Shanghai

Quite long. Get ready.

Saturday:

We made it to Shanghai safely. We just got showered at the hostel (after dropping off dry cleaning and finding a Chinese sim card) and wandered around to find somewhere for dinner and drinks. Our friends from PolyU happened to overlap trips to Shanghai by one day, so after stopping by one bar for a drink we decided to try and meet up with them for dinner and possible outing.  We checked our subway map (they were meeting at the entrance 1 to Line 10) and figured we could get there with 2 changes so it would be pretty easy. We made the first switch and when we got to Line 10 there were metal fences shut in front of the entrance because it had closed for the evening, before 9pm. So we figured we will have to grab a cab down to the entrance. By this time, my phone has gone dead and I cannot text Lauren to tell her the situation. Now we are waiting on the street for a nonexistent taxi. One finally comes up and we take about a 20-minute taxi ride to Line 10, not sure what exit. We start jogging, literally, to find the correct entrance and are running around the streets for another 20 minutes. We find 3, 4, 8, 9… not 1. We eventually succumb to using Debbie’s expensive home phone to call their Chinese number and figure out where to go. They explain, we continue running. Once we find the correct exit they tell us to start walking toward the restaurant they ended up at. It took us a total of an hour and half to get there, and one hour after we were supposed to meet them. We ate dinner at a little seafood joint where you just point at what you want and go sit in this little room. You have to wear gloves or else it would be a complete mess. We each got a crab, crawfish type things, vegetables, and meat skewers. It was really good and quite an experience opening our own seafood and trying to figure out what everything was. After dinner Christian, Franzia, Michael, Ben, and Lauren were going to “Bar Rouge” which is the “it” bar, but we decided to head home for evening.

Street Vendor on the walk back

Sunday:

Sunday was our one and only true sightseeing day. My friend from College of Textiles, Michael Poston, was in China and Shanghai for business with the textile company he is working with so we decided to try and meet up for the day. We met him at the Shanghai World Financial Center, which is the highest observatory deck in the world at 492 meters.  It took us a very long time to get to the top floor Sky Walk, but it was definitely worth the wait. From the Sky Walk you could see both sides of the city and you could see straight down through the glass floor tiles. The elevator went to the top floor, floor 100 in less than one minute.

From the IFC building

From the IFC building we wandered our way to The Bund, aka the harbor, and took a ferry across the water and enjoyed the view. We walked until we found a restaurant called Grandmothers, or something, and had a delicious lunch of a lot of different Chinese dishes.  From there were slowly running out of time, so we decided to head to the Nanjing Shopping Street. It was Sunday so extremely crowded!! They had tons of stores and shops, but there is no way that locals would ever set foot on that street to shop it was so hectic. We bought a few souvenirs and then stumbled across the Style Hong Kong exhibit. Many clothing, jewelry, and cookware designers from HK were part of the exhibit so we got to talk around and see all of the different brands. We waited around for the parade they were having come down the main strip, but it turned out to just be a marching band. Kind of a let down. The four of us walked to The Bund to see the harbor view lit up at night. It was much more crowded than the harbor in Hong Kong, but the skyline was very beautiful. It was nice to get to see Michael and chat with him throughout the day about his job and his life as a grown up!

At the Bund with Michael Poston

We had a lot of fun, but we were worn out and it was time to head back to our side of town.  Andrew, Debbie, and I popped into the hostel to put on jeans, it was quite chilly at night in Shanghai, and headed down the street to The Wizard of Oz which we thought was an ice cream, smoothie, and sweets place. The chairs were actually wooden swings and they had wonderful drinks from teas, smoothies, coffees, salads, and sandwiches. We just spent some time chatting about life and enjoying our delicious drinks, mine was a hot honey ginger drink. After that it was time to go to sleep because we were meeting our first company in the morning!

Monday:

Glen Raven started our week of company and industry visits. Lewis, the administrative manager, picked us up at our hotel and we drove for about an hour to Suzhou Industrial Park to where the Glen Raven facilities are located. Suzhou is a city and within Suzhou is the SIP (Suzhou Industrial Park). SIP is its own city with companies, entertainment, recreation area, an education center, restaurants, you name it. The entire place was built in only 16 years. Once we got to Glen Raven we met with Wally Li, the General Manager of Shanghai office. They welcomed us with a sign with our names and the NCSU wolf, very cool. Wally talked to us about where he came from and how he got to Glen Raven and told us a bit about what they do at Glen Raven Asia, who there clients are (they do all of the awnings at Starbucks), and the types of products they have (awnings, outdoor furniture, etc.). Lewis took us on a tour of the production part of the facility and it was nothing like what you would imagine from a Chinese factory.  The space was so neat, clean machines, fewer workers that were assigned to multiple machines for efficiency. It was a really great place to see and we were debating if this was a special case or if most Chinese factories are actually like that, I voted it is an exception.

Lewis, Me, Wally, Debbie, Andrew

From there Lewis took us to lunch near by and we had quite the selection. The restaurant was actually supposed to be closing, but Lewis made them serve us! Lewis felt that we needed to see Old Suzhou to compare is to the SIP and new Suzhou area so he took us to a nice park and explained what all of the different buildings were used for. At the end of the park he bought us some fruits that I had never seen before but were very delicious. Again he made a scene by making the people let us try them first to make sure we liked them. Lewis was excellent the whole day! We continued on our tour of Old Suzhou and walked around the streets and over bridges checking out the shops.

Old Suzhou

We went into one place where you can buy a mussel for HK$10 and get the pearls from it. We all assumed MAYBE you would get ONE pearl, but when they opened it up there were about 20 pearls inside that they made into earrings and bracelets for Debs and Andrew. It was really neat to see! By now it was time to eat again so Lewis took us to a Hot Pot restaurant on the way back to Glen Raven. I was super excited because I had read in my book that hot pot is a must like in China. It is basically like our form of fondue where you get a boiling pot of broth with vegetables and you put in more vegetables and different meats to let them cook. It was SO delicious. We had sheep, three kinds of beef, prawns, melon, and a few other things. Very very good and by now we were stuffed and on our way back from our 12 hours with Glen Raven!

Hot Pot dinner

Tuesday:

Today we went to Springs Global Asia and met with their VP of Asia, Peter Zuo, and he took us to lunch. He has only been with Springs for two months so he was able to tell us more about what he did previously and the basics of Springs, as he was still learning everything himself. He was very direct and only answered the questions we asked, which was different from Wally and others that would just share wisdom with you without having to be asked. Peter was a pretty young guy, really laid back and interesting and suggested that we meet up when he is Hong Kong for drinks so we are looking forward to that. After lunch we went to Shanghai Mart which is a huge building of permanent showrooms.

One of the showrooms

They have fabrics, garments, accessories, everything. The concept was really interesting because it presents the buyers with a permanent place they can go at any time. The Mart seems to be doing well with about 80% occupancy and over 2,000 booths I believe.  We toured the Mart with Lizzy and then we met with their GM, Hansen Tian. Another very wise man that made a joke about a man that had recently been voted into a pretty high level of government that he knows. Important people do that here, just discreetly mention these really important people they know and are friends with.  After Shanghaimart we rested for a bit and then went to the Renaissance Hotel to surprise Dr. Cassill when she got there from the airport. We had a table already with a few types of snack and a wine list ready for her. It was GREAT to see her and we tried to only chat for a bit so she could get some sleep!

Wednesday:

Today was our first full day with Dr. Cassill and we started off at the Intertextile Trade Show. We were planning out our path when a guy named Hien Phung walked up that had Dr. Cassill as a teacher and was my STEP counselor when I was in high school. He is working for a textile company and living in Taiwan now. We talked with quite a few companies at the show, but some stuck out more than others like Jay Hertwig, Global Sales and Marketing Manager from Unifi. They were focused on their “Repreve” fibers that are all recycled fibers from plastic bottles. Sustainability was a large trend at the show. Another great person we met was from Smithfield named Bart Kennedy, Marketing Account Manager, from Invista in the active wear department with huge clients like Nike and Underarmour. The show was quite incomprehensible when you looked at the size of it. It made us realize how the textile industry is still booming and truly how many different aspects of the industry there are. From synthetic furs to buttons to smart fibers.

The Show

After Intertextile we went to China Home Fashions and met up with our other team member for the week, Nancy Webster and her clients at China Home, Wallace and Idy. We started off with a ton of different Asian snacks that Nancy had gotten for us and sat down to chat with Wallace about his company, his clients, and his future of China Home. China Home Fashions designs home furnishings for different brands such as Pier 1 (who they met with that day), and is just starting their own Chinese brand called Le Mandalay.  We got to tour the office and see their showroom where they take clients to present their new ideas, their fabric library, and their own offices. After China Home, Wallace and Idy took us five to The Kitchen, which was a very fancy Italian restaurant. It was right on The Bund and we got excellent pastas (noodles with braised veal and onions), steaks, and crème brulee for dessert!

With Wallace & Idy and the Nancys!

Wallace and Idy were SO generous and extremely sweet people. They were definitely some of the most interesting people we met just because of their kindness and being able to spend more time with them and speaking about more than just textiles.  We got Wallace to interpret our Chinese names to see what they meant to him and my Chinese name means kind hearted, female wisdom, and talented young girl.

Thursday:

We had another wonderful day with the Nancys. We accompanied them to the Donghua Fashion Institute to meet with their faculty about a possible collaboration between schools. They toured us around ALL of the facilities and talked to us about their annual fashion show that sounded completely amazing!

The fashion area

They took us to yet another delicious lunch with way too much food.  By the end of the day we had seen so much of Donghua that we were all tired and ready to go home when they said, now we will show you the textile museum we have on campus. Oh no! After our tour was complete we decided to head back to our hotels for a bit to rest and freshen up before dinner in the main part of the city. We first started out with drinks at T8 which was a super cool, dark, sophisticated type place. The food was quite ornate so we decided to eat dinner somewhere else and almost all ended up getting burgers. We had a lovely time just walking the cobblestone streets and checking out all of the nice restaurants.

Nancy Webster, Me, Dr. Nancy Cassill

Friday:

Another great day in Shanghai. Today was the Walmart visit with Bill Cummings, General Manager. Walmart and Bill were very fascinating. The entire office was extremely positive and connected. They did all sorts of team building activities and Bill knew and spoke to everyone (kind of reminds me of Caesar Lamonaca). Bill was definitely a salesman, but so informative and passionate. Quite the talker and had worked for Walmart since he was in college as a cart guy and worked his way up.  The way he described the brand was very interesting and you could tell the Shanghai office was definitely special and not the way all of the Walmart office are. I didn’t really associate what he was saying to the Walmart brand that you would usually think of slash the old brand with Always Low Prices.

Walmart

After we left Walmart we met with Idy and Wallace again from China Home to have lunch at the Shangri-La Hotel in their Chinese restaurant. We had Peking duck and 18 other dishes (really not an exaggeration I don't think). Delicious food and again, Wallace and Idy were so sweet and wonderful.

Then we began our market research and went shopping at the Old Temple (old town area). I got a LOT of good stuff. I bought pink pearl earrings, jade earrings, jade ring, and a stamp (traditional red ink you seal envelopes with). We had so much fun bargaining for everything. Andrew would start off asking the price, and then make this ridiculous face to show how appalled he was at the price they said. Usually you could get 50-80% off the original price they tell you. The Nancys and Debbie bought some really nice jewelry and we all used each other for opinions and help in the bargaining tactics.

Where the research took place

We went to M on the Bund – Glamour Bar for drinks. This place was so awesome! It was designed by a diva and all of the waiters were dressed in black button down shirts and tightish pink pants. All of the glasses were different colors and patterns the whole ambiance was wonderful and glamorous. We got a few appetizers here including olives and grape leaves. Soon after we headed to the Peace Hotel to see a jazz band play. Dr. C had been here before and the band is made of 70-80 year old men that supposedly started playing originally to learn English. We got another round of wine and appetizers here and enjoyed the peaceful music.  We met a girl at the next table over that was having her birthday, her name was Stories, and Andrew made her a napkin card that she completely loved and cherished. Andrew also danced with her for one song. It started to get late so we headed back for the evening.

Saturday:

The Nancys left early this morning so we were on our own. We woke up and it was raining. We had wanted to go to the Yu Garden, but there was no way with one umbrella and pretty hard rain that we would make it very far. We decided to go to the Renaissance Hotel and work on the assignment that the Nancys had given us about what we had learned from our visits regarding the supply chain and each focus. We actually did pretty good work and then took a taxi for about 1.5 minutes to the closest Starbucks and read for a bit! That was the extent of our last day in Shanghai. We had to fly out in the afternoon hoping to miss the typhoon that was supposed to be one of the worst that HK had seen in quite some time. Thank goodness the typhoon missed us and we really didn’t even have any rain once we got back!

Club 97

Jon Cordiano. Aussie.  Quirky. Artistic. Brilliant. Wonderful. He invited us to go out with him this past Friday, he and some friends were going to a gay club. From what he knew, they had drink specials and there was supposed to be a drag show. Although neither of these were correct, the night was a blast. After a text at 6pm, stating that they would be leaving at 7:15pm, Andrew, Debbie, and I showered and got ready quickly. We had difficulty getting taxis to Hong Kong Island at this time because the taxi drivers usually have one side that they work for the evening, probably until around 11 when it is time for people to go out. Eventually we just decided to take the 1-1-5 bus into Central. Melissa, also Australian and in ITC, had two friends visiting her and Chris, yes ITC again, came along as well. 

ITC People

We found Club 97 quite easily on the main strip of Lan Kwai Fong and walked inside. The 5 girls in our group were the only girls in the entire bar. The bar was dark, obviously, with candles lit, high tables, very classy looking. We got a glass of wine and walked toward the back to stake up at a high table and chat. An extremely suave looking man was at the table next to us, champagne flute in hand, leaning against the wall. He was dressed to the nines in a nice suit, diamond bone cufflinks (Andrew was jealous), and an equipped with a iPhone of course. His whole persona was very debonair and Andrew and I just looked at each other, looked at him, and smiled. I decided to try my first dirty martini since I have been in Hong Kong. It was delicious, but somehow we made friends with the bartender and he proceeded to give us free shots. He called Andrew over and said, get your friends, shots on me (or something), as he set out 3 or 4 shot glasses. So Andrew called about 8 people over to take them. He made us one that was flaming and tasted like gasoline, completely gross. 

The Jon Cordiano. After the gross shot.

After a while one of the waitresses came up with a tray of chicken wings and fries and asked if we wanted some. I said, are they free? And she said, yes and they are kind of heavy so do you guys want some or not? We took some. And they were great! This bar was just turning out to be such a great time. After we danced for a while, the group went to a nearby restaurant for dinner, at about 11pm. After eating Jon, Chris, Melissa, and friends went to a gay club, which was a step up in the dancing from Club 97. Andrew and I (Debbie had to go home because her cough medicine has a side effect of drowsiness, who would prescribe that?) went to meet some other people at the rooftop bar at the IFC building on the harbor. 

On the rooftop at IFC

The IFC building is the highest in HK so you would assume the rooftop bar was on top, when reality it was on the 4^th floor, but still had a great view. Everyone was lounging outside on the patio furniture just talking and enjoying the view.  It was another great night in Hong Kong and strayed a bit from our normal evening out experience.

Ned Kelly's Jazz Bar

The other night we took a calmer approach to our evening out (after going to apply for another China visa) and went to a local jazz bar called Ned Kelly's. It was an Australian bar/pub type place, very intimate, very decorated, and very lovely. We walked in to a packed house and stood at the "bar" aka 4' x 5' amount of space next to the 4' long bar until a few seats opened up.  Half of the group decided to go to an open bar, but there was no way we were leaving this magical place.  We ended up sitting at, slash in between, a table with two older couples who were traveling through China for a month.  They were probably in their 70's and had been friends for 40 years. Andrew struck up conversation with the husbands and learned a bit more about where they came from. They were from the UK and the men had been in the Rotary there. (I may have gathered that correctly from Andrew). We all sat with smiles permanently plastered on our faces the entire night just tapping our feet and enjoying a glass of wine.

Andrew and our new friends

We started talking to the couples again and one of the lady goes to reach for something and knocks over her husband's wine glass, shattering it, and spilling the wine all over the other couple. After huge gasps from Andrew and I, the couples just start laughing, what a relief. Although the red wine had gotten on the lady's white pants, she did not care at all. They cleaned up the mess and continued to make fun of the situation for the rest of the evening saying the man was wearing his last pair of clean pants for the trip, etc. Supposedly there had been an incident several years before where one of the couples had the other over for dinner and the wine spilling lady ended up cutting her foot and getting blood all over the lady's carpet and wall, "you've never seen blood go that far!" The couples were completely amazing and a wonderful example to see of not only such in love couples, but best friends that have spent 40 years together, traveling the world, and still enjoying each other's company.

Another one of the reasons we had ended up at this bar in the first place was because one of our french exchange students was getting to play the piano with the band! They called Michael on stage and he had to drink an initiation type drink that looked completely disgusting. They did one "warm up" song with the band and then the entire band performed a piece he had written himself. It was pretty long and SO good. Michael was unbelievable on the piano and you could tell he was having a blast. The last song he got to play he sang a part at the beginning. Overall the evening was so enjoyable. Just a wonderful place to relax and enjoy each other and insanely good music.

International Cultural Gala

Today we took part in the International Cultural Gala on campus. Most countries had a both and so did the USA (although we weren't sure if it would work out). Our booth was not too good because it was thrown together with limited supply of food, but still glad we made one. We decorated the booth with balloons taped to the back wall in the form of a flag, had brownies, some American flags, and a slideshow of American landmarks with American music.  The Gala started out with a performance from the hall dance team, our friend Lorena is the only white person on it, and then other countries did a performance of some kind. I participated when the Finnish people taught a traditional dance that is basically like a congo line but with some feet sticking out and hopping. It was pretty hilarious to watch I'm sure. My favorite performance though was the Korean drums. I added the video above so hopefully it works! After a few performances we left the booth (oops) and started to wander around.

Austria's booth

Everyone had such amazing food. That was the main attraction. The Netherlands had the best food with fried meatballs, aged cheese, and baby pancakes. France obviously made crepes and our friend JB wore a beret even though no one in France actually owns them.  A lot of people were dressed in their traditional outfits which was really cool to see! Hong Kong had great honey cracker sandwiches and little cookie crackers. Korea hired a restaurant to make rice cakes with a chili sauce. Turkey had an interesting story. They said there is a large population of Turkish people in Hong Kong and that they got help from these families to prepare grape leaves, stuffed peppers with rice, egg and spinach casserole stuff, turkish delight, delicious. Sweden had cookies and drinks from IKEA, beaded bracelets you could make, and these super long noodle things that you race to see who can eat it fastest without using their hands. Austria had crackers with this great spread they had made themselves. It was neat to hear about the different cultures, mainly about their food, especially from our friends who were excited to share.  Some places also had pictures or random information. The mainland China booth was giving out chinese poems they had written nicely.

All the countries after the Gala

The entire Gala was organized so nicely with very nice booths for each country, they supplied hot plates and fryers for people, and had a lovely introduction with some of the staff present. The theme was supposed to be childhood, but most people just focused on their country in general. I wore Taylor's First in Fitness t-shirt, jean shorts, my keds with purple socks, and my hair in pigtails. People said I looked like a kid which was what I was going for! The Gala was so much fun though and a great experience in getting to hear directly from our friends about their countries and customs.

Being a kid in front of the USA booth

Happy Valley Horse Races

This was the first week we could make it to the races! Every other Wednesday there is a big horse race at the Happy Valley race course in Central Hong Kong. It is pretty much how you would picture a horse race, minus the big floppy hats. It is currently Oktoberfest at the races for the entire month so there was lots of beer and festivities on the concourse. We wandered around the main concourse for a while and saw one race from the bottom, but the track is so large that is hard to see more than 3 seconds right in front of you. Eventually we grabbed food (braised pork chop and rice. Yes this is what the Chinese have at sporting events) and headed to the 7th floor where we could see the entire track much better.  Our usual group of exchange students was up there so we all sat together and cheered for different people's horses they bet on. The atmosphere is definitely higher energy and more IN the race if you're on the bottom, but the top is much better for the view. The races were very interesting. The track was made of grass and people would fill the divets after each race. The jockeys wore pretty bright uniforms as well. The horses looked like they were going so slow when they were on the other side of the track but really they were going unbelievably fast. I really enjoyed the races this time, but I really want to go back again. It is a very different experience from most things you do in HK. I haven't seen that many westerners in one place either! Everyone on the bottom floor was a westerner, socializing and mingling. The Chinese were up on the higher floors placing bets and watching the races intently. Very different scenes.

The Track

The Race

After the races we all went to a lounge, more low-key bar called The Canny Man. It was a nice place to sit around a table and talk to everyone. After that we went to dance at a bar down the street called Mes Amis.

My Host Lady!

All of the exchange students here are automatically signed up to receive a HK "buddy" that is a fellow student, but you can also sign up to be part of the Host Family Scheme which is what I did. I finally was able to meet my host lady this week for lunch! Her name is Cathy Yau and she was so nice and cute! She just graduated last year from PolyU and is now working in the Humanities office on different projects. We has two sisters and a brother and just moved to a new apartment in HK that I am going to try and visit! We went to a restaurant on campus that I had no idea existed because you must have a staff card to eat there. She ordered us five different types of dim sum and they were all delicious (as always)!  Some I had had before and some were new. We had pork dumplings, deep fried pork dumpling, a beef wrap dumpling type thing, shrimp dumpling, and a sweet yolk dumpling which I had not had before, but was very good! We just chatted for a bit about Hong Kong, my program, her job, her family, etc. I'm hoping to go meet the rest of her family at her apartment soon! Here are some examples of the dim sum we had.

  

Top to bottom: Shrimp dumpling, sweet yolk dumpling, pork dumpling.

Ocean Park - crowded

Almost every week there is some type of party here where all of the exchange students go to the same bar and usually pay a fee for an open bar. This week was probably the most successful of these parties so far. The theme was that they were supposed to have a "sexy girl" competition which was completely unsuccessful, but the rest of the night was very fun. It gives everyone a chance to dress up and be in the same place so you can see everyone! Knowing me, I love events like this!

Smokey, but one of the better group pictures

The whole next week, supposedly, is a national holiday. Friday was China's National Day that Hong Kong also celebrates (the aforementioned firework display at the harbor). We decided to take a group to the beach. It was SO crowded. Last time we went to Shek O beach there were maybe 50 people and this day it looked like Wrightsville in July.  The beach which is usually pretty was covered in trash that had washed ashore and trash was floating everywhere in the water. My friend Yvie and I swam out to one of the platforms and trash bags and things would just wrap around your leg during the swim. There was garbage everywhere! The weather was nice though as it was not too hot and a bit cloudy part of the time. It was interesting to see everyone celebrating together and "barbecuing" at the beach. We had to get back to our "conference", but part of the group stayed until almost midnight and had their own barbecue and marshmallows.

Crowded beach

The next morning we went to Ocean Park amusement park which is supposed to be better than HK Disneyland and a must see of Hong Kong.  We left the dorms at 8am (way too early) and headed to the buses. Luckily we got on the bus at the first stop because we soon came to a bus stop that had an outrageously long queue waiting for more buses to come for Ocean Park. We got there and decided to buy Student Season Passes so we could come back whenever we wanted and whenever the other groups decided to come. We had a girls day with just me, Debbie, Yvie, Meli, Christine, and Katy. The park was very packed, but we still managed to ride a few rides, get some food, and see some animals. We have to go back when the lines are shorter because we would wait in line for 45 minutes for a 45 second ride. Not the best, but I really liked the park. They really only have 2 main roller coasters and some other rides that are more like fair rides. We went on the log ride, a spinning fair type ride, the mine train, and that was about all we can stand in line. We ate lunch on the Terrace and had a delicious burger with fresh watermelon juice.

The girls at Ocean Park

Our next stop was the Panda Adventure! There were two giant pandas that were asleep so it was hard to see them, but they had just fed two red pandas so they were running around. They looked like red raccoons and were SO adorable. Although we did not get to go on too many rides, we had a fun time walking around the park. On the way out, we happened to stumble onto an acrobatic performance. They did flips, balancing acts, and propelled people through the air. It was fascinating to see how different the entertainment is here. We decided this is why most people from HK like Ocean Park more than Disneyland, just because of the entertainment value and actually seeing a performance instead of just people dressed up as characters.

The show at the end of the day

We headed home and took a short nap before dinner and going out. We had little sleep this week with waking up for the morning video conferencing, beach, and Ocean Park, but Andrew and I could not pass up the opportunity to head to "Oysters" in Lan Kwai Fung for a bit.

Being Productive

We recently went to the Hong Kong branch of the US company, Cotton Incorporated. The office was on the twentieth floor with a beautiful view of the harbour and the Hong Kong Island skyline.  We were able to meet with the staff and have a brief tour of the office. The head honcho was sick, unfortunately, but we met with Bonny who was one of the account managers. She gave us a packet on Cotton Incorporated and their current technologies and strategies and answered some of our questions.  We know a lot about the company in general, but it was very interesting to hear the purpose of the HK office particularly.  The HK branch has different account managers that focus their efforts in Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Vietnam, etc. They work with every part of the supply chain to promote cotton and increase its usage in textiles.  We had heard of some of their technologies before such as storm denim and wicking windows, but Bonny taught us about their new textiles encyclopedia they have online with tons of useful information about almost all aspects of textiles.  Ideas like this were helpful and we are also to relay this information back to NCSU.  After a brief sit down, we were fortunate enough to be able to attend a presentation by Ayako Kaneta on Japanese retail trends.  They said that usually students are not allowed to attend their presentations so we were very lucky to be able to go to the meeting with various sourcing company representatives in Asia.  The presentation was extremely interesting with many pictures and samples of the major trends currently in Tokyo.

Staff at Cotton Incorporated

After the meeting Bonny Kwan and May Chin took us for a dim sum lunch near by.  The restaurant was very nice and all of the food they chose was delicious! We ate the best chicken soup I have ever tasted, brought to you in a tea kettle that you pour into a tiny cup (looks like it is for tea) and you drink it. Amazing. We also had light spring rolls, fried tofu, eggplant in a vinaigrette sauce, seafood rice, and several other dishes. For dessert we had mango pudding, a type of sweet dumpling in a soup/sauce, and bean curd. You would think that bean curd sounds a bit questionable, but it was so delicious! It came with a honey sauce and sugar type thing to sprinkle on top. The lunch was a great chance for us to ask the ladies about their jobs, their schooling, and more about Cotton Incorporated in general. The visit was a complete success and the first tour we have had in Hong Kong. We could not have asked for anything better!

Bonny and May at lunch

A few days after our visit with Cotton, we had video conferencing with NCSU scheduled.  Thursday night at 8:30pm we reserved the piano room to turn it into our own office for the conference. We practiced the Skype with Dr. Marguerite Moore and waited until 9am when we would be needed to answer some questions. This conference was with Dr. Woodson, the Chancellor of all of North Carolina State University. He was touring the new lab facility on the College of Textiles campus and to demonstrate the new features of the lab, video conferencing, we were the perfect subjects to also share our HK experience with him.  Marguerite asked us each a few questions about what we are learning and our plans for travel, etc.  The Chancellor seemed very interested and asked a few quick questions at the end. First conference call down, two more to go, or so we thought.

The next call we had was at 5am on Friday morning.  The Textile Management Science Lab at COT was having its grand opening or unveiling at 5pm, so for us, that meant an early wake up call. We went through a slight problem with trying to get into the piano room/our office as this was obviously after hours that it should be open. We spent the previous evening running around the residence halls trying to find someone that could override this for us. Eventually we succeeded and they said they would send someone at 4:30am to let us in.  We got there, set up our office, orchid behind us and everything. Today we were skying into the unveiling and once again showing the labs capabilities.  We answered the same questions and we even part of their champagne toast, using the appropriate "gombay" instead of cheers. The room was full of people, but everyone seemed very interested and thought Andrew and his jokes were funny.  Conference call number two, successful. Not back to sleep.

Our last conference call was supposed to be our Friday evening at 9pm, during the huge firework display for China's National Day.  We got showered (after an insanely packed day at the beach) and dressed and ran around the residence halls once again when the internet refused to work in our usual office location.  We repositioned ourselves on the windowsill in Debbie's room and waited until 9pm... 9:15pm... and then started to question if we were really needed. It turns out we had a slight miscommunication and we were not actually needed for the Industry Advisory Board meeting. We had planned a catchy sign off and an opening act so it was a bit of a let down, but at least we were still able to do the previous two conferences. Out of these, a lady from textiles emailed us asking if she could write a story on us and post it on the home page of the College of Textiles website so we are hoping this works out! We also plan to meet with the Chancellor during our month home!

Our planned opening appearance

Fall in Hong Kong

I just wanted to briefly share my excitement and overall peace and serenity with the weather today in Hong Kong. Today is the first day that I am not sweating profusely when I step outside. It is breezy, not insanely humid, and just a glorious day to sit outside. We have the windows open in our room and can hear the bustle of the main street below and keep getting a nice breeze. Anyways, it is hard to explain, but it is just the perfect day here!! I assume it feels similar to the fall days now in NC.