Shanghai, China

Dear Friends:

This week, I'm in Shanghai, China.  It's been almost two years since I've been in this city...and in some ways, nothing has changed.  The people and culture are very much the same.  However, when you look at the Shanghai skyline, there are even more gigantic skyscrapers that reach to the sky.

I'm here as part of a training event for my company.  They've gathered many of the engineers that do customer support from across the globe.  They've asked me to speak to this group, and articulate what I plan to do in North America in 2016.

When I arrived in Shanghai, I took a train from the airport to the heart of the city.  This is one of the most unique trains in the world, as it runs on magnets.  It's called the Mag Lev which is short for "magnetic levitation":

The train runs really, really fast over these powerful magnets, push the train forward at about 190 miles per hour:

Here's a little video clip of what it looks like from within the train.  Those cars that we're zipping by are moving at about 50-60 mph...

I arrived at my hotel, which is right next to one of the largest parks in Shanghai - called Century Park.  It's one of the few "green" areas in Shanghai:

I can't believe it's actually clear here.  The pollution is usually pretty bad - but they've had some windstorms that have made it actually...beautiful:

This hotel is only about a mile from where I used to stay, each time I traveled here, so I knew the area pretty well.  I went to a local grocery store, to see what kind of strange items I could find.  I wasn't disappointed.  While not terrible strange, Dragonfruit is not normally found in the U.S.  It's gorgeous in color, and tastes great:

I stopped in the potato chip aisle, where I find unusual Asian flavors for chips.  This time, I could choose between grilled or roasted squid flavor!

Other options included seaweed flavor, or the mighty "Numb & Spicy Hot Pot Flavor" - which I'm sure is exactly how your mouth would feel after eating them....numb:

Next to produce was a variety of fish - some frozen, some swimming in tanks ; )  There were some other items nearby:

I can't imagine wrangling those in a plastic bag, all the way home ; )  I love learning about other cultures..the world is a fascinating place.

The actual training event was pretty standard.  Folks for all over the world were gathered for several days of presentations.  Most of my day looked just like this:

The dinners were always fun.  Lots of food - a lot of which I had no idea what they were.  However, I attempted to try much of it.  I quickly learned what I didn't appreciate ; )

When in China, you inevitably eat duck.  This is a duck...you might recognize the head/bill in the lower-right corner of the picture:

I spent the last two days of the week with a smaller team of people.  These were more marketing-focused folks from China, Taiwan, Japan and Europe.  I was the representative from North America, and enjoyed talking with them about the market here, and our challenges that we face.

We met at our offices in Shanghai.  The building was really nice, up on the 35th floor:

The view from our office.  The sky is actually clear - which is quite unusual for Shanghai, or most of China.

This is what kept me going for most of the week. Between a really bad head cold/cough, and the jet lag...

This is the only picture of the entire team.  It's a good crew - I'm glad to be working with them at the new company.

After long days of meetings, the dinners were a really fun experience.  These dishes had truly unique presentations...and were quite tasty:

This was a strange one - they delivered the beef in the jawbone of what appeared to be a cow?  Oh...and smoke was coming out of the skull...really bizarre:

Never a dull moment in China, to be sure.  The meetings ended and I felt like they were really good.  That helps when you have a 14 hour flight to endure ; )  Thanks for reading!!