Blog 206   I talked about Factory tours in Tuscany Italy.  In this blog I want to talk about First trip to tour China factories

I get back and have a few weeks before I fly out to China for about ten days. Bill who I worked with at Nordstrom in Arden Fair and again in Valley Fair reaches out to Aaron to apply at Zappos. He comes in for an interview in the Outdoor area as he loves the lifestyle and worked at REI after Nordstrom.  He joins the Zappos Team and would start soon after our China trip working in Aarons area.

Prior to the trip Richard help me and others get the Visa we would need to travel to China. He made it very easy for all of us. I flew out to SF and met him there in the morning. We got checked through at the international area and headed out to China which was a 15-hour flight. We didn’t fly business either, so my long legs weren’t happy during that time.

It’s funny when you travel at first because people always say the most horrible things to watch out for. Be careful, watch out for this…I heard Yaks roaming the streets, of course don’t drink the water and all meat is either cats or dogs. The Yak thing of course wasn’t true as well as the meat rumor. You could find those things however if you wanted to eat that. The water thing was true however, but we will talk about that later.

We land in Hong Kong and the lights were beautiful, like flying into NYC. Almost seemed surreal. We had a late dinner at a steak place and on the way back Aaron got sick. Yikes not a good way to start. China tends to undercook the meat, so you must be careful. I had my own experience which I will share in blog #225. Luckily, he was better after a good night’s sleep.

The next morning, we all meet and had to go through customs to get into Mainland China. It was a long ordeal with so many people there. From there we had some vans to take us through the border and an hour-long drive. People in China wear masks as a daily thing and we had our temperature checked while crossing over.

Rob was introducing us to people from the company he worked at Markon. Henry was the Main line builder, and he would show us through the whole process. He was a character too. I liked him from the start. They arranged accommodations for us at The Royal Lagoon which was an amazing property. The rooms were fabulous and so was the food. We all met for dinner and had drinks afterwards. We were to meet henry in the morning over breakfast.

We had planned to visit a shoe factory, A bottom factory, Last factory and a tannery. This would be a busy day for sure. The next few days we would see other factories arranged by other vendors I knew including one from Rick’s company.