November 4 – The journey is nearing an end now, only two more days until I fly back to the USA. The last few days have been quite routine and almost boring. All day at the factory, watching the work and composing e mails on my computer, some to the personnel here because the written word is less risky in translation and some to the home office trying to let them know what is going on. Lunch at the factory (still yuk) and dinner alone in one of the two or three local rice shops that I have found near the hotel. Then maybe a beer or two, maybe some reading or some shopping, and then off to sleep.

One interesting thing about the shops and businesses here is that you often find a group of similar or related shops all together in one block. I have seen blocks that seem to have nothing but motorcycle repair shops and parts stores, others that have nothing but building products, others that have nothing but plumbing supplies, etc. Well the other night I stumbled upon one such block that seemed to have mostly, well, let’s just say, adult tension relief services, maybe “HJ” services as Al Ginsberg might have advertised in his magazine lo these many years ago. I tried to get some good photos of these shops, the young ladies are quite pretty in their outfits, some of which are truly uniforms, believe it or not. But they were reluctant to allow me to take any close up photos, so I had to settle for some more distant attempts. And yes I did wander in to one such place to learn more details about the services they offer, but since this is a family oriented blog such a report will not be forthcoming here.

By the way I think I finally found the correct spelling for this city, it is Nanqiao.