One Girl, Two Coasts: Day Ten: An Insider Tour of GAC Motors

Day Ten

Well, we were off to Guangzhou today! Shunde, the town in which we were living, was around an hour from the actual city of Guangzhou. Today, we'd be visiting Boeing's dad's company: GAC Engineering! My dad's best friend was the Vice President of the company, which is a Chinese auto company. Pretty cool stuff! He had invited us to come check it out, so he could show us around. Jason is especially interested in cars and engineering, and my dad's friend offered to give him an internship once he's in college! If only it were that easy for the rest of us...geez.

We ate a quick breakfast of bread, buns, and other pastries that my aunt and I had bought that morning after taking a drive on her motorcycle. After our meal, we promptly were off!

My uncle was driving me, Jason, my dad, and my cousin to Guangzhou today...and although I love him to death, it ended up being a nightmare. We got lost because he didn't listen to the GPS and took wrong turns, which was apparently broken or on low-battery, and he wasn't at all familiar with the way. It should've taken us half an hour to get to the company headquarters, according to my dad's friend, but after THREE FLIPPING HOURS of driving, we still weren't anywhere close to our destination. I was furious and annoyed that so much time had been wasted. After all, they'd been SO confident back at the house in terms of how to get there! We were absolutely fuming in the back, as it was a cramped seating situation and my dad and uncle were proving themselves to be incapable in the front seats. My dad ended up bothering his friend and making him come out to get us. We were stranded near a toll station, and waited for at least 20 minutes there in agony. Oh, it was an awful experience.

After my dad's friend's company car pulled up, we followed him to a restaurant for LUNCH since it was already past noon... we went to this restaurant on the water that had each table in a little wooden cabin type room. It was a feast, as my dad's friend ordered tons of dishes, which we unfortunately couldn't all finish.

Once we were all set with lunch, Jason and I got in his GAC car and we drove off to his company. At the gate, he got us all passes, and showed us the lay of the land in detail. I'm not a huge lover engineering or cars, but this stuff was so interesting to me all the same...we saw the amount of testing they did on every facet of their cars, from sound (with quiet chambers and sound-maximizing chambers), temperature (with heating and cooling chambers), weather conditions (a car was placed under constantly running water jets), safety, and so much more.

The building was enormous, and had these tall long hallways that you could easily drive two lanes of traffic through! The testing was so cool...they had machines constantly opening and closing the doors and trunk to test durability, an area to make dummies for the test drives, a massive racetrack in the back, etc. We walked through offices where workers were testing different batteries, charging the batteries, and working on the engine components. We walked through hangar-sized warehouses where car doors were being installed into vehicles, or engines were being installed. I've never been inside an actual factory or experimentation area like this before, and it was seriously the coolest thing ever! The process of building cars seems much more interesting to me now.

We took a spin around the massive office that my dad's friend had, checked out the priceless view there, and then said our goodbyes. It didn't take us as long to get back (thank The Lord), and we enjoyed a homemade dinner once home. After taking more strolls around the city, we called it a day. G'night!! Only a few days left in Guangzhou!