Why I'm Here...: March 2012

One of the coolest parts of my job is how much I get to travel. Since, I cover the entire Far East, I'm pretty much going in and out of every country over here. Well, I recently made a trip to China. I traveled to Hong Kong, Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai.

The first part of the trip was business and the second part was pleasure. The business part of the trip was filled with meetings every single night. That may not sound like it takes a lot of effort but, a traditional Chinese business meeting has many different parts. There is the initial meeting in the office, there is a Chinese dinner (about 15 courses) accompanied by Chinese drinks (a liquor that is somewhere between 50-60% Alcohol), and then, something called "Round 2"; one of the nights we ended up at a BBQ stand where I ate a chicken's foot (terrible) but, normally, it's karaoke. Yup, a bunch of grown men just sitting around singing their hearts out {insert Chinese stereotype joke here}. This may come as a shock to you, but I'm not exactly known for my vocal abilities. However, when the head guy of a Chinese oil company, that's responsible for a $5 million order, wants to hear a boot-wearing-Texan rock out to some Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler," you give him a big YEEHAA!

After my liver had practically shut down from 4 consecutive nights of business meetings, it was time to do a little sightseeing in Shanghai. Earlier that week, Tara accepted a job in Singapore; Ralph Lauren created a position for her based in Singapore doing similar retail marketing work as her old job. As a celebratory gift to her, I decided to fly her up to Shanghai and spend the weekend touring the area. Ironically, my father-in-law happened to be in Shanghai on business the same time I was scheduled to be there. I didn't tell him that Tara was coming up, so she got to surprise her dad by turning up unannounced. We all enjoyed a very good dinner that evening, and the next day, we actually found a Texas BBQ place that was started by some guys from Austin; giant relief to have a break from the local food.

Tara and I spent the better part of three days exhausting all of the tourist attractions that Shanghai has to offer. From the shopping district, to the temples, to every sky-lounge open to the public, we saw it all. One of the days we took a bullet train to a city just outside of Shanghai called Suzhou. Suzhou is a smaller, touristy town that is known for it's beautiful Chinese gardens. We also found a museum there and an old touristy avenue filled with carnival-like sales booths. Tra and I both agreed that Suzhou was the best sightseeing part of the weekend.

During my time here so far, I've also traveled to Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, back to China, and lastly I had the pleasure(?) to visit India. These trips weren't as note-worthy as my first trip to China. I really like Korea (especially the Korean BBQ - soooo good!); it's actually a beautiful country. Kuala Lumpur reminds me of a dirty, unsafe Singapore. I go in and out of Indonesia and Malaysia with my friends quite often to play golf; really, really awesome golf. And India is ever bit is cool as it sounds; no grass, dirty, cows roaming everywhere, poverty to the extreme, over crowded, very hot. However, being from Texas, I love spicy food, so I actually really enjoyed the food in India.

That's about it. Here's a few of the thousands of photos (I am my mother's son) that we've taken during our travels...