My Long Day.

I'm writing this at 5:30 in the morning here because yesterday I came back to the hotel at 9 and crashed immediately. I'm getting ready to go see the Great Wall of China in 2 hours!!! I can't believe that! This is going to be so amazing! [Edit...I am now finishing the blog I started writing at 5:30 this morning because I didn't get it finished (It's now 4:45 in the pm). I have now seen the wall, but I am going to finish this one before supper and post about my day at the wall after supper, so you will just have to wait!!]

Yesterday when we arrived at the customers around 9 we immediately realized that I had, in fact, solved the mystery of the leaking torque hubs. All that had happened was that the customer did not wipe off the oil when they took off the covers to refill them and oil had collected around the outside retaining ring groove and slowly oozed to the bottom. There's not a shop rag one in this place anyway. But because they saw oil, they automatically thought "leak."

However, it wasn't that easy to convince the customer of this, and we finally left around 2 after several hours of showing pressurization tests to them and explaining and reexplaining the solution to the interpreters. Having a language gap makes things ten times harder. Finally, we left it at, "Well, the units are not leaking now, but if they end up leaking we will replace them." But I know that they're not going to leak because they held 3 times the air pressure they're supposed to (I uped the amount to 30 psi instead of 10 because I was being a smart alec trying to drive home a point). And what do we remember from middle school science children? Air will fit through cracks oil will not. But I can not convince the customer of this. Argh.

So after this insanely frustrating day out in the cold, we got back to the hotel around 4 and were leaving at 5:30 for dinner so I needed something to do. I wasn't feeling motivated to type, sleep, or watchin Chinese TV, so I decided to venture down to level B1 of the hotel and see what was going on at the spa. Bingo.

I went down with the idea that I was just going to get a pedicure and have them change my chipped nail polish, but since I couldn't communicate well enough to them, I ended up with an hour and a half long foot rub.

It was AMAZING. If ever you are in China please do this for yourself. The girl rubbed my arms for 20 minutes, then moved on to my feet for about 50. After that she put my socks and shoes on, so I thought I was finished. But she layed the chair I was in down and had me flip over and then proceeded to give me a back and calf massage for the next 20. Absolutely amazing. I was starting to get worried about the bill because of how long I had been there and the extent of things she had done to me, but when I got the bill back that said $33.00 I smiled and went on my very happy way. Wow.

For dinner last night we went to a restaurant that had "Beijing Duck." Ummm, can we say, delicious?!?! They actually give you a certificate to keep with the number duck you ate. I don't know why we don't have duck more often in the US. Although, I will say that because they Chinese are not a wasteful people, we ate every part of the duck...the feet, the heart, and the head. I strayed away from the feet and head, but did have a heart, and it wasn't anything to write home about. Mostly like a chicken liver...kinda spoungy. They also served us jellyfish last night, which I feel that I have been pretty adventurous with my eating habits so far, but I drew the line there. I don't eat anything I'm terrified of (and my dad will attest to my emotional breakdown on a beach in Hawaii while attempting to muster up the courage to snorkle, thus proving exaclty how deep this fear of jellyfish really is). Anyway, I'll leave you with pictures.

Here's the unit I used for my tests. Now my name will be forever infamous in Chinese heavy industrial equiptment history. Or, at least will be until they paint it black.

The thing that I have truly loved about my job at Fairfield is that they guys I work with have allowed me to completely maintain my femininity while working in a male dominated environment. I do get teased on occasion, but in general I have seen nothing but respect from my collegues. And they don't even mention it when I lay my Vera Bradley purse on a tire as big as I am. I think this could be used as a new VB marketing picture, what do you think!?!?!

Also, I am going to write a letter to Vera Bradley when I get home telling them that they are completely missing out on what could be an extremely lucrative Asian market. The Chinese girls have gone absolutely gaga over this bag. I am not even close to joking.

Now I do have a joke for you. How many Chinese does it take to change a lightbulb??

This many. And it still wasn't changed when we got back the next day. (I hope I haven't crossed a line here, but I found the situation hilarious.)

The certificate for our delicious duck! Poor little Quackers.