Business trip to Zhejiang

As part of the search for capital, Paul had asked Ling Ling and me to join him and his partner Linda for a three-day trip to Zhejiang province, to visit a potential partner for the expansion of Paul's scouting and sailing camp activities beyond Xiamen. The prospective partner is mister Z, a businessman from around Hangzhou （杭州）, whose current enterprises range from real-estate to health clubs.
Z had visited Xiamen earlier for a first introduction, and now it was our turn to visit him at his own territory, on his invitation. We drove the 900 km to Shaoxing （绍兴）, 50 km south of Hangzhou, where Z has his headquarters. We took of before dawn to arrive at 3pm, checked in at the 5-star Xianheng hotel （咸亨大酒店）. We were treated to two nights at this place, and a number of excellent lunches and dinners as well.

Z's party consisted of five people, including himself, and we were with four, so we were with nine in total, and shuttled between the various locations in Shaoxing and Hangzhou with a BMW 535GT (Z's personal vehicle, driven by himself at totally irresponsible speed), and a Mercedes-Benz R350, a luxury people mover seating six persons very comfortably. Ling Ling and me were put in the latter, driven by a chauffeur who did his best to keep up with Z in his BMW, who had Paul and Linda as his passengers.
The primary purpose of the trip was to look at locations that Z had selected for future scouting bases. Two of the locations were at the grounds of the Zhejiang College of Sport, an institution which trains Chinese teenagers to take part in future Olympics and world championships. The other two where military training camps, and as such were off-limits to foreigners, so our visits to these places were very short indeed. Bad preparation or maybe ignorance on Z's behalf.
The College of Sport was interesting to visit, including an excellent lunch with a pair of sport coaches, but did not strike us as a great place for scouting camps.

All in all, the trip was a bit odd, and seemingly useless, but there might be still hope, since Z is very interested to invest, and has loads of money, so he might come up with a better place after all.
As a bonus, close to our last visited location on the island Zhoushan （舟山）, which was one of the no-go military training camps, was the shipyard where the replicas of the Chinese junk are build, which we plan to sail in the near future. The builders and two of the smaller vessels were present at the recent Xiamen boat show, so I already had seen the boats in the water. At this shipyard though, they are now building a 30m version, which is a very impressive piece of work. Constructed entirely out of Malaysian hardwood, the hull is still in a dry dock, but almost finished. We were allowd to enter the ship under construction, and got a detailed tour of the yard by the managing director.

Part of the shipyard is a model workshop, where scale models of classic Chinese sailboats are build to order for museums and private collectors. The models are at scale 1:5 to 1:25, so some are quite big (several meters long). The level of detail is impressive, and the builders are very passionate about their work. A beautiful place to visit, both the full-size shipyard and the model workshop.
After this, we were on our way home again, the return trip being slightly longer at about 1000 km. I did a good part of the driving across China's well-maintained toll motorways, even though my European license is not valid here. We made it home just a few minutes after midnight.