Here’s a recap of my recent trip to China with lots of pictures in a simple list format.

• 3 hour drive to JFK
• 16 hour flight to Hong Kong
• 3 hour flight to Beijing
• First tour bus and 1 hotel for 3 days
  • Forbidden City
    

    

    

  • Tienanmen Square
    
  • Temple of Heaven
    
  • Birds Nest Olympic Stadium
    
  • Great Wall
    

    

    

  • Summer Palace
    

    

• 2 hour flight to Xian
• Second Tour Bus and 1 hotel for 2 days
• Xian Bell Tower
  
• Big Wild Goose Pagoda
  
• Xian City Wall
  

  

• Terra Cotta Warrior Pits
  

  

• Hua Qin Hot Springs
  
• 3.5 hour flight to Shanghai
• Third Tour Bus and 3 Hotels for 4 days
  • Wuxi Tai Lake
    

    

  • City of Suzhou
    
  • Suzhou Grand Canal and Water Village
    

    

  • Humble Administrator’s Garden Suzhou
    

    

  • Hangzhou
    
  • Yue Fei Tomb
    
  • Taste of Hangzhou dragon tea
    

    

  • Boat cruise of West Lake
    
• Shanghai
  • Shanghai Bund overlooking the Oriental Pearl Tower on the western bank of the Hanpu River
    
  • Nanjing Road
    
  • Shanghai Old Town
    

    

  • Hanpu River Boat Tour
    
  • Xian Tin De bar street
    
  • Maglev Train to Shanghai Pudong Airport
    
• End of the tour of China
• 3 hour flight to Hong Kong
  • Sai Kung Seafood Market
    

    

  • Tsim Sha Tsui Harbour City
    

    

  • Avenue of Stars
    

    

• 2 hour bus ride back to the mainland China
  • OCT Park Tea Stream Valley
    

    

  • Tai Pang City
    
• 2 hour bus ride back to Hong Kong
• 1 hour ferry to Macau
  • Macau tower
    
  • Macau Casinos
    
• 1 hour ferry back to Hong Kong
  • Lan Kwai Fong bar street
    

    

  • Wan Tai Sin Temple
    
  • Victoria Peak by Tram
    
• 16 hour flight to JFK
  
• 3 hour drive back to home sweet home Albany

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5 different plane flights,
3 different tour buses,
3 different boats,
1 Maglev train,
multiple public subway rides,
multiple public bus rides,
and 2 rental cars,
I made it home!

I logged many, many hours of traveling on this trip.

I’m still a little jet lagged but it’s good to be home.

Time to get back in the swing of things and I look forward to posting more about my trip.

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After flying about 20 hours to China on May 29, my guided tour of China ended a few days ago and it’s been amazing. It was a jammed pack 8 day tour of China that was a little exhausting but totally worth it. I’m looking forward to posting about the trip when I return to the states in a couple weeks, in the mean time enjoy my blog silence unless I find some more internet.

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This post is a little bit late but I finally got around to it. SEMA was an amazing experience. The SEMA show was HUGE. It was a little overwhelming how big the show was, but fortunately we entered the Convention Center right in the car care section. That worked out well because we got see a lot of our vendors without searching too hard through the massive show. To sum it up SEMA is anything and everything that has to deal with cars.

After seeing some of our vendors we wandered a bit and did a ton of walking through the rest of the show. That’s pretty much it, I’ll let the pictures do the talking now.

SEMA 2009 Las Vegas Convention Center.

Amazing piece of art depicting major US wars in a timeline.

Giant wheel that’s got to be 24 inch plus in my opinion.

Check out the car model.

All blue car in the West Coast Customs area.

Remember Mad Mike from Pimp My Ride.

The new 4 door Porsche Panamera in all black.

For more pictures check out my Flickr section.

In closing SEMA was one heck of an experience. Good times, maybe I’ll be back next year.

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The Zappos tour was quite an experience and totally worth it. It was a fun and inspiring learning experience. Here is a recap of my tour at Zappos.

Everyone involved in the tour was a pleasure to meet right from the get go. Zappos offers complimentary shuttle service to and from Zappos headquarters and we were picked up in the Zappos Escalade.

In the lobby displays the pair of shoes that started it all. When Nick Swinmurn was unsuccessful in finding a pair of shoes in store and online it lead to the start of Zappos.com.

The Zappos name tag ball named Lucille of the many people who’ve taken the tour.

Our first look into the offices and to the right you can get a glimpse of our guide Heaven, yes her name is Heaven.

A live sales map of products being purchased throughout the US.  In another part of the office they also had about four big screens with live web analytics, which was crazy to watch.

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s office.  Zappos has an open office policy and employees can basically see anyone they want.

The rest of the tour included visiting various departments throughout the building.

In the  fraud department we had the opportunity to speak to one of the employees there and learn how they dealt with fraudulent charges and charge backs.  We have had our share of charge backs and fraud and it was great to see how Zappos prevents the situation from happening.

In the HR department we learned about their recruiting process and how they offer a buy out of $2000 to potential employees after they finish training to weed out those that don’t really want to work there. The recruiting department also spoke about the importance fitting into the culture and Zappos’ core values.

Zappo Core Values

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

Throughout the tour you can see the unique culture that Zappos has built and how much it stresses the importance of customer service.  The work environment is a fun and inviting one where everyone knows everyone. While I was there, I’m pretty sure I was almost hit by a Nerf gun lol. Even though the atmosphere may seem lax, employees are hard at work and take responsibility for what needs to be done.

The tour rounded up with a visit to Dr. Vik’s office, where I got sit on the throne where at Zappos I’m royalty. Dr. Vik is the resident coach at Zappos who helps employees be successful in personal and business matters so that they can perform at high levels and provide excellence in service.  Zappos really takes care of their people and it really shows through as you make your way through the offices.

The tour ended back in the lobby where everyone received a Zappos Culture Book and a complimentary book  from the Zappos library.  The books are there to inspire the “Power of Service” and I’m pretty sure that they said Tony Hsieh has read all the books there.

Thanks to everyone at Zappos for the amazing tour.  Special thanks to Renna, our guide Heaven, the Mayor, Pam, Dr. Vik and anyone else I may have forgotten for the great tour.

11/10/2009 Comments (0)

I wrote about going to the SEMA Show earlier and while I’m out there I will also be visiting Zappos Headquarters. I have an exciting day ahead of me tomorrow with the SEMA Show and Zappos tour.

Zappos is a very unique e-commerce company that has built a culture with happiness as a key. CEO Tony Hsieh has created fascinating and successful culture over at Zappos. After reading a great article in Inc. Magazine about Tony Hsieh it was hard to pass on the opportunity visit their headquarters.

The tour is free and they even offer complimentary shuttle services to their office. It took me a while to find information on the tour but after a bit of searching I finally found a contact form specifically for the tour or I think you can email them from what I read from other people’s visits there. They recommend you make a reservation 48 hours in advance so you could set up a tour on the fly if you’re out in Vegas.

I’m looking forward to seeing a successful e-commerce company at work and hopefully learn a few things. This is going to be a great experience and I look forward to writing about my adventures in Vegas.

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