On International Business

Trip to Weifang
September 28, 2011
On Saturday i went on a trip with Brittany to a town called Weifang. Reason being, my father wanted me to check out a bbq smoker factory there before he bought one. He said its in the same province as me so i thought it should be close. Turns out it is 4 hours away by bus. So on a Saturday I asked Brittany if she wanted to keep me company for this little adventure and we got on a bus in Yantai around 2pm. We headed to the factory. I made contact with the factory and a lady who spoke English told me what ticket to buy and said go to the bus station. After about 4 hours of sitting on a bus we get to the last stop which was the Weifang bus station. Its about 6pm and the lady said she will meet us at 6:10. So we waited and she called saying she is here and she is holding a red paper in the air. 

We looked all over the station...could not find her. Called her back and told her we could not find her. She kept repeating that she is in the station and was holding a RED paper. I told her i do not see anyone holding any paper. Then she started speaking in Chinese and i could not understand and said, "What?" She would say, "Ummm." And start repeating what bus station she was in and said to meet us at some super market. By now i was getting a little irritated. I told her hang on i will have my Chinese friend from school call her and tell her we will meet her in the front of the station. I walked a bit out front to see if she was there and taxi drivers would come up asking if i wanted a ride. I told them no and walked inside. I walked in and out of the station a few times while i waited. 

Finally i decided that i should take a picture of the name of the station in Chinese characters. So when i went outside again, i was surrounded by 4 Chinese taxi drivers. All started yelling in my ear asking if i needed a taxi...AGAIN. I was a little irritated from all the events that were going on and said, "Stop yelling in my ear, i will punch you in the face." (Some bad words left out). I did not look at any of them while i said that because i was focusing on taking the picture but they seemed to leave me alone after that. I got a call from my friend and she told me that the lady wanted us to get off at a Bus STOP not the bus STATION. The bad news was the Bus stop is about 2 hours by bus away from the station. The lady told my friend that she wants us to take a bus in the morning to meet her since the factory closed in a couple hours. I told my friend to call her back and tell her in Chinese that we have to go back to school on Sunday so we cant make it and will try again another weekend.

We walk a bit down the road to find some food and see a tourist hotel. It was named the FUKUN Hotel. Found some place to eat, stayed the night at the hotel, then headed back to the station to get a bus back to yantai. Took a 12pm bus back to yantai. The bus back was kind of dirty and when the ticket guy came around he took our tickets then said in Chinese, "Yantai? That bus over there. Follow me." Apparently the Yantai bus was not docked on the right numbered platform and we almost went somewhere else. Could of been very bad. Got back to the academy after dinner in Yantai around 7pm. Rested and got ready for another week of training.

Will try again next weekend but i will make some preparations before hand.

-Scott