HK

I ate breakfast this morning in the hotel restaurant. They had a wide selection of Chinese-type foods including some type of grilled salmon but luckily they also had the usual items….I had waffles, French toast, bacon, fresh fruit, and a chocolate muffin. We worked out of our Buying Office in Hong Kong this afternoon. Lunch was at a Thai restaurant within walking distance from the office. We ordered numerous different dishes and I was able to try a little of everything…lamb chops, beef curry, fried noodles, chicken lettuce wraps. The best was when I asked our host about one of the dishes and she said “It’s some type of fungus”. Now that sounds appetizing! I did try one bit but it was not too tasty. We played it safe for dinner tonight since we were on our own again…pizza.

A few observations so far as we have been around the city a little bit. High-rise apartment complexes are everywhere and clothes are usually hanging out to dry from nearly every window. They use bamboo sticks for scaffolding…even for the tallest buildings.

Day Two - morning jog

I had a good nights rests for the first night in a new time zone. I was able to sleep from about 11pm until 5am, which is pretty much my normal sleeping schedule. Since I was awake and had no where to be until 8am, I decided to go for a 7-mile run. I stopped at the front desk to ask for a map and the hotel address in case I got lost and the clerk looked at me like I was crazy! As I left the hotel the streets were pretty much empty except for a few taxi’s lined up outside the hotel. I decided to make my way down to the waterfront to the Star Ferry which is only a couple of blocks away. As I rounded the corner into the Ferry station there were at least 100 Chinese people working frantically to insert ads into the morning newspapers before loading them into vans. It was quite a site and needless to say I will be taking my camera tomorrow morning. I found a good route along the waterfront that was about 2 mile down and back on a pathway/boardwalk by the Hong Kong Cultural Center. I had a great view of downtown Hong Kong across the water as the sun was coming up. I was also happy to see quite a few other people jogging and walking!

Day One - arrival in HK

This is the first official entry from Hong Kong. The flight to Denver and San Francisco were uneventful. the 14-hour flight from San Francisco was quite an experience...Business Class is the way to go! We were given socks for the ride so we could take off our shoes along with a tooth brush and tooth paste. The seats recline almost all the way back, so that was nice as well. The first couple of hours were occupied with a lunch that included warm nuts, 2 salads, dinner rolls, ribs & potato's, and cheesecake for dessert. After lunch I slept for about an hour then decided to try to stay awake for awhile. Basically everyone else on the flight was sleeping but I managed to stay awake doing some BSF and reading a couple of books...Blue Like Jazz and Passion for Jesus. I also spent a few hours going through the travel guides from Kathy & Orin. My co-worker brought DVD's for every season of the office so I spent about an hour watching several episodes. That was about a 7-hour stretch and by then I was having a hard time staying awake so I took a 2-hour nap. When I woke up we still had 3 hours to go but the time went by fast as I was back to reading and getting up to walk around. All in all, the flight was a lot better than I was anticipating.

Upon arriving in Hong Kong, we took a shuttle to our Hotel which is on the island of Kowloon. The Swifts will appreciate that we can see the lazer shows at night from our hotel. The hotel is very nice and everything is first class. For dinner (keep in mind that we were eating dinner at 8am KC time) we decided to stick to American food. We went to Dan Ryan's and had ribs! I offered to try some Chinese food close to our hotel but both of the guys I was traveling concurred that we will get plenty of that over the next 2 weeks.