Yesterday I had managed to convince my dad to consider Japanese products so we went to visit the big company that would hardly even acknowledge me when I was there alone. But now we pretended that Dad, although he was the CEO, was very bad at English so I did all the talking :) We were met by a woman who politely listened to me and then when she thought it seemed interesting she brought two more representatives. By the end of our talks where I provided all the information about our company and Dad only asked questions in Swedish and I translated, we were given a big bag of samples to try along with a promise to keep in touch and find out more about cross-continent trading and requirements. The company is a really big conglomerate and has an office in many Southeast asian countries, so none of the representatives we talked with were Japanese so no Japanese for me :/ Afterwards we also went to take a look at the smaller company I talked with yesterday. There was another girl there now and we spoke English, although she was Japanese. My dad was allowed to try their nori snacks and their matcha sweets, and while he didn't really enjoy the nori ones (which I liked) he really liked the matcha ones (which I don't). By the end we got a few samples from that company as well. My dad seems really keen on the idea. In the beginning of the fair, last week, I had pitched the idea for him to go and look at the American companies, but he didn't seem that interested in them when he returned. It seems to be the total opposite with the Japanese companies, and that makes me very happy! :)
The fair itself was really slow today, not many visitors until just after lunch, about 2pm, when they let the ordinary people in and they grabbed just about every piece of confectionary that was not nailed down. I understand why they're called "the locusts" xD Those of us working in the Swedish area did manage to grab some things from each other before the locusts took everything, so now I have a nice bag filled with sweets :3 Now I don't have to buy anything for the train ride home on Friday xD
Although the official ending time was 6pm, we called it quits at 3.30pm. The halls were mostly empty except for workers and we saw no reason to hang around any longer. So we said goodbye to our friends (they were also leaving) and went to the car.
After about 3 hours on the autobahn we arrived at a small place called Walsrode. I haven't seen much since it's dark outside, but it seems to be in the middle of the woods. There is a hotel here that we're staying at for tonight. My dad stayed here when going home from Cologne last year. They hardly speak any English here, though, which makes it all very interesting. Faster wi-fi here, though! :D
Tomorrow afternoon we'll be back in Sweden.
The beginning of "the locusts"
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