So from there I decided to take a shower...cold water only as hot doesn't seem to be working at 4:30AM..
Got down stairs by 5:45 AM and checked out. The factory car from yesterday's factory visit is now taking my friend Edmond and I to the airport at about 150 mph. The driver, Arctic Chen, driving like a drunk NASCAR driver through Shanghai traffic.
The driver said he picked "Arctic" for his english name because he
thought it was cool. (He told me this yesterday with a straight face.)
We made it to the airport and crammed into the coach section (Chinese airline coach seats are built for people 5'6" and
under) of an over booked flight to Hong Kong.
Breakfast was served on the plane....noodles, fish and some kind of
weird vegetable. The Chinese man next to me kept falling asleep and
resting his head on my shoulder...while the guy behind me seemed intent
on coughing up a lung.
2.5 hours later we landed in dense smog into Hong Kong airport...couldn't see a mile and it smelled like burned trash.
We
transferred to a high speed ferry for a one hour trip to the city of
Zuhai, a "small city" of around 5 million located across the border from
Macau...the "Vegas of China". Smog so thick it was like smoking a
cigarette.
Got picked
up in van and driven recklessly and at high speed for another 45
minutes to our hotel. Checked-in and
dropped my bags in the room. Room smelled as musty as a Florida
basement after a hurricane. Quickly left the hotel (It is now 2PM)
and drive another 1 hour at recklessly high speed to a meeting at the
largest garden tool manufacturing factory in the world (5000 employees).
Today it is closed except for the owner and his brother are there to
meet with us. Discussions begin over a 750 ml bottle of Johnnie Walker
Blue Label. It's 3:30, cocktail hour. Meeting goes until approximately 7:30 when
the owner announces he needs to fly to his other factory about 400
miles away and staggers out the door. I am wisked out the door and
driven drunkenly by the brother to a sushi restaurant in a small town
about 15 minutes away. On the way there,
it is misting and the roads are wet....I witness a motorcycle driven at
high speed skid out and the driver land face first into the side of a
mini van... he seemed OK but talk about concussion!!!!.... Fortunately,
it wasn't the mini van I was in. It was definitely a YouTube
moment...except YouTube is not allowed in China, nor is Facebook...
(Factoid)
Get to restaurant....it's sushi and there are cats at the front entrance....not a good sign It's now 8:30.
Beer is served and so is a great big selection of raw items. I eat
some, but mostly stay with the beer and some Korean Kim Chi on the
table.... The tuna looks a little old (and dark and smelly) and the
other offerings seem a little warm...for me, this is another "not a good
sign".
Finally say good nite to our host, after
way too much beer, at about 10:30-10:45. We are driven at high speed and recklessly back to our hotel by a factory "driver"...another hour on the road.
There
is a wedding going on at the hotel when we arrive back and there are
many drunk Chinese people milling around talking loud. I make it
through the lobby and up to my room, but not without forgetting which
floor I am on as this is the third hotel in four nites and it is all
blending together (I actually stop at three floors before finding mine.)
Get to my room, and to my surprise, my key doesn't work...It must have
been the workmen fixing the lighting on the floor when I checked in
earlier (It was dark and I couldn't really see much as there were no
lites on or windows in the hallway.)...maybe they triggered the
electronic door mechanism. Anyway, back downstairs, get a new
key, work my way past the actual wedding party (They are very drunk)
and back up to my room.
I
am now back in my room safe and sound. The only english speaking
channels on TV are Discovery and HBO. HBO is showing some movie that
went directly to DVD in the States 10 years ago and Discovery is a
totally broken up digital image with no sound.
I just looked at my watch and realized its been about 21 hour day....
Good nite now!
