Country to Country

I have been off-line the last few days while in China. Apparently the government blocks all blogs - so there you go.

Traveled from Shanghai to Pune (via Mumbai) today -3950 miles took 18 hours. We were delayed 2 1/2 hours out of Shanghai and barely made the flight to Pune.

Needless to say I am not in Iowa.

Prior to leaving on Saturday we went sight-seeing with Bob Shi who is the Director of Operations for PepsiCo China (Frito and Quaker products)

Arrived in Pune which is located ~75 miles from Mumbai, India is very different. I caught a photo of a local family riding down the road in a little car which is very popular here:

Need to go to a meeting now with the country Agronomy manager - more to come

AK the tourist

So Saturday was the tour day for me to see where we used to call home. Richard made a fine breakfast and then we off to Whitfords and then Joondalup shopping centers - a lot has changed in WA since we left 11 years and 3 months ago!

www.cityofperth.wa.gov.au/

After shopping, I went to Diko and Angela's for a nice lunch and a visit. Diko was my manager here in Australia and has recently retired - he is now an artist along with Angela - I will have to post a painting or two later.

I then went back to the Polanski's for another wonderful Marlies dinner and stubbie or two. Richard and I sat on the balcany and watched the sun go down.

A bit of a pickle as far as travel. I discovered this morning (Sunday morning) that my flight from Perth to Singapore to Beijing was suppose to leave @ 1 am last night NOT tonight. I quickly got on the phone and changed up the flights - it actually has worked out better so far.

I am sitting in Singapore right now (10:20 pm) waiting for my 1 am flight to China. It is now game on - (out of my comfort zone). It should be interesting from here on out.

Stay tuned.

Oats to you.

AK

Oats for the WORLD

I have been working with the Perth team on capacity opportunities. Quaker Oats Australia PTY LTD supplies oat based products to several Asian countries including, India, China, Phillipines, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand and Indonesia.



It was great to catch up with the team after 11 years and 3 months. What a great crew to work with.

I am off to Ocean Reef to stay with the Polanski's.

More to come.

G'day from WA (Western Australia)

After 36 Hours of travel I finially arrived in Perth, Western Australia. My flight from Chicago to Hong Kong was 15 hours aboard United Airlines. I adopted the no-sleep strategy to get tuned into the new time zone (GMT +8 = 13 hours ahead of Chicago), but did get ~4 hours shut-eye. I then had 6 hour lay-over in the HK airport which was very modern and clean, but man was I tapped. I then climbed aboard a Quantas plane for a 7.5 hour flight to Perth 12 am to 7:30 am. I went to sleep for 5.5 hours.


I went to work at the Quaker Site @ 8 am and we stayed until 4:30. I went out to Ocean Reef for the evening and stayed with the Polanski's - great food and conversation.
Below is a photo of the Australia sunrise from 24,000 feet - we were over Port Hedland in Northern WA

More to come

G'day

AK

To the UK

June 1, 2008

Off to the home of golf (and oats) to see our friend in Scotland.
Scots Porridge Oats in Cupar, County Fife.

More to come

Oats are Oats - People are People

Not to get too philosophical today, but as I am ending my trip, I have found that things are pretty much the same around the world - oats are pretty much the same once you give and take a few traits and people are too. In this adventure I have found that people for the most part want to do what is right and they also want to better themselves via the work that they do.

There are 3 exceptions to my previous thought: bathrooms(toilets), bridges and personal hygine - I will let you think about those.

So, the team loaded up today and went back to INIA (Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias or Institute of Agricultural Research) http://www.inia.cl/uri/

We started a day off with a presentation by the local oat breeder and then headed out to the plots for a review of the Quaker International Oat Nursery that the breeding team sends to several locations around the world. We stopped for a PepsiCo Team photo:

Alan Koechner - Oat Miller (Stilwell, Kansas), Jamie Sousa, Oat and Corn Procurement (Porto Alegre, Brazi), Hugo de Alba, Potato Agronomist (Teluco, Mexico), Tim Ramsey, Procurement, (Chicago), Darren Wutzke, Procurement (Chicago), Nelson Campos, Agronomist (Santiago, Chile), Bruce Roskens, Agronomist (Chicago)

After an hour or two - enty, we headed off to another set of plots located in an actual field -

After this meeting we headed off towards the El Globo Milling Operation in Collipulli which is 60 miles (100 km) from Temuco.http://www.molineraelglobo.cl/ but we did stop for a 2 hour lunch - At El Globo, we heard about an agro program and then we had a tour of the mill. We went to the roof top to look at the volcanic mountains which are about 60 miles away - there are 4 active ones. If you look closely at the photo, there is one on each shoulder. I look pretty good in a hair net, don't I?

After that we headed back to the hotel for a pizza party and discussion among the group.

So this might be my last entry as we are heading out tomorrow. Temuco to Santiago, Santiago to Mexico City and then to Chicago. I land at O'hare around 1:20 am.

It has been fun, but there is no place like home.

Stay Tuned for the next session of : As the Oats Turn.

Oats - 40 Different Ways

So today was another travel day. We left the hotel in BA @ 5 am and went to the airport for a flight to Santiago. An interesting twist was that we had to pay an exit fee to leave the country - US $18 to be exact. I am starting to get the feeling that Americans may not be the favorite citizens of the world.

So, it took us 6 hours to get to Temuco, Chile. We are here to visit a local research station that is a Federal and State backed operation called INIA - I will have to get the acronym words for you tomorrow.

Little did we know that the Quaker America team were to be the honored guests at a local field day where a new variety of oats were introduced - SuperNova. This is a variety that came from the Quaker International Oat Nursery in New Zealand and was imported to Chile five years ago and is now the next best thing to sliced bread apparently - only they waited to hold the press conference until a bunch of farmers, local media and Quaker was there to unveil it.

The 4 US Quaker guys were ushered to the FRONT row where the video was rolling and the camera flashes were popping. Apprently, by virtue of our attendence, we were showing our support for this initiative - marketing at it's best.

Temuco is also home to a Supplier called El Globo mills. We will be heading there for meetings on Wednesday and I will be checking out their operation.

This area of the world is also home to a bunch of run down shacks and a not so hot economy. I have a few depressing photo's of housing and kids, but will not post them - God bless the American economy.

However, in terms of natural beauty, Temuco is one of those areas of astounding serenity. I looked over my shoulder and saw this volcanic mountain top peeking through the clouds - what a site!

Attached is a couple of links so you can get a feel for where I am and what they have to offer.

http://travel.yahoo.com/p-map-482524-map_of_temuco-i

http://www.interpatagonia.com/temuco/index_i.html

OK - so we did not go out tonight as the research station held a reception with about 6 courses of food- some very interesting local items (raw fish with spices and other things as well- yummmmm e.) so we decided to stay in.

I will be back for more tomorrow - ready to be back in the USA.

Signing off: As the oats turn

AK