Day One

1010 Hrs

It's 10:10 and I'm about to board my Qantas flight to Shanghai, after which I will rush through Chinese customs and take a connecting flight to Xian.

It's my first time I've ever gone anywhere by myself. Mum was freaking out constantly over the past few days. Its been driving me mad and to be honest the moment I walked into customs away from her strangling motherly sort of love I felt an immediate sense of relief. And immediately afterwards, these feelings quickly turned into slight anxiety and concern. I'm currently re-reading Harry Potter, and I'm up to book number four, so Moody's CONSTANT VIGILANCE seems to hold strangely true for me at the moment. Pick pocketers, scammers, kidnappers, muggers and mum's "be careful!" all seem to come to mind.

Six things, my wallet, my iPad, my MacBook Pro, my iPhone, my passport and my money pouch. Don't forget anything Chris.

I also feel like I'm taking on the world, or at least China (which to be fair holds a large proportion of the world's population). A different language, a different culture, I mean I look Chinese, but I still feel like a foreigner. I feel like the prodigal child. I feel scared, honestly. My stomach's grumbling, perhaps subconscious manifestations of this fear, or maybe I'm hungry. Hmm, yup it's cos I'm hungry. I love plane food man!

Oh and I dressed up in a button-up on the wild hopes that I'd flukily get put into business class..

I really hope everything goes to plan. But if it doesn't... I'll deal with it won't I? I guess we'll just have to see won't we?

I'm sleepy.

1038 hrs

Woo, just had my first light dispute with a mainlander. A silly girl, probably a few years older than me, came to me and said my seat was hers. It wasn't until we asked the other mainlanders behind me what number they were before she realized she was wrong. Own goal.

Tofa 1 China 0

I'm glad to see that there is no one seated next to me, practically two seats for myself! And I'm seated next to the wing. Woohoo! Good day.

1119 hours

So electronic machines are allowed on again. Sweet. I've been listening to one of the Qantas radio channels and it's called Talking Business, it's the craziest show I've ever heard, all you hear about is sustainability and online marketing! Some big questions include: what will happen to print media? How do you use social media properly and successfully? How energy efficiency consulting can generate $400 million turnover (CoolEnergy)? How do you measure your website traffic, where they're from, why they're there, hotspots? 

We need to nail "what do you do?" have an interesting answer so that people want to know more about it. Social conscience vs business mindedness. Using capital, markets and infrastructure already in place. Scaleable activity, anti poverty and for profit. Can help poor people with energy efficiency, create credits and sell to energy companies already trading with credits. You sell the savings, e.g. UN credits. First two years 400 million dollars. 40 million homes in Mexico, physically exchange efficient light bulbs, saves Mexican government 300 million per year, and the Mexican home saving 250 million per year. 

1131 hours

Fuck yeah Megamind on in-flight entertainment!

1243 hrs

Eww what the fuck? Somebody just farted and it really smells. Choking even when breathing through my mouth.

1307

Megamind "fist pump!" so good!

1346

Tomorrow when the war began. Pommies posing as Aussies. And the Asian dude gets the main girl? What's the world coming to haha.

1207

Why did the time go backwards? 

I've decided to switch over to the new timeframe. Freaking tired but can't sleep. Lol.

Just finished watching Tomorrow When The War Began, and vie got to say it's really quite good! Anyways Talking Business is on loop and it's got me thinking. I dont know if the show is biased for some reason, but it seems to talk about energy efficiency and social media/ online marketing. It took me a while but I think I understand why. Business, well to me, is about maximizing profit, increasing that margin. It doesn't matter if you manufacture toilet paper, if you increase the quantity enough and you have 500% profit then you're still going to be filthy rich.

Now we have a problem... How can you start a business without money, without capital, I couldn't afford a toilet paper factory, no bank would ever lend me the amount to start, and I don't want that kind of debt on my hands anyway.

But the good thing is... Profit can be made at any point in the consumption cycle. I mean where do we put the start at? I'm gonna say the greatest profit margin is when you take raw materials and make it into something useful. I guess the next stage would be supply, then retail, then throwing and/or no longer using the product/service.

Then if I wanted to kill two birds with one stone, it seems as though, consulting would be the way to go. Consulting can happen with zero capital, but if you have no contacts then you have no credibility. So you need contacts first. 

A second problems (and greater one) would be quality of service. Consulting takes the second bird by being early in the consumption process. It feeds on existing infrastructure, and you can cut the middle man out at several stages, including manufacture/supply/retail. I reckon consulting has great margins, since it practically turns a raw material (knowledge) into something useful (money). Don't you? So really all you need a resource which is valuable in the first place. Sweet I need to study, learn. That, and contacts.

Time. That's the third. Time, contacts, knowledge.

So what kind of consulting? After all a prerequisite to any business is a good or a service which is wanted. Which brings me back to what I was talking about at the beginning. Every business is out there to make money and every business wants to try maximize profit. If you can save them money, you can increase their margin. And if it's in large enough quantities you make them a whole lot of money, meanwhile you trade your knowledge for money.

I think social media and energy efficiency could easily be incorporated into this paradigm... Both are relatively new, both are edgy and in line with technologies of today, both can save money (large amounts) and even be more effective than existing methods.

Ok sleep time eyes fucking tired.

1639

Watching Wall Street Never Sleeps. Interesting, but hard to follow since I know very little about stocks. Shia is on target as usual, I'm really quite impressed with his work.

Nearly at Shanghai, it's kinda hard to believe it's nearly 8pm in Sydney... It's getting dark outside, not outside my plane, but outside my home. And I can't help but feel a sense of longing for the place I go home.

1759

Just landed. Oh shit. Just realized everyone around me is dressed up in parkers/snow jackets. And I really hope I did unlock my phone from Optus euhhhh.

1957

Sim card buying failed. I think my phone is locked man I'm stupid. Bout to get my luggage checked.

2109

On board China Eastern Airways, getting ready for take-off to Xian. Feeling hungry man! Mmm what to do what to do! I should take out money at some point. But where... All good I still got 600 RMB bout 100AUD.

Anyways I was bored today on the plane. But the next post won't be anywhere near as long