Wednesday 14-April (10am): Hello, Dalian!

I arrived last night. Rod Stewart is playing in the lobby. Yes, in China. And it’s the ‘show tunes’ album he put out a few years back (so no ‘Maggie’ or ‘Gasoline Alley’). I will find over the course of my four-day stay that Rod Stewart is playing in the lobby every single minute.

I’m staying at a different hotel – a Howard Johnson property. And check this… in my closet. I’m not sure I like this now. I’ve never stayed in a hotel with oxygen masks designed for high-rise fire escapes… Yikes!

The team in Dalian is just precious… absolutely delightful. Of course I feel guilty – the kind of guilt a mother feels when she leaves her child too long with the babysitter… I have missed them and there is much excitement as we catch up and I admire how far each of them has come in learning about the company. It is a good day, if it just weren’t so darn COLD. Dalian is freezing… I checked the weather before I left, so I knew it was going to be in the 40s… but brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr this is colder than I thought. My team saved me – check out the space heater they put in my office! Kept me all toasty the entire time.