Fun times
(ignore that grammar, I’m doing this on an iPad)
Yesterday we visited blue dot, a furniture company that prides itself on providing edgy premium furniture. The speaker made it sound like it is really difficult to live here if you’re married, given the night life. This was reconfirmed by our speaker James, a fellow SCU alumni today, but I’ll get to that later. Regarding blue dot, I felt like I learned more about the manufacturing process here in china than anything else. We also learned that you can find sleeping shanghai residents at the ikea store. This was our only company for the day, so James (who’s Chinese name is chin dong, or eastern sky given to him by our bartender back in Beijing), Ilya, and Haley decide to go get suits made at the suit market. W find a humble old man and his daughter (the only people who didn’t hassle us while we were walking through), 5 suits and a nice looking jacket for haley later and we head off, under budget, to get ready for the alumni dinner. The restraint has an amazing view of shanghai, especially looking towards the bund. I spoke to a couple of alumni, one being a local shanghai resident who manages a fund for various customers (mostly government) of over $1 billion US. I’m fairly confident I established some guang xi with David and hope to be speaking with him soon. 2 of the alumni take us to this nice night club / hookha bar called Barbosa where it was ladies night and all the girls drank for free. Unfortunately, us boys still paid full price for our drinks but still had a great time, especially with the roof top bar and hookha session. A perct end to a perfect day.
Today we started off at Tigo where we were met by a fellow SCU grad James. I don’t think I’ve been so impressed with someone than I was with James. He was very knowledgable about his subject (solar), explained it very well, and demonstrated a sizeable knowledge of business skills. Lunch was held at a restraint normally reserved for state officials, but since bing (a tag along undergrad at SCU) has clammily connections to the owner, we were allowed to dine. Delicious lobster. Next stop was Bao steel, a stated owned enterprise (SOE). Our host was a little strange, as if he was putting up a front and acting like everything at Bao is great and wonderful even though we were just informed that their net profits had declined by roughly 37% last year. The cool part was when we got to tour the manufacturing plant, where it was easily over 120 degrees while the multin steam passed through the quarter mile of machinery that was used to shape it into thin sheets. You could feel the intense heat even from our distance which was around 150 feet.
While driving through the campus (which is essentially a small city) we come across a boat in the harbor where a kid was hanging off a boat and taking a number 2 right into the ocean. Classic. We rounded off today with a hot pot dinner where we ate for a solid hour. Awesome experience! brad and I ate duck blood which wasn’t bad actually. So thus far, that’s a scorpion, fish eyeball and now duck blood. Afterwards we hit the hotel bar and got a few drinks with the group, watched some tv with Ilya and Haley back in his room, and am now in my room finishing up this blog while Kevin does the same.
Tomorrow is our last day. I’m kind of sad it’s coming to an end but I feel this group has formed some sizable and long lasting bonds. I’m excited for what the future holds and the doors that this trip has opened. I’m also excited for tomorrow - we pick up our suits and end the trip with a bash at one shanghais wildest nigh clubs, either M1nt (yes thats how its spelled) or Apartment. Then it’s off to thailand for a whole other adventure. Stay tuned.
