Had to Come to China to Meet the Governor

The entire delegation from Indiana


Mayor of Noblesville (also pictured Ramon--works for the sister company of Dustin's here in Shanghai)



Our family with Governor Mitch Daniels

So today was quite a treat, as we were invited to meet the Governor of Indiana and the 29 other people of his delegation. They came to China and then on to Japan to focus on bringing investment to Indiana (always a good thing). The event was held at the Shanghai Yacht Club on the Bund. This is quite the interesting title as the bund is actually across the river from where the Yacht club was located. It served as some confusion to us and to our driver, but we thankfully made it there on time.

We were not there more than fifteen minutes when the Governor came walking in. We were able to talk to him right away and found him to be extremely personable and quite down to earth. The rest of the evening was spent mingling with the different people that had come to the event. Most in attendance either went to Purdue or IU for their degrees, and there were only a handful Americans, besides those in the delegation, and even fewer that were from Indiana. We did meet a nice couple from Noblesville that actually live in the community next to ours here in China. This is sort of unique as Shanghai is such an enormous city, the likelihood of meeting at one of these events and living close to one another is slim.

The boys did great during the event as well. We were told the children were welcome and that people were bringing their families, but it was a little more an adult affair. Danny spent most of the time playing with the tie on my dress, thus why in some of the pictures it looks like it has had someone swinging on it. :-) Yet, I have to say for a three year old and one year old to put up with a bunch of business people networking, and speeches and finger foods for dinner, they are pretty amazing. We got McDonalds on the way home and thankgoodness, because getting out of downtown took an hour and then we had an hour drive home from there.

In addition to meeting the governor, we were able to meet the mayor of Noblesville (this is where Dustin's company's corporate headquarters are located), the president of IU and one of the chancellor's from Purdue (Dustin actually knew him from his time in the Glee Club at Purdue).

Everyone was so friendly and in good spirits for arriving in China just the night before (they had to be suffering from major jet lag). Tomorrow night, Dustin gets to have dinner with the president of IU and about 20 other graduates living here in Shanghai, should be nice.