Final Day of GIE

Saturday was our last day of GIE. Everything we had learned and prepared for the whole semester was finished – we submitted our final papers and websites. We went to the classroom for most of the day but we didn’t have any outside speakers; it was mainly just a wrap-up day. In the morning we were separated by tracks so we just talked about our main takeaways and things we learned from the trip within the China group. I went to another sandwich place near the school for lunch then the afternoon was spent wrapping up the program in a larger group setting. Then to end out last session together we had a slideshow with pictures of both the trips and then a “commencement” ceremony. Both the teachers gave little speeches and called up our names one-by-one. They gave us tiny Jefferson cups instead of diplomas since we have to wait a bit for that. But now I have officially graduated with my Masters!

The evening that followed was definitely one of the greatest nights of the trip and it was a fantastic way to end. We took a bus to the pier and then all boarded a ferry that took us to Lamma Island. The boat ride over was great and I sat on the top deck with the wind blowing and incredible views of the city lights at night. From what we saw of the island, it barely looked inhabited and there was a row of outdoor restaurants right by a tiny pier where we docked our boat. We ate outside at smaller round tables and of course, we had the lazy susan! What kind of final dinner would it be without the lazy susan! A very welcome change this time was that we had a bunch of really delicious seafood! I think my favorite dish was scallops with an awesome garlic buttery spread on top (reminded me of the sauce on the rolls at Bob Chinns). We were all drinking and having a great time and then we went back on the same boat to Central Pier. From there we had the bus drop us off in the LKF district which is full of open air bars and people walking around. We went to a bar called Stormies for the night and had a great time drinking and dancing the night away. Everyone was so fun and in such good spirits that it made for a pretty awesome night. There would have been no better way to end GIE and I’m so happy that I had so much fun and learned so much!

Now it’s off to London to meet up with the family – can’t wait for adventures to continue!

Lantau Island, Disney, Ladies Market

Today we had a much needed free day with time to explore whatever we wanted in the city. I stuck with two friends the whole day and had a fantastic time! First, we took the subway to Lantau Island to see the Ngong Ping village and giant Buddha statue at the top. We discovered that Hong Kong Disneyland is also on Lantau Island, but I’ll get to that later. The train was really easy to navigate and once we got there we headed straight to the cable car terminal. After a little bit of a wait in line we got to go in a pretty cool cable car that took you up the mountain. It was a pretty long way up and had amazing views. There is also an option to hike up the mountain, but that takes like 3 hours and did not sound fun at all. Once we reached the top there is a little city and monastery. All of it is fairly new and clearly built to be a tourist attraction. We had some pizza for lunch before continuing to see the big Buddha. You could see the Buddha from the cable car and it looked out over the whole city but you had to climb up 250 steps to get up to the top and see the statue up close. It was pretty neat and gave some great views of the water and islands below. We explored the town and the monastery a little bit before taking the cable car back down to the subway station.

We decided that since we were out here we would go check out Hong Kong Disneyland. Disney has a special subway stop built and has a special Disney themed train that picks you up and takes you directly to the park entrance. We didn’t actually pay to go inside, but we walked around to see the entrance and the hotels. It isn’t a very big property so it wasn’t hard to walk around. My group project is about tourism and we focused on Disney as a case study so I got to take some good pictures for the project. It was definitely fun to see and it would have been nice to have time to actually go in and have fun in the park.

Then we took the subway back into the city to see the Mong Kok shopping area with a famous market called Ladies Market. It was another place with stalls of fake designer bags and such but also had more variety of trinkets and things too. The prices were much higher than the Silk Market in Beijing but the stuff was definitely of a little bit better quality. I bought a bunch of stuff again and I’m happy with all my purchases! We had dinner at the classy establishment of Pizza Hut (it’s a nice sit down restaurant in China, ha!) which was delicious and then we headed back to the hotel on the subway. I’m very proud that we navigated our way around the subway and stuff all day. Now I’m exhausted from being out in the sun all day and have some work to do before our last day tomorrow so I will have a busy night.

Lots of Classes in Hong Kong

Hong Kong has been extremely full of classroom sessions so we haven’t really gotten a chance to see much of the city yet. It will be good to get the day off tomorrow to finally get to go do some fun stuff and I also have most of the day Sunday to go exploring also.

Monday we went to the US Consulate early in the morning for a briefing on Hong Kong (and Macau). It was a lot of basics about the size, population, GDP, etc. but was also interesting to hear about how they try and help US businesses both here and in China. I never realized that this Special Administrative Region (SAR) agreement expires in 2047 so it will be cool to see how politics, etc. evolve leading up to then. After that we went to Ernst & Young for a long day of presentations. The office was ridiculously cool, located in the International Financial Center with floor to ceiling windows looking out on the waterfront. Most of the businesses and our hotel are on Hong Kong Island but the part of HK that is connected to the mainland of China is called the Kowloon side, so the view looks at Kowloon and the mountains behind it (China is just beyond the mountains, just a 20 minute train ride to Shenzen). We had lunch provided and got sandwiches (a welcome change from all those lazy susan meals!). We had several presentations and during all of the breaks we got delicious snacks so that was really nice. This went until about 6:30pm and then we went to a reception with the UVa Club of Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Club (a pretty swanky place). They had food to snack on and unlimited wine/beer so it was a pretty fun night even though we were all pretty tired. Then we got back to the hotel around 11pm and I went to bed before another marathon day.

Tuesday we went to the Hong Kong Club building again but went up to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) satellite campus. We spent the day in a big classroom listening to lots of speakers – head of investment banking and M&A in Asia-Pacific for JP Morgan, director of a huge private equity firm, CFO of Asia banking for Citibank. It was cool to have such important people coming to speak with us even if it was a little over my head sometimes. We were free to have lunch around the area so we found a cute Italian café where I had a sandwich. I actually don’t think I have had any Chinese food since I’ve been here which is awesome.

Since we got done early a few of us decided to go to Macau which is supposed to be the equivalent of Las Vegas. It took about an hour to get there on the high speed ferry. It was still light out on the way over so we were able to see the scenery which was beautiful. When we got there they have free shuttles from the ferry station to all the casinos so we shuttled to the Wynn since it was the farthest away and we figured we could walk back. We ended up walking through the Wynn, MGM, Grand Lisboa, and Venetian. The Venetian is HUGE and brand new and the biggest casino in the world so that was pretty cool to walk through. I’ve never been to Vegas, but from what I understand this was not really as fun as Vegas because it was a lot harder to get around. There were little clusters of casinos but you had to take taxis to see things back and forth across the bridge. It was a fun night but I definitely spent a lot of money on transport and only gambled one time! We took the ferry back after exploring and I was exhausted so I went to bed.

But I have some sad news to report from this trip – I realized last night my camera has gone missing. I put my search feelers out and I’m trying to look for it but not having any luck yet. I retraced my steps and I know I had it on the ferry coming back so the hotel is trying to call the ferry company and I asked the hotel to look around for it so they said they would let me know. I don’t think I would be so sad because the camera is replaceable but I have only uploaded pictured from Beijing and Shanghai. We went to so many cool places in Xi’an and I won’t have any of those pictures so I’m pretty bummed. I wasn’t even drunk, just exhausted, which is why it is also a little frustrating. Who knows, maybe it will turn up someplace in my hotel room, but I don’t have very high hopes.

We had another early morning at the HKUST classroom on Wednesday with the CEO of Walmart Asia. It was pretty cool to have such a big wig there and he spent most of the time answering all of our questions. He had only been with Walmart for about a year (he was with Coca-Cola for 10 years before) so he had some interesting thoughts on Walmart too. We had lunch a lunch break and I went to the same sandwich place as Tuesday. Then our afternoon session was with a big wig consultant in Hong Kong who knows lots about China and publishes in all the big magazines and has tons of books, etc. Then we had a panel with some recent graduates living and working in Hong Kong to talk about their experiences and answer questions. After that we walked back to the hotel and I fell asleep so fast after being so exhausted from the late night in Macau – didn’t even eat dinner!

I was wide awake early this morning (mostly because I needed to get the ball rolling on my camera search) and we had a morning session at the main HKUST campus. This was an actual class session with an HKUST professor where we had a case to read beforehand (at least that was the first reading we’ve had to do the whole trip). It was at least a pretty engaging session where we talked about marketing and brand positioning in Asia (definitely more up my alley than all the finance stuff). We got the bus back to the hotel after the morning and went to a Thai restaurant for lunch. I had pad thai and it was so delicious! We have a little bit more of a break before we have an evening class session.

Tonight we will meet with Larry Franklin for class/dinner. He is also a professor at HKUST and gives money to the university for the Franklin scholarship that I received for the trip. Hopefully it will be another interesting session, and then I can’t wait to have the day off tomorrow to finally do some fun things!

Arrived in Hong Kong

I have made it to the final location on this journey across China. Well, technically I left China because now I am in Hong Kong! We took the train this morning from Guangzhou and as we got close to Hong Kong I felt like I was riding right into Jurassic Park. There are tons of mountains and it is all green with trees everywhere - it is quite the tropical climate, similar to Guangzhou. We got to our hotel (Island Pacific Hotel) and the rooms are significantly smaller than all the other hotels and the beds are very small twin size beds. It is most likely because everything is so expensive here and this hotel feels more like a nice European Hotel. We have just been so spoiled staying at all of the other hotels!

After we got all checked in we went walking around and found a Thai restaurant to eat at. I had some delicious non-spicy pad thai with chicken. It wasn't even that big of a plate but I got so full really fast so I took home a box and am happy to have another meal ready to go. Everything in Hong Kong is a little more expensive so I probably should have done more of my shopping in China, but oh well, it is still cheaper than the US so I will take advantage. We have the rest of the day off to relax and I am going to try and catch up on some work before starting the final stretch tomorrow.

Adventures in Guangzhou

I’m writing my update as I am on the train en route to Hong Kong. We arrived in Guangzhou (fyi: anything ending in ‘zhou’ is pronounced ‘jo’ so the city is called ‘Guang-jo’) on Wednesday after an early morning flight. We had a decent flight time originally but they cancelled it (the second time that has happened because all the airlines are run by the government so they cancel flights and switch your airlines and do whatever they want) so we got to Guangzhou around noon and checked into our hotel – The Westin. This hotel and the first hotel are rivals for the nicest hotel contest, even though all of them have been pretty baller. Wednesday afternoon we went to the US Consulate to have a briefing on the state of affairs in China. It was interesting to get the opinions of the government employees working here.

Thursday we started the morning going to P&G and learned about their operations in China and toured their plant. We saw the diaper making section and the hair care section. We got to dress up in these awesome outfits to go touring but no pictures allowed! Then P&G served us the best company lunch ever – McDonald’s! They had a bunch of McDonald’s delivered and even though it was cold it was ten times better than having those lazy susan dinners. In the evening we went to a presentation by Rob Daley (with an open bar the whole time!) who started a company in the US called 4Moms. His products are manufactured here in Guangzhou so we talked about why he came here and that they have much more factory expertise than anywhere he could find in the US. Then we had dinner with him and it was at the Marriott hotel buffet and was so delicious! I had make-your-own pasta and a large piece of beef. It was a whole day without Chinese food so I would say that was a winner.

The next morning we went to the Jetta factory where the 4Moms products are produced. We had a really long tour of the factory and say them making Christmas toys (I got to spray paint one of them), American Girl dolls, and lots of other stuff. The factory is the number one toy maker in China. We also went to the dorms to see how the factory workers live and it is pretty terrible conditions but all the workers consider is an honor to be there because otherwise they would be starving farmers. It was a long and hot day with the lack of AC in those factories – couldn’t imagine working in a job like that. Then we went to lunch with the Jetta executives and Rob Daley. It was Chinese food in the lazy susan (typical) but better than some of the other meals we have had. Then we went to a Sam’s Club for a store visit. It was just like a Sam’s Club in the US but had some additional weird food sold there like giant aquarium tanks with eel and stuff. We are going to be talking to Wal-Mart execs in Hong Kong so our teacher wanted us to walk around a store so we had some idea of what they were talking about. There were so many free samples that I didn’t even have to eat dinner!

We went out to a chill international bar to start off the night then went to this weird nightclub that was US military themed so all the people that worked there were walking around in US Army uniforms and it was very strange. We had a free day on Saturday so I went on the optional excursion to see a little bit more of the city (and because I was in search of more fake stuff to buy). We went to a giant market that had all kinds of sections from selling traditional herbs to pets and aquariums to chickens and stuff for food. We never did find a good market for shopping, so hopefully I will have more success in Hong Kong!

For our last night before we meet up with the Southeast Asia trip our teacher planned a nice dinner at a traditional Cantonese restaurant. I tried the eel fried rice and it actually tasted pretty good. Then we went on a cruise along the Pearl River which was beautiful. Guangzhou hosted the Asia Games last year and they put up all kinds of bright lights that change colors and stuff – almost looks as lit up as Vegas. It was really great to cruise up and down the city center with all the views at night. Then after the cruise we went out to a few nightclubs to celebrate our last night. The 2 places we went were way more normal than that military theme club from the night before. It was a great city to have some fun in and is definitely the most prominent place we’ve been for business growth, but not so big on the cultural sights compared to Xi’an and Beijing of course.

Greetings from Xi'an

We have been crazy busy here in China so I'll give you a brief update, but I'm too tired to write much. Our second to last day in Shanghai we visited 2 factories - Rockwell Automation and ABB. I wasn't really into either of the companies and lots of the stuff they talked about was way over my head but it was especially cool to see the robotics factory at ABB. Friday, our last day in Shanghai, we went to Coca-Cola in the morning which was great because we actually were able to relate to the company and things they were talking about a little more. Then we headed to the airport and got there about 1:30pm and there was a huge thunderstorm and we didn't end up getting to take off until 8:30pm. We didn't get into Xi'an until pretty late so everyone just went right to bed.

The first day in Xi'an we got to sleep in until 10am (woo hoo!) and then went out sightseeing. First we went to the terra-cotta warriors which was pretty cool. There are three different pits of warriors and statues and stuff plus a building that is like a museum of stuff related to them. We got lots of history and info from our tour guides. Then we went to the emperor's hot springs which were kind of boring after a long hot day but good to see another important place. The scenery was pretty cool because it was at the foot of the mountains. That night the student in our group who is from Xi'an reserved us a 30 person VIP room for KTV (Chinese karaoke). It was a very elaborate room with a giant screen for the karaoke and was really fun with the group.

On Sunday we had a day of optional sightseeing that I went to (a lot of people didn't make it after karaoke). It was definitely one of my favorite days that we have had because we only had about half of the group and everyone wanted to be there so there were no complainers! First, we went biking around the ancient city wall of Xi'an. It was really fun but very bumpy because of all the bricks. I was proud that I was able to do the whole 30 kilometer wall! (about 18 miles - especially since I haven't ridden a bike in a while) Thank goodness for doing some spin classes this past semester!

Then we went to walk around a street district to get some snacks for lunch but I didn't really eat anything except a delicious ice cream bar. After that we went to the giant expo going on in Xi'an and everyone had such a good time biking in the morning that we decided to get bikes again for the afternoon! Just to be clear, there is someone on our trip who was on his college cycling team so this was not very leisurely biking, definitely a workout! The expo was a giant horticulture festival and we only had a few hours to see it all so the bikes turned out to be pretty key. We saw a lot of buildings and it was a pretty amazing mini-city and world fair sort of thing that they built just near the city.

Today we went to three company visits - BYD (auto factory), Xi'an Software Park, and Butang Pharmaceutical company. The company visits are definitely all starting to blend together. Then we went to a very elaborate dinner with food that I didn't eat any of. We had some red wine for the first time at any dinner though and it was so yummy! I pretty much got tipsy off red wine while just eating rice (typical). Seems like I'm always ready for some more sleep though, so I'm heading to bed for the night. We have two more company visits scheduled for tomorrow as our last day here.

Lowe’s, Yangshan Deep Water Port, China Solutions

We had another early hotel departure time at 7:30am today. We had lots of visits to get in and rescheduling because of the Dragon Boat Festival so we have a few very full days after that one day off. Our first stop was to Lowe’s where we met with the head of product sourcing. He was another American guy in charge of this office and we just had a little question and answer session where he told some stories and stuff. Then from there we headed on our 2 hour drive out to the Yangshan deep water port. This is the busiest port in the world based on the weight of goods that pass through it (Singapore is the biggest in terms of number of ships that pass through). We went to the overlook and were able to take a few pictures and then we went on a tour to see the operating room with all the cameras looking at stuff going on in the actual wharf. It wasn’t really all that exciting because there was some translating difficulty so we weren’t able to learn all that much. It just seemed like we didn’t get to do all that much for driving two hours both ways.

After our long drive back we went straight to our dinner at the Peninsula seafood restaurant. We met with the CEO of China Solutions who consults with businesses to help them transition to China. He is a lawyer from UVa law school and specializes in doing Chinese contracts I think. He had his clients there who run a company called Bambu and they told the story of how they started their company and a little of hoe China Solutions helped them. The content was interesting but the dinner was probably the worst that we have had so far. First of all, it was seafood (and strange seafood, like I have no clue what anything was) so it smelled really bad the whole time. They also kept bringing dishes out; definitely the biggest dinner we have had so far (also the grossest though). They must have brought everything they had on their menu! Our whole table didn’t even touch at least 5 of the dishes brought towards the end. After dinner I just came back to the hotel after a very long day and I am excited for some more good sleep.

SMIC, Darwin Marketing, UVa Club Shanghai

Today we left the hotel bright and early at 8am to go visit SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation). We just had a brief talk from an American living here working with the company and another guy working at the company who is a 2007 UVa alum joined us for Q&A about life in Shanghai as an American. We went to see his house because he lives in the company living quarters. It was really interesting to see the company has built up a little town that looks just like any suburb right next to their huge factory. If you really wanted to you could live entirely in that town and never leave; it has a school, grocery stores, pharmacy, dentist, restaurants, etc. This guy has a 5 bedroom, 5 bathroom townhouse in the compound for his family of 4 and pays rent of $800 a month because he works for the company. We went to lunch at a restaurant in the company town that was like the typical restaurants we have been going to with lots of dishes to pick at and try everything. Then we took the bus back to the hotel and had a little break before our next visit of the day.

Our next visit was to Darwin Marketing where we met with the Founder/CEO. The company is an internet marketing company and does the paid search marketing things that RKG does plus more. It is definitely a little bigger than RKG but he works with the Chinese search engines and does even more internet marketing consulting beyond paid search. It was really cool to hear his opinions on everything since it is the field I am going into. He was an American who got his MBA from Darden and then just decided to move to China and start his own company so he had a really cool entrepreneurship story to go along with the marketing content.

After that visit we were dropped off by the bus at the restaurant for our evening reception but we were about 30 minutes early so we were free to walk around and get dinner. We stopped in a little café place and split some pizzas – it was definitely nice to have some non-Chinese food that wasn’t McDonald’s or BK. Our reception was with the UVa Club of Shanghai so there were a decent number of young-ish alums who are living in Shanghai so it was fun to hear all their stories, etc. A lot of them are in fields other than business so it was interesting to have a little variety. After the reception the bus took us back to the hotel and I went right to bed after such a long day. The sleep is much needed since there is another long day lined up for tomorrow.

Birthday Celebration and Free Day

Sunday night for my birthday we started out going to this bar in the middle of People’s Square called Barbarossa. It is a really trendy middle-eastern themed bar that our teacher really likes so he took us there and opened a tab for us (yes, our professor opened a tab for a bunch of college kids). We were out on the rooftop overlooking the beautiful scenery – People’s Square is sort of like the Central Park of Shanghai and we were at this place nestled in the middle that is hard to find if you don’t know about it, kind of like Tavern on the Green. We stayed there for a little bit and then moved to the French Concession bar district. Of course, we stopped at McDonald’s on the way because we never ended up eating dinner at Barbarossa.

The first place we went to was called O’Malleys and it was like a sports bar and had a giant screen set up outside that you could watch on 2 levels of outdoor seating that had the French Open playing. The bar was full of Europeans watching the match very intensely and I liked being able to watch as well. The screen was definitely the biggest thing I’ve ever seen at a bar for watching sports – no bad seats in the house. We had a few drinks at that bar and left after the second set of the match to move to a new bar called Zapatas. This was really fun and had an outdoor bar with chill seating areas and then the inside had another bar, was blasting music and had 3 levels of dance party. The music selection was great: ranging from Sweet Child of Mine to Shake Yo’ Tail Feathers (never thought I would hear that old school Nelly jam in China). It was a really fun birthday and I’m so glad I got to celebrate with everyone here in China.

Yesterday was the Dragon Boat Festival which is a national holiday so everyone had a 3-day weekend (another reason why my birthday was a great party night). We had the day off from activities because no companies have work or anything. From what I gather, the holiday is more like American Memorial Day where nothing that exciting really happens but everyone has the day off. Supposedly there are these dragon boat races on lakes and our teacher had planned for us to take a train out to a really cool lake to watch but it turned out that it rained constantly all day so we cancelled our excursion. Not sure if the races still went on but we didn’t make the trip. We just had the whole day free and so I slept in and then we went walking around and exploring a little bit but just relaxed for most of the day which was definitely a much needed break. I had some quality lunch at a new place I haven’t tried yet – Burger King! (It was delish)