Mysterious as the Dark Side of the Moon

Its now my last day in China -- the time has literally flown by. I just got home from our Wisconsin Alumni Association, where we met with all the Wisconsin Alumni living in Shanghai, as well as parents of current Chinese students and also the Chancellor, some renowned professors, and other members of the delegation that was traveling around mainland China this spring break as well. It was a fabulous opportunity, and my all time favorite professor was actually there and I got to speak to him and that was really exciting. More on that once I get home.

This will be my last blog post sadly. The time in Shanghai has been way, wayyyy too short. We have had jam packed days but there are so many great things we did not get to see - I guess that means I have to come back, and soon.

Yesterday we visited the LF offices in Shanghai and then we went to a factory that does a lot of business with Kohl's, Free People, Abercrombie, and EVEN Ruff HEWN! Anyways, we got an entire tour of the factory, and we learned so much. I never realized how much manual labor went into manufacturing clothes -- I always thought it was really mechanically driven, but its not. I have pictures, but there were literally just gigantic rooms full of rows and rows of people, mainly women, using sewing machines to put together all types of apparel -- we saw shorts and pants for Kohl's, Dockers being made, and other stuff. We learned so much about the dynamics and struggles these factories face and where they are looking to go next.

After that, we went to the Shanghai Acrobat Show -- and we were BLOWN away. Wait until you see some of the videos I took in the show. The youngest member of the group was 9 years old. They were phenomenally talented. It was a little humorous and humbling because the background scenes and the other dynamics that are so common in US entertainment shows, such as Cirque Du Soleil, etc. were definitely not there. After the show, we ate dinner at this great Chinese restaurant in an area called the French Concession and we didn't get home until around midnight again.

Today, our final day, was spent mainly sightseeing. We traveled to the Jade Buddha temple, where we saw a live monk meditation and then we sat through a tea experience as well.. Then we were taken to the Yuyuan Garden, which was built in the Ming Dynasty in 1549 and was amazingly gorgeous. After that, we shopped around the markets outside, but not for very long because we had to keep moving. I swear, I have bought not ONE piece of clothing on this entire trip. I am kind of disappointed in the amount of time we have actually had to shop shop, and not just souvenir shop - because there's been basically zreo. And they keep talking about Hong Kong and Shanghai being Shopper's Paradises, but we haven't been able to experience it. So sad.

Anyways, after that we went to the Shanghai World Financial Center -- the tallest building in China and what used to be the tallest building in the world until Dubai's. It was UNBELIEVABLE. You honestly cannot even feel the elevator moving, and it reaches 95 floors in 66 seconds. Then you go up to the 100th floor and the walkway is made of reinforced glass so you can see down onto the streets of the city. It was awesome. the building itself actuially looks like a bottle opener. And after all this sightseeing we just went to the Alumni Association event and now we are about to go out so I need to go get ready -- even though Dana and I are completely exhausted and would rather lay in bed until morning.

I promise to load videos from the Acrobat show and all the pics tomorrow morning before I leave!

can't wait to see everyone, and thank you so much for commenting and reading my blog and sharing this experience with me! <3

okay so i am back, quickly again.

I am going to skip the factories for now and move onto our trip to Hong Kong Polytechnic University. It's the equivalent of FIT in New York but in Hong Kong (and not as good I don't think). But it is a pretty amazing school, and the technologies they had there were incredible. They have this program where their students can create a 3D virtual shopping center -- complete with lighting, furniture, their own product, etc. And then all of them together form this mall. And then there is another program where, using WII technology right now, you can go into the mall, "walk" into stores and virtually touch and pick up the products, and smell perfumes and stuff. It's crazy insane and don't ask me how it works because I have NO idea.

Another pretty amazing thing they are working on improving, and is actually in place in a few stores in Hong Kong, is something called the Magic Mirror. It was absolutely incredible -- basically, all items of clothing have an RFID tag connected to them and then when you hold them up to the mirror, the mirror brings up several different images of what the item looks like on a real person and different outfits to put it together with. How cool is that? Almost as cool as Cher's virtual Clueless closet. We also saw some really awesome design rooms and big machinery for production, as well as this awesome 3D fashion video.

Our dinner our last night in Hong Kong actually took place on a floating restaurant in the middle of the sea, called Jumbo Floating Restaurant. its this huge boat-like thing sitting in the middle of the sea that is covered in Christmas Lights. It also has this whole area right on the water that is full of tubs of fish, lobster, shrimp, crab, etc and you can watch them cook it. We had a 10 course meal, mostly of seafood and other Chinese-like things -- some delicious, some not so hot -- but the experience was really awesome. Its so weird -- in China, and in a lot of Asia, for desert they eat things like red bean soup, which is sweet, but tastes digsuting.

Afterwards, we drove home, singing on the bus the whole way and then we got ready to go out on the town for the last time. We went to this place called La Villa right on the harbor and it was an open air bar, and there was a live cover band that was singing all sorts of the hottest Western songs, like Britney, Lady Gaga ( a lot of Lady Gaga), David Guetta, Black Eyed Peas, etc. We were the only white people there and we basically took over the dance floor but it was a lot of fun. I had ONE drink (a Long Island) and it was the strongest drink I have ever had. I guess the alcohol over here is a way higher content than ours at home.

So that was Hong Kong! Here are some Pics:

Helloo! I can't believe its already Thursday (here)! We only have 2 more days left. We just got into Shanghai late last night so I can't say much about the city right now, but our hotel is a-maz-ing. Dana and I have a corner room with these huuuuuuuge gigantic windows overlooking the city. Our room in general is just huge. Last night we went to a clubby kind of bar called Zapatas which was actually really neat - we didn't stay long cause we have a loonggg day ahead of us but it was cool - and there were a surprisingly large amount of people speaking English, mostly Australians. No joke, one girl with us actually met a man that went to her high school in Minnesota and graduated 3 years ahead of her. Such a small world.

Our last day in Hong Kong we visited 2 factories -- a denim mill, where they make the fabrics for denim and a sweater (knitwear) factory. The denim mill was really neat, there were all these huge looms and rolls of fabric. I don't have time to put up the pics now because I really need to go eat breakfast but there was a lot of interesting stuff we learned. As a matter of fact, I am going to save the rest for another time because i'm just too rushed and there's no way to get it all in.

Enjoy the videos, though -- sarah ackerman was her usual crazy self