AW Artisan Wholesale Giftware

Greetings from Yiwu, China Hope you are doing well! Last week I was telling you about the Muggy weather and Mooncakes here in China. If you missed it you can catch up here . We are still eating the mooncakes. And still in Yiwu city. The weather has strangely cooled dramatically.. 15c drop in a day. We have been working crazy here, running around working down our wish list but also happening on some new products that you are absolutely going to swoon over. Tomas and Coco are an ace team.. making lots happen. I'm just the spreadsheet guy :/ Yesterday Coco loaded two containers in one day.. working late into the night. So Tomas and I were able to focus on our orders and get organised. On the same day in India.. Mr Chatterjee loaded a container and Ringo in Bali also.. his team always sends me a picture when they finish.. Looking cool and our head of security.. Pupim the dog. China drama - the end of the world as we know it. Coco told me that the dramatic change in temp...

Greetings from a humid Yiwu, China Yes I made it to China, and I can tell you it is unnaturally hot here.. The streets are oven hot with a humid hair-dryer-breeze. Evenings are sticky and tropical. From Bali I took the daily China Southern flight, which leaves every day at 30 minutes past midnight and arrives in Guangzhou five hours later. A big storm further up the coast was blasting Shanghai and I think we were feeling the effects, we had bouncy turbulence for almost all the flight. In Guangzhou I cleared passport control and made my way to the domestic terminal with a flight at 11am to Yiwu. We landed in Yiwu on time and my luggage arrived quickly, within minutes I find Coco waiting for me at arrivals. All seemed pretty smooth and it is amazing to be back in China. Last week I was telling you about foreigners behaving badly in Bali.. if you missed it you can catch up here .   I arrived just in time for the Mid autumn festival.. or as I call it Mooncake day.. all our supplie...

Greetings from Indonesia I hope you guys are doing well! Shortly I will be moving from here. Which is both exciting and sad .. but the circle of life at AW must continue.. standby for fresh adventures. The thing about all Indonesia (in my experience anyway) is the stress free nature of the people. The calm, gentle, no drama approach to life and other people.   Maybe because of the many diverse peoples on many different islands.. that this relatively new nation (slogan: Strength in diversity) had to learn how to get along. to accept others as they are. I'm going to miss this .. Last week I was telling you about the "No Drama Keep Smile" jolly bodybuilding politician of Bali.   And I also explained a bit about the complex process of loading a container in the AW warehouse.. if you missed it you can catch up here . Our Digital marketing team is the personification of Indonesian friendliness in diversity.. AW-Advantage.com.. (BTW these guys can help you grow your on...

  Greetings from Frangipani Warehouse Bali.  Hope things are good with you guys, and that September is off to a good start.. Last week I was telling you about Teak tails in Java, and the new Baby in the Baby Home we support. If you missed it you can catch up here .. Here in the AW warehouse we got off to a good start with the first container of the month loaded and on the way from Bali to Slovakia. The Container arrives at 8am and is finally loaded by 6.30pm - very busy day, last minute stock arriving and being packed - every inch of space must be used. If anything has empty space inside like furniture then stuff is packed inside there.. It's hard work. Our two accountant girls check every single box item, papers have to be provided for different items like wooden stuff.. Packing list has to be made. Everything is labelled and barcoded. Export papers prepared..  it's a lot of work, believe me. Well done team.. awesome job!  There is a local local election in Bali soo...

 Greetings from AW Frangipani warehouse, Bali Yes I'm back from Java, where last week I was telling you about the most friendly people and the village where everyone collaborates together to make beautiful guitars.. If you missed it you can catch up here . There seems to be a bit of a crisis inside Indonesia with airlines. Prices of tickets have rocketed and every flight seems to be full. I used to even turn up at the airport and get whatever flight was next to leave, now you have to plan well ahead.   I need to get back to Bali from Solo and discovered that no seats were available for the next four days.. so I ended up flying to Batik airways to Jakarta, business class (crazy for a one hour flight - but I enjoyed it), strolled through the rustic but friendly domestic airport to departures, sat in an ancient but comfy business lounge at the one gate terminal just for Batik. Nobody checked my ticket..   As I came out of the lounge I was directed to take the business cl...

Greetings from somewhere in central Java Collaboration. That's a good, profound and important word. I'll explain below something I learned this week. Last week I was telling you about being Independent in Indonesia, if you missed it you can catch up here . So earlier this week Bondhan and I caught the morning Lion Air flight from Denpasar, Bali down to Yogyakarta in central Java, the main island of Indonesia. Lion air has a reputation of being bad, but our flight was up there as the most perfect and beautiful ever. The seats are the tightest gap you can imagine, but our air hostess spots my cramped long legs and moves me and Bondhan to the emergency exit row with views just before the wing.   Taking off and banking around over beautiful surf, overflying our beach office then flying west over all Bali and seeing the straits between Bali and Java. Spectacular views of the Ijen mountain with a vivid acid blue lake near it's peak but also live lava flow burning down a fla...

  Greetings from a traffic jam in Bali I'm on the way to work in the AW-Advantage office (we call it the beach office). It's 10 to 15 minutes of normal traffic, but these days it can take an hour, the traffic in Bali has reached crisis proportions. So I open my laptop in the back of my Grab taxi and get some work done, including writing to you. Last week I was telling you about Angels & Babies and how we are supporting a young charity here that is saving the lives of babies and helping single moms in dire-straits..   if you missed you can catch up here . The streets are lined with Red & White flags, because tomorrow is Independence Day in Indonesia, a big thing around here . I just arrived at the beach office. The team are enthusiastically dressed up as historical or mythical figures of Indonesia culture and then do cosplay acts. All before work.. so I have to be here early because I'm the appointed judge, it's like an episode of AW got Talent . So ...