Day 1 in Japan...

Well, our first official day here and things are interesting to say the least. The area kind of reminds me of the big cities in the US. Kind of like how I picture New York only with fewer beggars and much cleaner. Okay, so our first stop was the all-you-can eat breakfast at the Olympic center where we are staying following by a briefing in the meeting room which I have yet to photograph for the daily schedule. After the business is done, we get on the Metro, much more difficult than the Taiwan subway, to visit the Meiji Shrine. The Meiji Shrine was erected in commemoration of the Meiji Restoration, a very important part of Japanese history in which trade opened up with the rest of the world. This Shrine is absolutely amazing. It is so beautiful. The shrine is surrounded by a large natural "reserve." I want to say park, but that doesn't really describe it. The area is basically a wooded area with creeks, woods, and several commemorative and decorative items interspersed. We only got to go to the see the shrine, we didn't have enough time to go in the shrine itself. Either way, I am so glad I got to see it.

Our second stop for the day was Gakoshuin University. This college is very beautiful, but it also serves as a high, middle, and elementary school as well. Well, I should say that it has these other campuses directly attached to it. Furthermore, this is the school where the emperial families attend. Lastly, this college is an all women's college. Our first visit here is to get aquainted with the students as well as observe some of the cultural classes offered in the school. This school has a cirriculum which incorperates a large amount of japanese history and culture. We observed the flower arranging class before heading off to complete some of our other obligations for the day.

For dinner we went out with Ericka and some of her friends for a traditional Japanese meal. Ericka is a local who had come to ASU for a brief visit. She is a friend of Dr. Chen and Dr. Fox. Several of her friends are graduating soon or have graduated and are lining up big time business and marketing jobs all over the world.

Lastly, we took a stroll through the red light district, guided by Dr. Chen. Let's just say it was interesting. Needless to say, I think that I will avoid such places at night for the rest of the trip. Now to get some much needed rest.

Taiwan day 9 ....

Well, I am not sure if you can really call this day 9 or not. We woke up and left the hotel at 6:00am. As different as it was,"I will miss you Hotel Flowers." Once we arrived at the airport there was a rather long wait to get our tickets and baggage taken care of. We then departed at 9:00am.

I think this next pictureto the right pretty much describes us all at this point in the trip. The rest of the flight went well. It was rainy when we arrived at Nairita International airport. Once we arrived in Japan we took a two hour train ride to Tokyo. We then took the subway to the Olympic center where we aare staying. I will post some pictures of the Olympic center later seeing as how I am dead tired at this point. Here we are on the subway. I went out with the professors and my Japanese teacher (Yamamoto-sensei) for dinner once we all got settled in. After that we pretty much called it a day.

Taiwan Day 8...

This is our last day in Taiwan. Tomorrow morning we leave for Tokyo. This has to be the saddest day I have seen in a long time. I came to Taiwan, not knowing what to expect. I was so looking foward to going to Tokyo, but now I find myself wanting to stay here in TaiPei. I have had so much fun since I got here. I have met so many wonderful people. All the locals are so nice and helpful. The good news about today is that we got to sleep in, needless to say, I woke up at 9:30am. I went down to the local laundry mat and did some much needed laundry, then back to the hotel to begin the days events. Our first scheduled event was a trip to a local massage parlor. The parlor is actually run by some ladies from Thailand who have set up shop here in TaiPei.

Needless to say there are no pictures of me getting a massage, mainly because everyone was busy enjoying one of their own. The ladies started by washing our feet. Needless to say, it was the most amazing thing ever. My feet have never felt so good. Our massage consisted of various stretches and massages of the muscles and joints. We also got our backs and shoulders rubbed down with hot towels. It was so wonderful. The best part is that it lasted for TWO HOURS!!! Those were the fastest two hours of my life.

After our massage I went shopping for a few hours. Around 6:00pm we had a going away party at one of the really fancy all-you-can-eat buffets. It was indescribable. The food was all so fancy and ohh so good. Even better, we could eat and drink as much as we like. needless to say, I wasn't much for the drinking part, but I ate my money's worth. I had like 9 plates of food plus ice cream for dessert.

After eating, I went down to the Shilian Night market. I walked for hours looking for nifty souvenirs of my trip, but came back empty handed. However, the interesting thing to take home from this experience is that their are night markets all over Taipei that open up in the evening and go till about midnight. They sell everything you can think of, but unlike american business you can talk the vendors down in price. In America people get annoyed or mad if you do these things, but it is common practice in TaiPei. After I finished my tour of the night market, I returned to the hotel for the evening (about 11:00pm).

Taiwan Day 7....

Today's ventures take us about a 3-4 hour bus ride away from TaiPei. Our first visit is TBI Industries. TBI is a producer of various lines of drinks in Taiwan and much of Asia. They produce various types of tea drinks, coffee drinks, and fruit &vegetable drinks. While they do not have much of a market in the US, they have a large market in Asia and they are expanding globally. One of the big selliing points of this business is the Cold Aseptic production of their drinks. While this process is not new to countries like the US it is new and a good selling point in Taiwan. Furthermore, this company has gone through many steps, including pass the American FDA standards to produce better quality products for their consumers. Also, TBI uses biotechnology to increase the health value of their drinks. Also, the plant is completely automated to help maintain a completely sterile environment for the production of their drinks. The plant also produces their own bottles on site as well. We were not allowed to take pictures of the plant so I cannot show you how it looked on the inside. It was a very amazing tour though. Also, we were allowed to try the porducts that TBI makes, and let me be the first to say that they are very good. The samples we tried included a weight reducing coffee drink, tomato juice with honey, barley drink, and several types of tea. We also toured their shipping plant as well. Their storage system is absolutely amazing. It too is completely automated short of the employees working the forklifts. Companies wishing to place orders from TBI simply send in their order and the system finds their products and sets it out to be loaded on the trucks. After touring the plant, TBI even treated us to lunch. It was a traditional chinese boxed lunch. We only had one other planned stop after this visit and it was the Chung Cheng University or CCU. At CCU we met up with some of the ocal students for a communicative tea party. We got to meet so many new people.

First and foremost, let me introduce my new friends in order from left to right. On the left we have Cindy, myself (in case you don't know who I am), Nicole (a friend of Cindy's who joined our group because her group member from Appalachian was not present on this day), and to the far right is Ling. After a few brief talks from our professors from Appstate and the cooperating professors from CCU, we all took about an hour to get to know one another over lunch. Needless to say, there was a lot of food. I think I have eaten more in this day than I have in my whole life and the day isn't over yet. Ohh yeah, I almost forgot, I learned the hard way that the sushi was wrapped in plastic. Needless to say everyone got a laugh out of me trying to delicately get the plastic out of my mouth after that ordeal. The funny part is that one of the other students from ASU did the same thing about 5 minutes after I did. So I don't feel like I was the only one to do that. All of these students are majors in the business, accounting, & marketing areas. I learned from them that almost 70% of the university students in Taiwan go on to get their masters. Needless to say all three of these girls are planning to go get their MBA. I hope that they do well. Even though we only got to spend a short time together, it was such a wonderful time to be had by all. After we left the main hall where we were having our meeting we got a tour of CCU. CCU is huge. there is no way anyone could walk from one side to the other. NTU and ASU are both fairly small in comparison to this place. CCU was such a beautiful campus. There is also a legend at CCU. It is said that if you are dating, married, or whatever with someone one and you go over this bridge, the union will be broken. It is so sad. The locals believe it though, because anyone who was seeing another person wouldn't dare go near the bridge. I guess it can't really have much of an effect on me. The girls in my group all went up and had their picture taken on the bridge with me, because they are all single as well. It is really sad because they are all so sweet. Maybe, someday in the future they will find themselves a good guy. I hope so any way. After our short tour of the campus, it was time to go. Needless to say, I am very sad about having to head back. We did make a stop in the second largest city in Taiwan for dinner (and to miss rush hour traffic). I meant to take some pictures while we were there, but I got so wrapped up in everything that was going on that I forgot. Also, I found my first DDR machine in Taiwan so I had to cut some rug on it. Needless, to say now I can say I have played DDR in two countries. Now I just have to find one in Japan. We later arrived back at the hotel at 10:00om. Not much left of the story of the day after that.

Taiwan Day 6....

Okay, so on this day our first stop was

visiting Joy Enterprises. Joy Enterprises specializes in teaching English in Taiwan. They make products, textbooks, provide resources, traing teahers, publish magazines, and hold clinics all to help teach the Youth of Taiwan English. We actuall joined in a demonstration of their teaching methods. Believe me that tune hasn't left my head yet. I would hae to explain the tune in person, it just isn't going to convey itself over a blog. Joy is currently the largest and most successful of the english teaching companies and material sales companies in Taiwan. Furthermore, Joy offers job opportunities to those wishing to be teachers of English in Taiwan for both Native speakers and Natives of Taiwan. Also, I was greatly impressed with all the workers level of english. They could all speak better than most Americans. The lady in the picture next to me is actually one of the co-founders of the company. Also, joy has recently published several english text books for the public schools and offers several different levels of English in the local after school programs (cram schools). Also, Joy Enterprises is currently developing English programs for adults as well.

After leaving Joy Enterprises, we then went to The National Taiwan University or NTU. NTU is the best of the best for universities in Taiwan. We along with several of the students from NTU discussed the Quanta computer case. Se were all paired up with several of the NTU students. My group, was paired up with Dianna, Derek, and one other person whose name is escaping me at the moment. After discussing several questions about the case amongst our group, one of the NTU professors came in and led a group discussion amongst the two classes.

Directly after our discussion we tried our hand at Chinese Calligraphy. Needless to say, it was rather difficult. The characters themselves were extremely beautiful. Watching the presenter do it was so beautiful. Needless to say, we tried but they just didn't look the same when we were finished.

Later, after we finished doing the calligraphy, Charles, Emily, and myself went out for the evening with Derek. Derek is a really awesome guy. He showed us several of the local places to eat. We tried the rice dumplings and a local Taiwanese pork dish with rice. They were both VERY good. After we finished eating, we all went to the largest bookstore in Taiwan. The book store is five floors of books. They had every book you could think of in almost every language you can think of. It was really a sight to see. We didn't really buy any though. I don't know where I would have put them had I bought any. After visiting the book store, we went to TaiPei 101. It is the tallest building in the world currently. The building is 101 stories tall. By the way this is Derek.

Went went up to the highest point we were allowed in TaiPei 101, the 91st floor balcony. It was really a site to see. We went at night so all the lights of the city could be seen as far as the eye could see. It was really beautiful. It is a sight that you really have to see in person because pictures just do not do it justice. Also, Derek told us that on new years they shoot off fireworks from all over the building. They had a video of it, but the video I recorded didn't come out. It was really beautiful. After leaving TaiPei 101 we went back home for the night. I hope we get to see Derek again before we leave.

Taiwan day 5...

Okay, so this was a very slow day for us. Our first stop for the day is the Taiwan white house. It is a HUGE building. We went on a tour and of course they do not allow pictures. I only got a few good pictures of the outside of the building. Also, our tour which was supposed to be 1 hour turned out to be almost 2 hours long. It was really funny, because among the facts about the history of taiwan were the circumstances going on during the tour. First and foremost, our tour guide had a lot of trouble with english so he would randomly go into mandarin with Dr. Chen translating. Also, he studied german for many years so he would randomly go from english to german as well. It was all rather funny. Also, to my amusement most of the class was hungover from the night before so watching them try to get through this whole even was more than amusing. Lastly, to add to my amusement, I gave Charles, my roomie, some benedryl becuase he said his allergies were bothering him. It was so funny watching him fall asleep on his feet at points in the tour. Moving on, after our tour of the white house we collected our belongings and went to lunch before regrouping at a local coffee shop for studying the Quanta computer case.

I spent the next 24 hours cramming all the knowledge I could about this case into my head so that I could not look stupid when we went to NTU for our case study with the NTU students. The Quanta computer case is about several organizations banding together under the OLPC to create a $100 computer to help bridge the information gap between countries. Quanta, being the largest manufacturer of laptops and parts hopped on to this initiative inorder to gain a strong footing in an emerging market. In the end, it turns out that the $100 computer just isn't possible. However, the currently built pc'es both by Quanta and rivals are currently running about $176. We went into a lot of detail about Quanta's business approach to joining the OLPC project and the cost-benefit analysis. It was all really interesting. I have never really thought about it in that perspective. Speaking of studying cases, I have the Sony case when we get to Japan and I had best get cracking on that sometime in the near future. Lastly, after finishing a 2 hour discussion on the Quanta case we went to Party World and did Karaoke. We did take some time to go over the importance of Karaoke in business relations in Asia. As it turns out Karaoke is very popular. Not only is it popular to sing and drink, but it is very popular to have business meetings over Karaoke. After a couple of hours of Karaoke, I ducked out early to grab some dinner and try to get caught up on the school work associated with this trip. There is actually a lot to keep up with. Lastly, before heading home, I ran into some of the other students and went to TGI Friday's for dinner. I usually didn't eat american food this whole trip because I am trying to sample all the local cuisine. At Friday's, our waitress was really nice, so we took our picture with her to commemorate our visit. Her name was Miranda.

Day 4 in Taiwan...

Today our morning started very early, leaving the hotel at 7:00am for a two and a half hour ride to the Giant Bicycle headquarters here in Taiwan. We toured the onsight factory and got to learn about the Giant Bicycle business plan. The company itself is trying to integrate bicycles into the daily lives of everyone across the world. I personally feel like their mission is a good one. Particularly in the US, I feel that using bicycles more would benefit society. Furthermore, we learned that Giant Bicycle is the world's leading producer of bicycles. Ohh another interesting fact is that the president of the company toured Taiwan on a bicycle. Furthermore, the President of the Giant Bicycle company is currently riding a bicycle from Hong Kong to Shanghai this week.

It is really interesting to see someone living their dream through their company's ideals. Also, we learned a lot about the bikes produced by Giant. Their major parts suppliers include Shimano, Schram, and a couple of others. Giant exports both bike frames and accessories as well as bicycles. They have their own brand name bikes as well as parts and bikes sold under different brand names. Currently, 70% of the bikes made by giant are under their own brand name. Also, Giant's belief in being the one bike solution has led them to selling bicycle apparel as well. Giant currently has thousands of independent dealers across the entire globe.

God, I look fat in this picture.

After our visit to the Giant Bike head quarters, we went to an authentic chinese style lunch. Let me start by saying this was the most impressive lunch I have ever seen. First and foremost, the food was fantastic. Secondly, they just keep bringing out courses of food until everyone is finished. Being finished entails a clean plate that does not get refilled. They take away dirty plates after they have been used. There were all different kinds of foods. I really wish I had thought to take some pictures of the food iteself, but when you are hungry, you are more concerned with getting the food in you than taking a picture of it. After our meal, we toured a local winery. We got to see how the grapes are grown, processed, and made into wine. We also, got to sample the wine as well the grape juice that is made here. This particular stop was a very short one, but it was really nice to see the local businesses and how they are working.

I almost forgot, before our visit to the Winery, we went to a local Saxophone makers. This company makes saxophones in Taiwan. They are neither a large company, nor are they the leading comapny in the global market, but they are breaking into the world market. In the picture is the daughter of the current store onwer/crafter and she is the fourth generation of saxophone players/makers for this company.

This Our next stop was a local orchid garden and sales business. They had a variety of different kinds of flowers and I took plenty of pictures of them so everyone can see the variety and different kinds of flowers that they had for sale. I was amazed by the variety and beauty of all the flowers. I am not going to post any of my award winning flower pictures on this site. If you want to see those then you will have to ask.

After a brief break for dinner, we went to a "love" hotel. While this had nothing to do with business, well I suppose you could have a business meeting in one, it had a lot to do with the culture. Of course we did not use the hotel for it's purpose, it made a great place to have dinner, karaoke, and just have some fun. I think it is a great view of one of the many differences between our culture and the asian culture. You would never see something like this in the States. That reason in and of itself is why we went to see this. I have plenty of pictures of this. This is the dream of a luxury hotel (yes it is designed for couples and their "needs"). After we spent some time there we came back to the hotel for the night. Got a short day tomorrow, so I should be able to get caught up on logs then.