The final shipment just arrived this afternoon. Rocky and Coco did a great job getting everything organized. They are our go-betweens when we arrive in China. They just got married in June. You can’t imagine how ornate and beautiful weddings are here in Guangzhou. They sent us hundreds of photos of the wedding and all of the preparation. Will post some when things settle down.

Steve and Janet

Pearlstrings

Taking a break from buying

Janet and I recently returned from a buying trip in Guangzhou, China. We ordered a lot of new necklaces, bracelets and earrings. A long journey to get there, but definitely worth the effort.

We live south of Denver, so the journey was Denver-San Francisco-Tokyo-Guangzhou. About 26 hours.

We were ably assisted by Rocky and Coco, our friends from Guangzhou. Okay, their real names are Zan and Qiuxia, but our Chinese is pretty minimal, and they thought those names would be much easier for visitors like us. They help us navigate the pearl and jewelry markets and negotiate the best prices so we can pass them along to you. I’ve included a couple of photos of our journeys through town. What a great trip. The products will be on the website in a few days at www.pearlstrings.com!

Janet, Coco and Wen Bao

My wife Janet and I are both airline pilots. As you all might know, the airline business generally alternates between one crisis or another. Whether it is 9/11, SARS, H1N1, fuel prices, etc., it always seems as if just as soon as they get their feet on the ground (pun intended) onother crisis comes along that threatans the survival of the entire industry.

Anyway, with that in mind we decided that having all of our eggs in one basket was not the best idea. We decided to start an online pearl business. Janet flies a lot of trips to China, and has developed a relationship with a number of  pearl jewelry vendors over the years. She also has a good eye for design, and decided that the combination would be ideal for starting this business. We call ourselves Pearlstrings, and our website is www. pearlstrings.com.

My name is Steve, and while I am a really bad jewelry designer, I have a decent grasp of website design and development, so we decided that this would be a great idea. We shall see!

All of the pearls are authentic freshwater pearls, and the prices are about 1/3 to 1/4 of what you would pay in a typical retail jewelry store at your local mall. Janet designs the pieces herself, and I think they really look great.

As you might imagine, this is also my first foray into blogging. I have a web developer named Ryan that has been coaching me throughout this process, and he is the one that suggested that I write this blog. Easy for him, I am the one one that has to think of something interesting to say.

Our website is divided into different jewelry items, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, lanyards, rings. pendants, purses and bridal.

Please check us out, and let me know what you think of the jewelry, and also the pricing.

Steve