Back again! Almost forgot that I have a weblog ;) I have finally installed a VPN, which makes the access to pages as blogspot, facebook, twitter much easier. Although I sometimes still have troubles uploading it. The system keeps annoying me, that's why I have been lazy. ( good excuse right?)
Actually, since more than 6 months I have joined a small friends email "club" and we try do a share4today every day. Since, many of us are pretty busy, not all days events are shared, but I still think it is a good initiative, to keep your good friends ( which you choose yourself ) posted about your daily events, hmm...actually it sounds now more like twitter and facebook updates, but I must say, the share4today it a bit more intimate ;)

Last week was Dragon boat festival, 3 days off for all China. China has a very different system when talking about holidays. The official off day was on Wednesday the 16th. To make it a 3 days on a row holiday, they switched the dates of Saturday and Sunday into working days. Then they say, we have 3 days holidays! haha, I still only can see one day holiday...

I am preparing my trip back to Holland now. After some months of World Expo craziness, July and August will be more quit months. September we will be busy again with missions from Breda and Flevoland. Exciting!!

The busy 2 months has gone by and I finally find some time to write my blog again. What happenend these 2 months? I have been traveling around China for work. First to Yiwu and Guangzhou, then I had to do a lot of preparation for the trade mission of Heemskerk, our state secretary in Holland. The goal of this large multi-sectoral mission is to promote mutual trade and investment between China and the Netherlands.
Your Op was assigned by the Dutch consulate Shanghai to organize the matchmaking program for the companies joining this mission in Shanghai. On the matchmaking day in Shanghai, these companies were matched with the commercial contacts (agents, importers, wholesaler or end users) in order to broaden their network and increase their opportunities in the Chinese market. It was quite a lot of work, but at the end we were able to find the right match for each company. A trade dinner was organized on the 16th of November in the Okura hotel. It was an evening with lots of food, speeches and networking. The evening ended with a debriefing to give feedback about the matchmaking. It was very exciting for us, since we were curious to hear how it all went. The reactions were all positive and people had a good day in Shanghai. It gave us lots of satisfaction to the hard work we have done.
For now, the end of 2009 is almost near. We have great plans for Your Op 2010. With the World Expo coming up, Shanghai will be put in the spotlight from May till October 2010. Let's see what 2010 will bring.