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Been in China for six days now.  Been to 5 cities.  Started in Hong Kong.  A few days ago we flew to Ningbo, which I had never been to before.  It's on the southern side of Hangchow Bay, below Shanghai.  It's another nice city on the rise.  We visited a garment office and factory in the morning, a baby wipes factory in the early afternoon, a foam board factory in the late afternoon, and flew to Shanghai that night.  Drove to a gift and textile factory in Changzhou from Shanghai the next day--about a 3 hour drive each way.  Then drove straight back to Pudong Airport outside of Shanghai and flew back to Hong Kong that night.  The next morning, we went by ferry to a great model and toy factory in a smaller city a few hours from Hong Kong (the spelling of which has been eradicated from my brain by fatigue for the moment). 

It's a torrid pace we keep.  But I love it.  The differences in factories, management, and cities you can see in a day are amazing.  Some factories are complete messes.  Others are outstanding.  And most fall somewhere in between.  You never really know what you're getting into until you go to the factory with a vendor, sit down and talk with them, and walk around the factory.  It's a hard job, but we love doin' it.  So cliche.  But I don't think there's any other way we could inflict such a torrid travel schedule on ourselves.  We'll be heading to the ferry again at 8am tomorrow morning to do it again.  And again on Saturday.  I fly back to San Francisco on Sunday.   I usually don't sleep on planes unfortunately.  But, I think I'll sleep all the way back to San Francisco this time.