We board the bus to the airport at 8:30AM.  It has been an amazing trip filled with strange foods, wonderful sights, amazing people and insightful businesses.  After 9 days many of us are thankful and ready to return home.  Others are off to other parts of China and Asia for a few more days of exploring the culture and sights.  In all, it has been an experience of a life time.

            While China was amazing I am ready to get home to family, friends and last minute preparations before school resumes.  I welcome the 11hr flight knowing that on the other end I will be greeted by those who mean most to me.  I look forward to someday returning to China both for business and pleasure including bringing my family to also experience this amazing country.

            To everyone who helped make this trip a reality I and my class mates say: Thank You!  While these words seem over used and inadequate to express our gratitude we want you to know how grateful we are for this opportunity.  The world has become much more within our reach.  Thank You!

            On our last full day in China we squeezed in two more business appointments before a late afternoon off for more exploration and shopping.  Our first meeting was with Yum! China.  Yum owns KFC, Pizza Hut and other fast food chains.  Their KFC brand is outpacing giant McDonalds with over 3000 stores compared to McDonald’s 1100 stores.  We were hosted by Lilly Hsieh their CFO.  It was a great a great opportunity to see how western brands are being adopted by Chinese culture.

            We then met with ASC Fine Wines’ CEO and co-founder Don St. Pierre, Jr.  ASC is the largest importer of fine wine into China.  Established in 1996 one of the main obstacles it needed to overcome was a lack of distribution system.  Pierre explained how they had to develop the infrastructure and distribution system themselves in order to make the company successful.  It was discussed how underdeveloped or nonexistent distribution systems would be a challenge for an entrepreneurial venture in many sectors.  On the other hand, real opportunities lie with a company devoted to the development of these types of distribution systems.  ASC entrepreneurial experience was a great meeting to end our China tour with.

            The last free afternoon was spent exploring such places as the Yu Garden and the Shanghai World Financial Center (Currently Shanghai’s tallest skyscraper).  Overall, it was a great last day in China.

            Our 9 day was spent touring factories, meeting with businesses and eating lunch high above the city.  Our first meeting was with Reggie Lai who works with APCO.  APCO is a global public relations / promotion firm who has contracted with the State of Oregon to be the trade representative with China.  The presentation and discussion centered on trade opportunities between Oregon centered businesses and China. 

            Lunch was served in the Grand Cafe’ on the 54^th floor of the Hyatt located in the Jinmao Tower.  We met up with all the centers for a combined lunch and needless to say the scenery and food were fantastic.  From this vantage point we could see the vast expanse of high rise office buildings and countless housing projects.  Also, the Huangpu River filled with ship after ship carrying goods.  It is still hard to conceive that Shanghai is a city of 23 million people.

            Next we traveled by van to the environmental remediation company of Paques.  We had the pleasure of meeting with Wei Zhang the general manager who spoke with us about their environmental solutions as well as the movement by the Chinese government for a cleaner environment.  The meeting was very productive and thought provoking.  Once finished, we had a long van ride back to our hotel.  We arrived back around 5:30PM and were on our own for dinner.

            Breakfast at the hotel needed to be eaten early because we had to leave for a factory tour by 7:45.  Our fist stop for the day was at Spray Systems Co.  Their factory was on the outskirts of town and took us over an hour to travel there.  Once there we were met by the general manager, Jin Lee, and his team of top management.  Our visit first started with an in depth presentation from Lee and his team regarding the company, economic trends, and plans for the future.  This was followed by a plant tour and lunch in their VIP lounge.  Spray Systems is a global company that manufactures spray nozzles for every kind of application.  More importantly they provide solutions to customers spraying needs.  Their spray applications include chocolate, paint, food processing and environmental protections to name a few.  We were very honored by the special attention paid to us by Spray Systems.

            Our next visit was with Will Chen who is a venture capitalist operating in China.  Will was both the founder and or cofounder of several start ups that were bought up by larger competitors.  Now he is a senior partner of DT Capital, a VC investing in China.  Here we learned of the many similarities and differences of VC work here in China compared to the US.  Some of the issues discussed included China opportunities, exit strategies and the effects from the economic down turn.

            Once again, our evening was free for dinner on own and exploring the city.  Fun and entertainment were had by all.

            While the flight was only an hour and 35 minutes it seemed much longer than that for one class mate who was sick with stomach issues.  It started a couple of hours before our departure and by the time we reached the airport he was definitely a pale green and could keep nothing down.  The fear was that he would not get through security but thankfully did followed by another immediate trip to the bathroom.  Finally making it onto the plane he was able to sleep for a while and was doing better by night fall.

            We arrived in Shanghai early in the evening and after checking into our hotel, the Radisson, everyone was off to get dinner and explore.  One thing that caught many of us by surprise was the great quantity of sky scrapers and how massively tall they were.  Our hotel is on a street that would be compared to New York’s Time Square, including very kind of retail shop with whole buildings lit up as TV screens.  It is quite impressive especially when several hundred thousand people are strolling down the street as well.

            Today was a day of rest for some and another day of on the go sightseeing.  Either way, it was a day off that we got to choose how much or little we did.  Many visited various temples; the Summer Palace, Olympic stadium and Shopping were all part of a free day in Beijing.  The day was cut short due to the city being shut down early.  There was a dress rehearsal for China’s national celebration parade, thus 20 square blocks were closed to traffic and businesses shut down.  The streets were lined with metal fence erected in sections for ease of set up and take down.  Our hotel was included in this area and everyone got in early and stayed within walking distance so as not to get caught out.  I stood down on the street to watch as locals watched the commotion.  A light rain did not seem to keep them away as they waited to catch a glimpse of the rehearsals.  While there I counted at least 36 charter busses come in carrying solders all in uniform.  By morning all the fencing was gone and the streets were returned to normal.  In all it was nice to have a day to slow down and catch up on email, rest and home while doing a little sightseeing as well.

            From a historical and cultural standpoint today will be a highlight of this year’s trip.  Thankfully, the rain stopped overnight and we were greeted by only an overcast sky.  After an hour and a half bus ride we arrived at the base of the mountains.  With a short gondola ride we found ourselves just steps away from one of China’s treasures.  Once we had a quick group photo each of us were off to explore and walk atop the Great Wall on our own.  The view was magnificent and proceeded to get better as the fog lifted and revealed more of this wonder.  After a couple of hours of exploring we were treated to a toboggan ride down the mountain back to the parking lot.  Some went fast, some went slow but all had a great time.

            Once we were back into Beijing we visited the 798 Arts District.  Here we explored small craft shops, full art galleries other exhibits.  Many used the opportunity to purchase a finer piece of China’s craftsmanship.  All enjoyed the exposure to China’s rich culture and arts.

            Although we awoke this morning to a drizzle that soon turned to a downpour our day was engaging with visits to Microsoft and Eco Securities China.

·         Microsoft Research Asia is Microsoft’s Beijing based R&D lab.  We were hosted by David Lin who is the Director of Strategy and Operations at the lab.  In his presentation we learned first of economic and business trends in China followed by Microsoft’s strategic plan to address those trends.  China is making a shift from “made in China” to “made for China” and “developed in China.”  The latter two represent China’s desire to develop its own domestic markets to better sustain its healthy GDP growth.  This shift will reduce its dependence on exports which have been down in the recent economy.  Also, we had a great discussion with one of the offices top designers regarding innovation and development of products such as Surface, Microsoft’s new table top touch screen computer.

                Today we started off a little later than normal to give everyone a chance to catch up on rest after our long flight.  After breakfast at the hotel the Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Business Practices cohorts met with Bin Lou who is the Asia Business Development Executive for Intel Capital.  Bin gave us a unique perspective on VC funding in China and throughout the Asian region.  Next we met with Justin Barrow who is a serial entrepreneur who has been in China for 7 years and has started 2 different businesses in that time, Jett customer service and Climate Action.  His perspective was that of a small entrepreneur and spoke of the challenges the China market can throw at a start up.

                After lunch we walked to Tianammen square then toured the Forbidden City.  Some of us then hiked to the top of a hill just north of the Forbidden City.  In all we walked 3.5+ miles today.  It was well worth it to see and experience the rich history and diverse culture.  Thanks to Lilly, Ni-Jing and Audrey for their excellent guide services today.

Our adventure started with a fizzle.  For those of us who were flying out of Eugene on the 8:38AM flight we found ourselves in the hurry up and wait mode.  The flight was delayed due to “fog” in San Francisco.  Unfortunately this meant that we might miss our connection to Beijing.  As a backup they booked us on an alternate flight from San Fran to Washington DC to Beijing.  This was the wrong direction but there was still hope that we would make our original connection.  Those hopes were dashed as they announced that we needed to disembark the plane while they redistributed the weight.  Forty five minutes later we loaded the plane again and took off for San Francisco.  By our arrival we had indeed missed our flight but now we were going to Beijing via Hong Kong.  While this was not as ideal as our original flight it was much better than the first alternative.  Our 1 hr flight delay in Eugene ended up costing us nearly 10 hours by the time we got to Beijing.  We arrived at our hotel, the Park Plaza, at 12:50AM Thursday the 3^rd.