Sorry for the lack of updates, it’s been a crazy week. I’m currently on a two hour train ride to Hong Kong.
So the last two days we covered two cities, Hangzhou and Guangzhou. We left our main vendor in Ningbo and headed to Hangzhou on Wednesday. The car ride was only about 1 hour so it wasn’t that bad. I passed out in the car for the majority of the ride. Towards the end of the car ride, our driver decided to beat the railroad crossing that was coming down. He speeded towards the crossing at about 60 miles per hour and almost hit the gates. Unfortunately, he banked his tire so hard that he busted his rear tire. After 15 minutes of continuous driving, the tire gave due and we had to stop to change it. This was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. So this driver had a weird vibe to him, he looked like one of those characters in the Street Fighter video games. Dude rolled out of the van like Mr. Cool and said 2 words to this guy at some makeshift body shop, tossed a cigarette at him and the guy proceeded to fix our tire. It was so hysterical I felt like it was straight out of some movie. This place was in the middle of nowhere. I looked up and I see across from us a guy in a field working, it was very strange. The people were staring at us as if we had just landed from Mars.
We then headed to the factory for the majority of the day. After a long day at the factory, we headed back into the city of Hangzhou. The most infamous part of this city is its lake, called the Westlake. It is definitely one of the most beautiful places I’ve been. Our vendor put us up at the Shangri-La there which is an amazing hotel, overlooking the lake. The design of it has a plantation style kind of vibe to it. Since our flight to Guangzhou (south China) was real early the next day, we had to get up early and take a quick tour of the lake. After enjoying a great breakfast overseeing the lake, we headed off to the airport. Peep below.
Right before we left the lake, I noticed this guy on this park bench with some funny looking socks. His style was so wacked that it was kind of cool. I had to take a picture of it.
I’ve been to China five times in the last year. The country has never ceased to amaze me. The first time I came I received all these warnings saying to be careful with the food, China was ghetto, etc. I’d have to say I’ve only had amazing experiences here. The people are great, the country is beautiful, the food is unreal and it’s definitely an exciting place to visit. The growth of this country is unbelievable. Every time you drive in the city or the country, all you see is massive construction going on with huge office and residential buildings being put up. In fact, every time I come back and visit the same area that I went to last time, I see many completed construction projects. It’s a great place to be and I recommend everyone to visit at some point in your life. Your eyes will definitely be exposed to some great things. I always get a rush when I come here, partially because Five Four is now doing big things over here but also to see the growth and rapid expansion of such a magnificent place.
We got into Guangzhou and it was raining pretty hard. The worst kind of rain, humid and warm water rains. Since we would only be in the city for 24 hours we headed straight to the factory for a long day of work. Checking into the hotel was quite an experience. The ceiling was very low so Ryan decided to play with it and created a big hole on the ceiling. It was pretty hilarious.
We showered and then went to another great Chinese style dinner, but this time we had Korean BBQ. After a long night of eating and drinking, we hit the sack at about 5am and woke up at 10am to catch our train to HK. I must say though, I’m very exhausted. We’ve covered 5 cities in 4 days so far, roughly 18-24 hours per city.
I’m very excited to go to Hong Kong. However, we just got a call on the train warning us that there is a black storm coming tonight. Yikesssssssssssssssss!
Lastly, here are two more of those great literal translations from Chinese to English. You gotta love it.
