On Monday, May 26, we checked out of Zhejiang University International Dorm on the Yuquan Campus at 9am. After an hour and a half, we arrived at Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., which is known as the largest beverage producer in China. Public Relations Director, Summer Cheng, gave us a tour of one of their production line facilities and explained the entire process from producing a bottle, to inserting a beverage inside, to shipping the finished product. We left the production facility and went into their office building, which had display screens in the lobby that read: “Welcome students and faculty from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.” We were then lead to a conference room where a representative gave a brief presentation about Wahaha. From the presentation, we learned that Wahaha is a private group of companies whose main focus is to help manage the company, as well as market and advertise their many beverage products. The company is currently marketing fruit flavored tea to the U.S. market because Americans are becoming more aware of the nutrition factors in the products they consume. Tea has a long history of association with health and well-being in China. Since Wahaha is a beverage company, some of our classmates’ research groups (orange juice, milk, and water) had questions for the representatives and gained insight from their answers.

We are thankful that Wahaha provided us with delicious Chinese food served buffet-styled for lunch. We particularly enjoyed their version of popcorn chicken! When lunch was finished, several groups conducted interviews with the representatives while the others sampled tea beverages that Wahaha is beginning to market in the U.S. In our interview with Summer, we learned that Wahaha focuses much of their attention on quality assurance, as they conducted a complete product recall during a December 2013 rotten fruit scandal.  We then left Wahaha in Hangzhou for a three and a half hour bus ride to Shanghai.

Most of us napped on the bus ride to Shanghai, so the trip seemed fairly short. As we pulled up to our hotel, Shanghai Greenland Jiulong Hotel, we saw two lion statues at the left and right sides of the hotel entrance. The hotel’s lobby was nicely decorated with beautiful crystal lights hanging down and a café area to the left of the lobby. Since we were ahead of schedule, we had two hours of free time to enjoy the nice hotel before meeting in the lobby for a long-awaited “American-style” dinner. We were very thankful that Michael, our Shanghai tour guide, arranged a dinner for us that included spaghetti and pizza with a side sampler of nachos, mozzarella sticks, and waffle fries. This is what the Chinese must think about us Americans! Of course we felt right at home!

After dinner, we walked along famous shopping district on Nanjing Road, which we later learned was one of the ‘world’s seven greatest roads’ in the 1930s. As it was beginning to get dark out our class enjoyed the city lights and grew excitement for what the night had in store for us. Later on we all decided to go up to the rooftop of the nearby Peninsula Hotel where we saw an amazing skyline view of “New Shanghai” and the financial district across the Huangpu River.  It was a great place for photo ops and socializing. The night ended with spectacular scenery and a great welcome of the city.

For more photos of us, head to Flickr.