Day 6

11:35 PM
Today was too long to enjoy. We left the hotel at 7:30am and got on a bus for a two hour trip to visit Giant Bicycle. This was probably my favorite company visit yet. We had an interesting video that explained how Giant doesn’t sell bikes, but instead sells the joy of riding a bike. They had some great marketing material. I thought it was really cool how I got to see all three of my majors in action. The international business management was covered in the presentation about international partners and global expansion. Human resources was seen in the factory tour and later discussed. Thirdly, operations management was EVERYWHERE! From the moment we walked into factory all we heard and saw directly related to OM. It was interesting to see TQM in action and see a working combine system. I really liked seeing my education applied in the real world. It was a bit of a bummer that we couldn’t take pictures of the factory, but it was so neat I didn’t mind too much. The carbon bike frames were so light I couldn’t believe it!
After the tour we got back on the bus and stopped at a rest stop for some lunch. It was so different from our rest stops-it was more like a food court/mall. I got more bubble tea;)
Back on the bus again and we head to Asia University for a campus tour. This was a fun tour. We were met with food and water, given really nice gifts, and got to do some fun activities. We made a whip top toy. I kind of remember them from Japan. It’s like a spinning top, but you spin it with a string. Check out the pictures to get a better idea. The campus was beautiful as well. It made me wish Flint would put a little work into improving our campus.
I missed the connection, but I guess the founder of the school also opened a private hospital. We got a brief tour and welcome speech at the hospital. It had 26 floors! At the very top was a revolving restaurant where we had dinner. It was really cool having a changing view. We were served steak! Sadly mine was so bloody I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.
Next we headed to another night market. I think today would have been fun, but this was just too much. It was a lot like the other markets, so it wasn’t too exciting. Finally, at 10:30pm we headed for the hotel. It’s a really nice place-the nicest so far. I’m going to fall into bed now and hope I will have enough energy to call home tomorrow. I’ll try to go back through this post tomorrow and add things I forgot. Night!