First, I went to Seoul in South Korea 3 weeks ago to meet with my distributor and work out their marketing plan. Unfortunately, I only spent less than 24 hours in the country, so I really didn't get any time to experience the culture. However, since this was a new place, I still took in a ton of new things and observed a lot of things that were different than China.
If I had to describe South Korea, it seems to be a Japanese mindset in a Chinese infrastructure. They are similar to Japan in the sense that, when they work, they reallllly work. They put in long hours, are extremely professional, and never do anything half fast. But when they go out at night and be social, they realllly go out. The women are some of the most attractive I've seen in Asia, as they spend so much money on beauty items.
The reason I say they're like China is because their biggest city looks nothing more than a giant town. It's an old, very large city, that is spending tons of money to put up sky scrapers and really force themselves into the next century. Even though right beside this skyscraper, is a building that was built in 1920 and falling apart.
Now onto the next huge thing that's happened...I MOVED TO SINGAPORE!!!
The Concha Y Toro company has been in China for about 10 years. But we decided to move to Singapore for a lot of reasons that I'm not going to go into now. It just fits better into our long term plan.
So how would I describe Singapore...? It's a giant shopping mall. Singapore has hundreds upon hundreds of shopping malls. And not the cheap kind of shopping mall that you find in China either, but the expensive kind that would find emptying your wallet without you even noticing.
The people are extremely friendly however. The break down is about 60% Singaporean, 30% Indian, 10% white. But EVERYONE SPEAKS ENGLISH!!!! Hardly anyone speaks Chinese. The hardest part is now having to watch what I say because everyone can understand me now. I could walk around China saying "I'm a pretty little princess" and no one would care or understand....not the same case here. Learned that the hard way.
Things Ezra has learned...
- Take pictures before you update a blog post (Soon to come, I promise)
- Korean barbecue is taking meat and some other stuff and wrapping in in lettuce like a weird carnivore, vegetarian hybrid taco.
- Buildings in Korea are so brightly colored that it looks like an artists color wheel threw up on the city.
- I've talked to every taxi cab driver I've rode with in Singapore, and they give the best advice.
- I move in into my new apartment on Wednesday. Can't wait to decorate.....that sounded a little weird.
- The largest wine fair in the world is coming next week in Hong Kong. I've been working on this for the last 2 months almost non-stop. Don't worry, I'll take lots of pictures so the see the fruits of my labor. Or wines of my labor....? That was dumb, I know.
Love,
Ezra
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