Yong Kang 14th Hardware Fare Opening Ceremony

I guess the reason why there were 40 foreigners invited to this ceremony was for "face" OR as a Mexican guy said "We are here as the Pandas, people take photos of us and think it's like a Zoo".
We came to the opening ceremony and got the front stand. There were hundreds of policemen, guards and army to check that everything went smooth. We stood in the front and watched a pretty cool opening show and after about 1 hour they let the locals take photos of us and then we left the scene after a few hundred of pics.

The speech was followed by drummers, dragon dance and fireworks
Video can be viewed HERE

Fireworks of all kinds of color

Tight security...

The small crowd that came to look at us and enter the exhibition

Inside the fair they had all kinda of tools you could think of. Everything from normal hammers, chains, saws to metal cutting machines and compressors. The place was really huge with 3 floors of stuff on display. This would be really good for anyone who wants to import tools around the world.

Beni Benassi, yes?

Supertoolman also showed up...

Drills and chainsaws with Army layout....

And now China has learned to copy the nerdy Segway :)

Tools tools tools

After some walking around the fair it was time for lunch in Yong Kang hotel. There were soooo many dishes and it was not possible to finish all of it. Fish, meat, soup, crab, fruits etc.

Free flow

16th Hardware Fare in Yongkang

Just arrived in a place called Yong Kang which is about 400 km southwest of Shanghai. There will be a 2 days hardware expo here arranged by the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. Let's see what that is all about. Yong Kang is the 47th richest city in China out of 1000 due to it's hardware production. The best thing about this whole is that hotel, food and transportation is all paid for by the Chinese government :)

Didn't find any other map online than this and too lazy to make a one myselfSome good Chinglish againYong Kang from the 11th floor of the hotelThe "Honored Guest" nametag and entrance to the fair

Hotel is nice and had a great buffet after arriving from a 5 hour bus ride. Tomorrow we'll see what the fare is all about. I'm going to have someone from the local government here as my "tutor" who I will tell about our business etc. Don't really know yet, more coming tomorrow.

Recovering

Last week was like you can see from the pictures, VERY consuming. There were events and events followed by concerts and late night music festivals etc. This week has mostly been work work and work. A lot of new projects and a lot of new people. After being here since the end of January I met over 1000 people. Yes, over 1000! I know it by the amount of business-cards I've been handling out and received.

Lot of retarded stuff here

Last week went to METRO to apply a card for Kari. METRO here is a supermarket for companies so without a company license and their card you cannot get into the supermarket. They have all sorts of awesome imported stuff what you cannot find anywhere else in China. The packages for everything are big but price small, it's like going to TUKKU in Finland. However when they made Kari's card we laughed our asses off. The title "General Manager" became his first name instead :D Officially a General of 5 stars now!

Crayfish Party by The Swedish Chamber

Once a year there is a traditional party for us Scandinavians! Since we can't have crayfish parties like you back home the crayfish are transported to us here to be enjoyed! We were about 200 people enjoying great food and drinks until midnight when most people went out to continue. Was too tired to go anywhere else so after a few snaps along with "Helan Går" in english and chinese (yes they had translated it) it was time to go home. Was a really nice dinner! Even though I'm around 7000 km away from Finland I can still feel like home here.

Black Rabbit @ Shanghai

What does 30 Seconds From Mars, Yellowcard, Ludacris and Qingdao Cheerleaders have in common?? The were all performing @ Shanghais Black Rabbit outdoor music festival this Sunday! First time I saw the add for this concert I knew it was gonna be awesome. 30 Seconds From Mars has been one of my favorite bands for a looooong time. I always used to listen to it while jogging in the evening back in Finland thinking about going back to China since one of their Music Videos was shot in Beijing - From Yesterday.

Street Jam Stage with freestyle rapping

Sun is setting after a beautiful day

Sorry guys, I didn't get it on picture!!

Yellowcard - This is for you Jonas

Ludacris!!

30 Seconds From Mars with an awesome show!!!

This was one of the best Sundays in Shanghai by far! Love you all awesome friends who always keeps the party going! And thanks Shanghai for one of the most beautiful days weather-wise as well! Sunshine, blue sky, 27 degrees and light wind!

Paul Van Dyk @ Rich Baby - Shanghai

One of the worlds most famous Dj's came to Shanghai! It was organized in a club that was way too small for this amount of crowd but the show was still great! Playing went on for about 4 hours and when I came home I could barely hear anything even though I had had earplugs the whole night. Don't wanna think how other people felt who did not wear plugs...The only way I'm ever going to Rich Baby again is if some good artist play there, crap place and rude guards who started pushing the people around when the club got packed.

To start the evening we went to Teppanyaki so that there was no need to get hungry in the middle of the night. Stefan, it was the same place we went to when you were here but this time the food was kinda crap. Meat poor quality and sticky but it's cool to watch the chef flambe the banana-split dessert.

Some events

Summer vacation are over and Shanghai is getting busy again. Events are starting again and there has been a lot going on. Shanghai shipping club invited me to a CEO dinner for people doing logistics. The people who held it are in charge of the port of Rotterdam and gave an interesting presentation about it. It's the biggest in Europe and 50% of all the stuff that goes through it are liquid like oil etc.

The Swedish Finance Committee came to Shanghai to look how the market works here and there was an evening buffet at top of Hilton. Food was great and views are nice!

Puxi

The Rugby World Championship also started last week and the British Chamber organized a huge screen. This was the first time I saw a Rugby match and those guys are HUGE and really made of steel. Running and tackling for 80 minutes each.

Nine Dragons Waterfalls

Last day in Yellow Mountains. Time to say farewell to our lovely ancient cozy hotel. Was a great stay! If anybody ever wants to go to Yellow Mountain take this one! The whole name is Xidi Travel Lodge.

The Waterfalls were about 60 km from the hotel but we called the same driver as we had yesterday. Very chill, honest and funny guy. He even turned back in the middle of the night day when Lotta had forgotten her phone in the car.

Our driver "Johnny"

Walking up the river to reach the waterfalls took some time and it was steep and HOT! I'm not gonna do this again in some time again because once we finally reached the top we were all dehydrated. Luckily they had a small shop in the hill selling overpriced water :) But we were really lucky with the weather, no rain and only sunshine with about 30 degrees.

There is a "Dragon Heart" below the waterfalls. The water is incredibly clear and probably deep as well. Too bed they didn't allow us to swim there, maybe there's a real dragon living in the pond below the mountains.

The "Dragons Heart"

There were 2 waterfalls, both with a deep pond below them. Could be very deep because the water is so clear.

They were building 2 new hotels just next to these waterfalls. How do you transport a lot of building materrials up the mountains? With donkeys! On our way down I saw a caravan of donkey carrying huge sacks of sand.

Up in the mountains they had build a house of lodge. No idea how to get there or how they were able to take that much materials up there. Would be cool to stay there for a while. Views must be great!

Our buss to Shanghai was on time and 13.30 we started out 7 hour journey back. We did some good timing because when we stepped into the buss it started raining and not all seats were takes so there was plenty of space. Lucky! This weekend was really awesome!