Its always sad to come home from a long holiday, back to reality!After a great time in China I suppose its time to go back. Dad and I had a great time over there. I was excited at the opportunity to do an internship for dad's company in China. This is pretty much work experience. So After spending a couple of days at dad's apartment in Shanghai we headed up north to Qingdao to do some work at the office and factory.
Qingdao was soooo beautiful! It reminded me a bit of sydney. It's city is right on a harbour and has a very relaxed atmosphere compared to other cities in China. I hope I can live there one day. Dad and I holidayed here for a few days, as well as did a bit of work in the office. The seafood in Qingdao is amazing!!! and of course very cheap. They also have the best band playing at a New York bar. Dad and I like watching bands together.
After a few days together, Dad went back to Shanghai leaving me at the factory by myself for about 6 days. Firstly, this factory is in the middle of no where! I mean there is no shops, petrol stations nothing! in a 15min drive radius. And I didnt have a car. Well Dad made sure i was stocked up on 2 minute noodles and told me "its just like camping!" haha. Luckily I made friends with the factory owner who took me out for food everyday. Thank goodness for him! Working at the factory was probably one of my favourite parts of the trip, I made friends with all the cute girls who worked in the office with me and some of the other workers too. Work was tough tho! I never stressed so much about work before. I realised that doing work in another country with a completely different culture sure is trying!! The factory workers are so lazy and slow, and need to be pushed and pushed and pushed!!!! There are 80 male workers working inside the factory and boy do they hate being bossed around by a young girl! In the end, after several days, and lots of arguements msot of them finally began to cooperate. My job was to make sure all the products were perfect as we took photos in a beautiful park of all the fences and other products. To organize all the products we needed to be made, checked, taken to the park, take photos, took 5 days. Crazy! But what a good experience it was for me. The photos I took are now on several websites and brochures for the company.
After the factory experience I went back to Shanghai for couple of days where we went to the World Expo. It was quite crowded, so Dad and I decided to go to the ones with no lines, which included all the Middle Eastern countries with names like Khajdhettjeyglavia. We then headed up to Nanjing, stopping at a little village on the way to visit an old emloyee of dads. A cute girl called Julley and her family. They cooked soooo much food. 15 dishes to be exact. It was crazy! It was great walking around the tiny village, apparently we were the first foreigners to ever visit the village. No wonder they cooked so much!
Nanjing was great too, very sad at the museum though showing the terrible things Japan did to the Chinese. There were some really cute areas of Nanjing too. Very Chinesey!
As it was holidays, it was too busy to go to other tourist places and also too expensive. So the last few days Dad and I just relaxed around Shanghai, which allowed me to do some last minute shopping, foot massages and get my hair done. I loved getting my hair done every few days, costing just about $3.50 for wash and blowdry. Heaven! (oh no im starting to sound like Mother!)
It was the best spending so much time with Dad. I realised how similar our personalities are, and how we love to do the same things! (mostly eat and relax) I went to Karaoke on my last night in China and loved singing along with the girls from work.
But.....Its always good to come home.
Ps. This is the view from dad's apartment building nice!
