I had my 4th trip to China and my 3rd to Japan during this insane 12 day journey. I had 10 flights in 12 days... I was only in the same city (Shanghai) for 3 days in a row - the rest had me going all over China and Japan. Leaving the hotel a 4-5am, flying and driving for hours... visiting plants / having meetings... and back to the hotel at 10pm-midnight. Ugh... Never again will I schedule a trip like that! But I did get a lot done! I was in Shanghai, ZhengZhou, Xinyi, Zibo, Qindao, China... and Kobe and Akashi, Japan.
I had a few objectives in this trip. Visit 4 manufacturing facilities, spend 2 weeks focused and with my "guy" (Cao Xiu) in China to keep his training, mentoring and development going, and determine the strategy to better support Japana, India, Malaysia with the resources in place, and what additional resources are needed.
For the most part, mission accomplished! Like many of these trips, I left with more actions and work to be done than I went to the region with!
I had some incredible and new experiences on this trip!
- my first meal of DOG - which was actually quite delicious - till I realized what it was - then it was hard to go on...
- A delicious platter of stir-fried SCORPIONS, CICADAS and BUBMLEBEES...
- Ate raw SEA CUCUMBER...
- Had an amazing seafood dinner at a 'single-table restaurant' in Japan where we had fresh conch, fish cheeks, perfect miso soup, sashimi and lots of sake!
- Went shopping at local grocery stores in both Japan and China and got some cool stuff for Amy
- Ate my weight in sushi - it's always good - but this was super-fresh, perfectly done sushi!
- Drove through the mountains in China - beautiful and rugged territory.
- Experienced a mega-polluted town in China (Zibo). Whoa... it was like being in a stinky forrest fire smoke cloud all day. Quite depressing. Thankfully, they have cleaned up a lot of the big, coastal cities in China - more work to be done.
- I did manage to get a lot of run training in, despite the crazy schedule. I did have one free day, and I got in a 20 miler. Rest of the days, I was up super early and did 8 - 12 mile runs in China and Japan. I refused to run in Zibo due to the pollution - I figured the little bit of fitness gain, wasn't worth the risk to my lungs!
- I was able to go to the "EXPO" (World's Fair) in Shanghai. It was pretty cool! The most interesting part of the China Pavilion was the exhibit about the incredible changes in lifestyle of the Chinese over the past 30 years. In general, we know there has been a lot of progress - but to see the full size displays of the home 30 years ago, 20, 10 and now was amazing. The dwelling sizes, the lack of modern appliances, etc. was pretty incredible to see... compared to today (which is still quite restricted compared to the USA for example).
My Chinese is improving, but still limited. I tried and tried to work on it while there. Progress... I need to spend more time on my Japanese before I go back in March.
My next trip is scheduled in March... USA to Germany (3 days) to India (3-5 days) to Japan (3 days). Should be interesting! I just hope I can keep my run training on track for the Boston Marathon - in April. Luckily it is relatively easy to run while I'm traveling. That should help.
I had a few objectives in this trip. Visit 4 manufacturing facilities, spend 2 weeks focused and with my "guy" (Cao Xiu) in China to keep his training, mentoring and development going, and determine the strategy to better support Japana, India, Malaysia with the resources in place, and what additional resources are needed.
For the most part, mission accomplished! Like many of these trips, I left with more actions and work to be done than I went to the region with!
I had some incredible and new experiences on this trip!
- my first meal of DOG - which was actually quite delicious - till I realized what it was - then it was hard to go on...
- A delicious platter of stir-fried SCORPIONS, CICADAS and BUBMLEBEES...
- Ate raw SEA CUCUMBER...
- Had an amazing seafood dinner at a 'single-table restaurant' in Japan where we had fresh conch, fish cheeks, perfect miso soup, sashimi and lots of sake!
- Went shopping at local grocery stores in both Japan and China and got some cool stuff for Amy
- Ate my weight in sushi - it's always good - but this was super-fresh, perfectly done sushi!
- Drove through the mountains in China - beautiful and rugged territory.
- Experienced a mega-polluted town in China (Zibo). Whoa... it was like being in a stinky forrest fire smoke cloud all day. Quite depressing. Thankfully, they have cleaned up a lot of the big, coastal cities in China - more work to be done.
- I did manage to get a lot of run training in, despite the crazy schedule. I did have one free day, and I got in a 20 miler. Rest of the days, I was up super early and did 8 - 12 mile runs in China and Japan. I refused to run in Zibo due to the pollution - I figured the little bit of fitness gain, wasn't worth the risk to my lungs!
- I was able to go to the "EXPO" (World's Fair) in Shanghai. It was pretty cool! The most interesting part of the China Pavilion was the exhibit about the incredible changes in lifestyle of the Chinese over the past 30 years. In general, we know there has been a lot of progress - but to see the full size displays of the home 30 years ago, 20, 10 and now was amazing. The dwelling sizes, the lack of modern appliances, etc. was pretty incredible to see... compared to today (which is still quite restricted compared to the USA for example).
My Chinese is improving, but still limited. I tried and tried to work on it while there. Progress... I need to spend more time on my Japanese before I go back in March.
My next trip is scheduled in March... USA to Germany (3 days) to India (3-5 days) to Japan (3 days). Should be interesting! I just hope I can keep my run training on track for the Boston Marathon - in April. Luckily it is relatively easy to run while I'm traveling. That should help.
Above is one of my Japanese colleagues... and below is the man who cooked our "single table" dinner in Japan. That was such a cool experience!
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