Shanghai: Day Four
March 24, 2015
Today we had an early start with breakfast at 6:30 AM and we were on the bus on the way to our first meeting at 7:15 AM.
Our first meeting of the day was at a Cold Chain Produce Market at Huishan in the Puxing District. This enormous outdoor market is full of imported fruits with pallets everywhere. One of the most interesting fruits we saw was the durian fruit imported from Thailand. At this market they have to meticulously pick through all of the fruit to make sure that anything that has spoiled is removed. We saw people picking through boxes of oranges and blueberries. Here we also saw our trip earlier this quarter to Mission Avocado come full circle! Avocados have recently been introduced in China and are becoming increasingly popular.
After the produce market we headed over to Preferred Freezer Services. PFS is a US company that has expanded throughout Asia. They freeze and transport lots of different kinds of foods, for example they handle Coca Cola and Costco products. We met with the CEO who relocated to Shanghai from Pebble Beach and the manager of operations.
After leaving PFS, we had an arranged lunch at YuYuan Garden. Then we went to our last meeting of the day at Trimble Navigation. Trimble manufactures navigation systems and many other products. At this facility the manufacture laser levels and total stations. We got to tour the factory and see how they assemble, calibrate and test these products.
Our last stop for the day was the Tianzifang art and restaurant district. Our first stop was to grab some dinner at a dim sum chain. I had some really delicious shrimp dim sum! Then we spent a little time looking at the maze-like shops of Tianzifang before hopping on the bus and heading back to the hotel. Man, did it feel good to get out of business clothes and take a hot shower!
We headed out to a karaoke bar where we had a private room for 16 of us and we did a little bit of karaoke singing it was really fun! After that we had some difficulty hailing taxis, but finally we made it to the club of the night where our promoter, Neal, set us up with a private table. At M2 I met people from Thailand and France. We stayed here for a while before heading back to the hotel for the night. A couple people fell asleep on the couch at the club! This week is definitely taking its toll!
Keep following along with my trip, I’ll post pictures later!
xoxo J