15 August 2010
Greeting all,
I hope this note finds you all well. Today here in China, it is a national day of mourning for the landslide victims in Zhouqu. The flags are flying at 1/2 mast and many ceremonies around the country. On the national TV stations, they have been showing many poignant pictures of the area with over 1200 people confirmed dead and another 500+ still missing. Please keep these people in your prayers. I have thanked God all day that we were not personally affected, but my heart has been heavy none-the-less.
It's tough to be light-hearted after typing something like that, but I'm going to try.
This past week has been very nice at work...most of the people who keep my e-mail box full at work are still on vacation...so I've actually had some time to try to catch up, moving into a new office and try to get settled back in after being gone for so long. I also took the opportunity to go to the site where our new factory will be. There is nothing there yet except a banner announcing that Michelin will build here. See below are some photos:
Banner announcing Michelin's arrival in a new industrial park in Shenyang, China
Sarah Miller and Jonathan Huang standing in front of the site.
Otherwise, to continue a few snipits from our European vacation...in my last note, I stopped in Theirs, France. We left from there and took the train to Zurich, Switzerland (via Lyon, France and Bern, Switzerland). We ended up our Vacation in Zurich, so the goal in going there at the beginning was to dump luggage! I had all of my "work clothes" and didn't want to lug them around, so we re-packed and left all the work clothes behind and then went to Innsbruck, Austria (home of one of the Winter Olympics in the 70s").
We went up into the Alps there (read, we took a train...no we didn't do any climbing!) and, it was stunning..
Austrian Alps
One of the other things we did was to visit a Bell foundry, we just happened upon this place while riding on one of the city busses. This foundry has been continuously operating since 1599 in the same family! It was interesting to visit the museum beside the plant, learn about the different methods of tuning the bells, who their customers are today (mostly carillons in churches or large city parks) and see them work to "move 'em out". The part of the museum outside the plant had a lot of old bells from "days gone by" (I figured probably some scrap bells!) was also an interesting place to see some of the past come to life.
The Bell Foundry in Innsbruck, Austria
After Austria, we went to Venice, Italy...now that deserves enough room to show some beautiful pics...ah...Venice!
Take care to all, and thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers!
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