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.