Yes, those were the places I went to for business over the past three weeks. Pictured is the view from the hotel room we had at the Emirates Hotel in Dubai. This lake connects to the ocean and was all man made! These buildings and water were virtually nonexistent three years ago, the construction is astounding here!
We have been very busy implementing a new training program for our global distributors where we train people how to sell. I was able to go to these places to work with the people and help their sales staff. Surprisingly we were able to significantly improve every persons sales skills and I was surprised at how much I have learned over the past year or so working with the company.
When on the road, you see everything and its opposite! The first stop was in Saudi Arabia where there are no females and no alcohol...so it is pretty rough for a person with the last name of Davies! haha It was blistering hot outside, I would open the door and it felt like someone was following me around with a heat lamp! I am pretty positive if I stayed outside for more than 45minutes, I would literally burn! Saudi is one of the most amazing places in the world, I have never been in a place where the food is so delicious, the fruits, breads and other sauces are to die for! Along with that, I had to get used to the different work hours as well, most places in the world work closely to the 8-5pm work schedule, well in Saudi they work from 8-11ish. Then nap and pray til about 4pm. 5pm to 10pm they finish the work day and eat around 11pm. It took a lot of getting used to since I am not a big napper!
Oslo Norway was also incredible since it was very cold there and also the people are the most gentle and nice there. I have never seen such blue sky before, maybe since Asia is so polluted I forgot what blue sky looks like! When people graduate from 12 years of school, they wear baggy red pants and carry around these personalized cards with a funny picture of themselves and a funny quote or something on it. These cards are collected by the children and its a national tradition. Well I thought I could do this also, and I collected a lot of cards, but also had a lot of strange looks along the way! Along with that, they rent these huge double decker buses, spray paint graffiti on them, put stadium loud speakers on the roof and on the inside put techno music, dance lights, fog machines and other crazy things like a dance floor and a bar! While I was there I decided to take part on one of these buses and WOW was that an experience! Oslo is very interesting.
After that trip I was in South Africa in Johannesburg where I ate baby kangaroo and also was able to work with the people there. Safety is an issue there so we had to be careful to not leave the safety of our guests or the hotel premises. They actually had these things called xenophobia where foreigners were being killed and the government and military are going in to control the people! I did not witness anything first hand, but robbery and theft are pretty common, it makes Asia seem pretty safe where a five year old boy can go by himself on the MTR train!
There are so many more stories to share, but I felt guilty since I have not been able to update my blog and I had three weeks of new and interesting environments to work in. Next week I head to Kuala Lumpur!