Sunday, May 14                        Continuing our journey, when we arrived at our hotel last night and laid on our beds, we found that people in Xi'an prefer a hard mattress.   We would compare it to a piece of plywood with a quarter inch of padding on top.   Surprisingly, everyone seemed to sleep well but are a little sore from the bike ride yesterday. We had a full day planned with visits to a feed mill, the NW Forestry & Agriculture University Beef Farm, a farm equipment dealership, a local dairy and dairy production plant.            Our first stop this morning was to a local feed mill located in the middle of the city of Yangling.   At the mill they produce feed for pigs and chickens utilizing popcorn, whey powder, corn , peanut, fermented soybean and fish meal.   All of these are sold ...

Today brought us to the end of our time in Guangzhou. After enjoying some bacon this morning at breakfast, we packed up the bus and headed to the airport. There we boarded a plane to head to Xi'An. As we started our decent, we noticed we were finally getting into some farm ground and are looking forward to the agricultural tours that lie ahead.    As we are almost a week into our travels, we decided it was time to reflect on some of the things we have experienced in comparison to the United States. We have noticed all of the high rising buildings and structures seem very worn down and old in comparison to the young age of these infrastructures. The quality of the building materials makes the engineering wear down very quickly compared to our long standing buildings at home. The scaffoldings we see around these work sites are made of bamboo and seem to be tied together.   We have also found that the Chinese people are always in a hurry. When waiting for buses, trai...

12 May 2017                This morning we visited the Huangsha Aquatic Products Market which is open 24 hours a day and has a daily capacity of 500 tons.   They had almost every variety of fish, clam, oyster, crab, lobster, eel and turtle you could imagine.   This market sold the fish and seafood wholesale to local restaurants and customers.   Any "expired" products were tossed onto the street. It seemed that everyone had the same products, so you had to know what you were looking for if you were going to buy something.                After the Seafood Market we visited Shamian Island which is home to the famous White Swan Hotel where foreigners stay while filing adoption papers.   The hotel was built in the 1960s and was China's first 5 star hotel. The whole island has British architecture and it sits in the Pearl Rive...

May 11, 2017 Last night the group attended the Hong Kong Jockey Club horse races. They run 8 races every Wednesday night. Each race's betting pool was around $25-35 million Hong Kong dollars (around $4 million U.S.). There were large bleachers and several air conditioned boxes, many of us went down and stood right along the track fence, so it was a very up-and-close experience.    We all took a taxi back to the hotel, everyone in Hong Kong drives very fast, the speed limit is around 80 kph (50 mph). Surprisingly as fast and wild as everyone drives, we never really saw any vehicles that were scratched or dented. Also, there were quite a few exotic cars such as Lamborghini’s.    Today we ate breakfast at the hotel we stayed at, the breakfast was very good and included a variety of foods like western, Indian, and Chinese. One thing we noticed about the restaurants so far is they all have many mirrors on the walls as well as marble/granite on the floors and wall...

May 10, 2017 USDA Ag Trade Office We took a 45 minute bus ride to the China Construction Bank through a government owned tunnel under the harbor to get to the US Consulate. This was not an embassy because it is not in the capital of the country, but they serve the same purpose. Consultor General, Bob, Foreign Services Officer from Corona, South Dakota started off our presentation with a briefing of his work and his career path. Our time at the consulate continued with a presentation from Melinda Metter, Director of Foreign Ag about Hong Kong and Macau and the Dynamic Markets for US Exports. The USDA in Hong Kong gives the US better access with trade to Central China. Hong Kong imports 95% of their products in small amounts because storage is extremely expensive because real estate is minimal in Hong Kong. Everything is built upward instead of outwards. Melinda works a lot with the awareness of safety and products and works with promoting US food items. Hong Kong is the center ...

SDSU China Ag Study Tour (from 05/8/17 to 05/21/17) Subject to Minor Changes in China   Follow the Adventure at http://sdsu2017chinaagtravel.blogspot.com May 8 th     (Monday)     Arrive at Sioux Falls airport NO later than 6:00 am with your PASSPORT with no dog bites!   UA4044 8:10am - 9:49am) & Flight UA 895 (1:10pm - 6:10pm)   Departure from Sioux Falls for Hong Kong   8:10 AM          UA 4044 to Chicago 9:49 AM         Arrive in Chicago 1:10 PM           UA 895 to Hong Kong May 9 th   (Tuesday)      Arrival in Hong Kong at 6:10 PM and check into the hotel Group supper Regal Oriental Hotel 30-38 Sa Po Rd Kowloon City, Hong Kong (852) 2718- 0333 https://www.regalhotel.com/regal-oriental-hotel/en/home/home.html May 10 th (Wednesday)     ...