Penang is a tropical island. Temperatures here are quite warm and the humidity is near 100%. A one block walk is sufficient to induce a heavy sweat. View from the office conference room.

 
Our Penang office is on the 11th floor of this building and offers a spectacular view of the Indian Ocean.

 
The 30th floor of the Northam will be home for the next three days as we meet with staff members at the office.

 
Today is another travel day and we will spend ten hours getting from Changshu to Penang, Malaysia where we have an office and development team. The Shanghai airport is a work of art in itself.

 
Today we visit a much less glamorous factory which is manufacturing many of our existing products. Although it is a Saturday, the factory remains working at full production capacity. I spent a great deal of time on the production line learning every step required to fabricate our various products. It was a highly infromative and successful visit.

 
Directly across the street from the hotel is the massive regional exhibition center which could be easily confused with one of Beijing’s new Olympic venues.

 
This evening we will spend the first of two nights at the Crowne Plaza, a very modern and elegant hotel in Changshu.

 
Here we enter the lobby which will be the last photograph I take. Once inside the plant all picture taking is strictly banned.

 
On this campus Inventec has several production buildings including this one which is where Sonos products are built.

 
I am travelling with colleague Dave Perri. Sonos has started manufacturing one of our new products with a company called Inventec. Here we enter the facility which is the size of a small city. The pictured buses shuttle employees to and from the factory owned dormitories where most of the line workers live. They come from rural China, mostly very young girls to perform hand assembly of everything from laptop computers to handheld GPS units. Rather than recruiting people one at a time it is common to hire the entire graduating class of a vocational high school by arrangement with the school.

 
The port is a beehive of activity filled mostly with huge container ships carrying manufactured goods to the rest of the world. Click on the photo for an enlarged view and see how many cargo vessels you can spot. Also notice the new suspension bridge under construction.

 
Hong Kong’s skyline is composed of 100s if not 1000s of narrow towers nestled below the mountains and surrounding the harbor. You must click on the photo to appreciate the scale of this city.

 
Whoever dubbed Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes, would have needed an extra zero to describe Northern Russia. This leg of the journey was a 15 hour flight.

 
Early this morning I began the 40 hour journey from Boston to Shanghai by way of New York and Hong Kong. This route takes you over the North Pole. Pictured here are polar ice flows as viewed from 36,000 feet. Some of the bigger chunks are hundreds of miles across.