Back to The Future

Back to living in the future.. sigh
I miss you CALIFORNIA.

farewell to...
the clean crisp air
the ability to fling or flair my arms on the sidewalk
taco bell
my nice warm bed
my car
my family & friends
living in the past

crappy UNITED airplane food, limited leg room, and 15 hour flight..OH MY!

I'm sitting next to a very cute elderly couple while waiting to board the plane for SFO.
Right next to me is a MUJI to GO! (they need a MUJI in California)
Oh how I love the Hong Kong International Airport, it beats the boring SFO airport. You can get lost in HK International for hours! (imagine a shopping mall with a huge food court)
I'm dreading the ride back, but excited to breathe in the fresh crisp air. If only I can capture it in a jar and bring it to HK.

ViVi magazine (all about Japanese fashion), New Moon (2nd book from Twilight series), and a bag Millie's Cookies..I'm ready to endure the flight back home. My bag of FOUR Millie's Cookies costed me $49HKD!!!! so EXPENSIVE! it's equivilient to $7USD! Darn airport food so freakin expensive. I get the munchies on the plane something to fill my boredom.. FOOD always cures all problems. (I realize that..it's quite sad. I find comfort in food)
I bought PEEPS from Wellcome because I got homesick.

Please Wash Before Wear

Continuing my China trip, sorry for the delay AGAIN. After being in Shanghai for a day, my uncle's friend (who owns a garment factory) picked us up and we traveled to JiaXing. It was an hour drive plus drive.
JiaXing is a little city on the outskirts of booming industrial city of Shanghai. JiaXing is known for it's FOOD and garment + electrical factories.
After working 4 years in retail, I can finally see the beginning process of clothing manufacturing rather than the end product.
Random facts about the 'garment world' in China:
-it's no longer 'slave labor'
-workers are now demanding higher wage, so not everything is cheap when MADE IN CHINA.
other countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Sri Lanka are booming with garment factories.
-different garment factories specializes in certain material/clothes (the factory I went to specialize in woven and knits together)
-clothes touch many hands before being exported to other countries
-not all clothes are pre-washed, so imagine how many people has touched the garments...some clothes sold domestically are transported with rickshaw like carts attached to bikes rather than trucks so they get trenched in rain
therefore... WASH BEFORE WEARING.. (i never did with my t-shirts and sweaters..now thinking back on it..EWWW)

Enjoy the pictures:

Work placeA rack of samples

each employee has a special skill, if you are good in using the flat bed lock stitch machine which is used for single or double stitch, he/she will be placed in that station (before being hired, they are tested on sewing skills of what machines he/she know how to operate)

there are different stations: collar, sleeve, cuff, ironing, cutting, and so on

this employee is sewing the sleeve onto the woven

Women's outwearing that came back from Germany with comments for improvement

famous restaurant known for its green leaf rice dumpling (this restaurant has been in its same location for 100+ years)

old method of selling the dumplingsassortment of side dishes for your picking

the goodness!! I ate this 2 days straight. Each was filled with different meat and the whitish one on the far left is sweet (red bean)

the soup dumpling + bean curd milk

side dishes: beef, seasoned cucumbers, tea leaf eggs

for dinner we went to an interesting restaurant..since it was cold and rainingwe ate hot pot... CONGEE styled

a helper is there to cook for you, she puts in one ingredient at a time
we started out with shrimps, fish, and so on..to season the congee (interesting concept, but it seem to take forever to eat) They then add congee rice later, it's just congee broth.

choosing fresh ingredients for the congee
(the meal costed $35 USD for SIX people..super cheap)

condoms on the bed stand

cute sticker on the fridge! (boys wearing speedos)

GUCCI emblem fabric on the cushion and bed frame (it was all over the hotel room) LOL

Snacks before bed..stopped by the convenient store near the hotel called KEDI which is equivalent to 7-11 in HK and ABC store in Hawaii..meaning it's everywhere..i got Snickers (I was craving chocolate + peanuts.), Potepo (Seaweed flavor), Lays (Blueberry flavor..strange, it was DELICIOUS!
Breakfast at the rice dumpling place again on the tray is two forms of congee (both sweet) side dishes of chicken and sauteeded tofu and red bean rice dumpling
Sweet snacks of some glutinous sweet cake which was very interesting. In JiaXing they specialize in sugar from some sort of flower, so if you smell the cake it holds some floral aroma
The green dough is green tea mochi filled with red bean.
What I HATE about CHINA! It's smells terrible, you can smell the woman's restroom from a mile a way...i quiver just thinking about the stench. This is considered as CLEAN.

This area is filled with restaurants that still maintain the ancient china architecture. (TOURIST spot)