The journey began: China-bound

I left for China on September 8th. After a 28hour flight schedule (including layovers in LA and Taipei) I arrived in Shanghai.

Here's the beer bar in the Taipei airport where I relaxed from ~6am to 8am. I met a lovely couple from Canada and we compared tech notes - specifically the fact that in order to access Facebook and Twitter, you had to set up a VPN. "ItsHidden" worked for me at the Taipei airport, although I had mixed results once I was in China.

Here's the immigration line in Shanghai. There was a "no photos" sign that I ignored (I'm a bit of a rebel) because I felt compelled to capture the moment. For most Americans, it's a bit unusual to have to get in the line for "Foreigners". Through an odd twist of fate I was one of the last passengers on my flight to get through the process. I wish I'd snapped an image of my driver. Seeing someone holding a sign with your name on it is immensely reassuring after such a long journey.

And finally, here's the view from my room at the Swissotel in Kunshan(notice - I just missed a beer festival!). I checked into the hotel at about 1:30 then went straight to the factory. Have I mentioned that the reason for this trip was the first prototype build for the product I'm responsible for? There's nothing like spending 33 hours in the same clothes then showing up for work. Fortunately, the factory is not a fashion mecca.

After putting in about four hours covering the build in-progress, I retired to my room for some much needed zzzzzz's. And so ended Day 1 in China.