China, part 1

Time to get back to writing.

Bill and I went to China a couple of weeks ago.  I know, CHINA!  It is literally half a world away, the longest plane ride I've ever taken.  We took this trip without the kids, partly out of caution and partly because plane tickets to Shanghai are unbelievably expensive (and we never have miles for anything like that).  But now that I've been, I'd take the kids in a second.  For now, though, I just want to share what I saw and a little of what we experienced.

First, why on earth did we go?  My husband has factories in China, and it was time for me to see them.  Way, way back (more than twenty years ago now), Bill and a couple of guys in graduate school started selling American equipment to Chinese factories.  It was a great sideline as he pursued his Ph.D.  The catch was that they couldn't get most of their money out of China.  BIG catch.  In order to get their money out of China, they had to import things--and that led to the idea of building a plant that could manufacture goods to sell in the West.  So that was how he came to have these factories.  It has been a long time now, and many, many improvements to the plants.  After we got married, we always talked about my going.  But pregnancies, babies, and life in general just got in the way.

Sometimes you just have to say, "Now." That is what we finally did this fall.

The next few posts are just my travelogue from my trip.  I like to keep notes in my super-cute and trendy Moleskine as I travel.  Since we've gotten back (two weeks ago now) I've also had some other impressions percolating, and I'll share those, too.  China can't fail to make an impression on you--it's just so darn big.  Not Texas wide-open big, more like suffocating, sit-on-you big.  Anyway, I'll share some of that.  Really, there were too many things going on for just one post.

Since I am admittedly out of the habit of posting, I will just say that I will try to post the whole trip over the next few days.  I have so many pictures.  And while it was not fun, it was interesting, and sometimes that is even better.  I am really looking forward to sharing this trip with the two or three people who read the blog.  (And your arrival at my little blog is much appreciated.)

And for the technical, in-and-out details of my trip, I like to post reviews on TripAdvisor.  You can find me there as "PeachtreeMom4."