Nov 20 – Today we flew form Beijing to Wuhan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan), about 2.5 hours south of Beijing. It is the capitol of the Hubei province. We met with the local sales team to visit a farm. On the way to the farm we stopped at a place to eat. I am not sure I would call it a restaurant in terms of what we are normally used to in the States. It was a complex of sorts, built around a pond. There were several buildings, each with several rooms that turned out to be serving rooms. Most of the food served was apparently grown in the pond. The lunchtime fair included a fish stew, fried fish eggs, whole small fish (about 1 to 2 inches long) and a variety of cooked greens, including cabbage and mustard greens. The whole small fish had a very light batter and then sesame seeds stuck to them. There was no mistaking what they were. You simply picked them up with you chopsticks and ate the entire thing. Many of the larger fish eaten here are of the carp family so they are very boney compared to what we are used to. One thing I am really learning working over here is that we have an abundance of food all around us in the states if we needed to eat. While it may not be our traditional fare, it would definitely keep us alive and healthy.

After lunch we visited a dairy operation. The farm currently milks about 600 cows but plans on expanding to 2800. We met with about 20 employees from the farm. Dr. Wu, my translator and Chinese counter-part, gave a presentation on management to help improve production. He then had me answer questions from the group. They are very interested in the western way of dairying. After the presentation, we toured the dairy. The owner is apparently quite wealthy and seems to be more concerned with the facility looking like a show place rather than being a good dairy operation (the words of one of his managers). The buildings and grounds we beautiful, but the cows were not very healthy and production was quite low compared to our standards, around 40 lbs/hd/day. Forage quality was poor and the cows were very thin and were not in good health. They are having serious problems with their calves. So much could be done here if they would let us help them. The manager said the owner was happy with the people he is working with, but he will talk to the owner about doing business with us.

Tonight we stayed in Ezhou (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezhou) at a place called Phoenix Resort. It is a resort built on an island in the middle of Younglanhu Lake. At one time it was a four or five star facility, but it appears it has a few fallen stars. It has gotten used without being kept up as well as it should. It has a beautiful setting. This website has a little information on it so you can at least see the setting of the facility (http://www.timesharegiant.com/Resort/Phoenix_Resort). I had some interesting experiences during the night. I went to bed about 10:45. At 11:45, I got a phone call on the room phone. The voice was a woman’s voice saying something in Chinese. I told her I did not understand and hung up. About 10 minutes later, there was a knock on my door. I looked through the peephole and could see a woman standing there. I just ignored it, as I had been told that call girls would often call you on the phone or just knock on your door. She finally went away, but about 10 minutes later, a different girl knocked. When I did not answer, she went across the hall and tried them. They answered, but sent her on her way. My traveling companion said they called and came to his room as well, offering a “massage”.