Grand Hyatt Beijing

Greetings from Beijing! It is still difficult for me to believe that I am in China. Let me start from the beginning - I'll warn you that this will probably be quite lengthy, but since you all know me, you won't be surprised at that. The first photo you will see is where my trip officially started - San Francisco. I was attending a conference on Green Events at the Palace Hotel. It was a very good conference and was encouraging to see so many people interested in becoming better stewards of th...

Well, I met my contact and picked up the phones on the way, and have everything I need in theory. Saying good-bye to Chris in Chicago felt so strange. He kept reminding me that I was only going to be gone for about 48 hours (including 26 hours on planes), so all I should need was the phones, my passport, a way to pay for food and a way to contact home. I had all those things, but going off the continent for the first time still seemed so bizarre. Although upon arrival my generous friend ensur...

After a breakfast meeting to hand off the phones, I go off to explore the city. The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square are only a short subway ride away from the Wanfujing station, so I cram in with the morning commuters to people watch on my way there. I wanted to go to the Chinese National Museum, which is also right there, but it is closed for extensive remodeling and will not reopen until 2010. There is a park near the museum though, and that is where I stopped to record some thoughts a...

This morning I got a super early start. Well, every day. I was sleeping from about 8PM to 4AM each day, as I never adjusted to the time change. Had a great call with Chris (hooray for Skype and webcams!) and got up to go exploring a little more before I have to rush off to the airport. Breakfast buffet in the hotel, followed by a subway trip to the silk market near the Yonganli station. Oh, there are tvs in the subway tunnels showing ads as the trains pass, and this morning the train was sup...

I took a bus tour, booked through the hotel, with eight other English-speaking people, plus our Chinese guide "Mike." There were three Canadians, three Australians, and a couple from the UK, and me. We traveled about an hour outside Beijing to Huai Zou to visit a jade factory and see the Ming Dynasty tombs. There wasn't too much to see on the ride, and Mike gave us a history lesson about the Ming dynasty that was very interesting. He talked also about taxes in China, whether people liked Mao ...

Grand Hyatt ----- The hotel is very luxurious and in a great part of town. The one thing I noticed immediately is how modern the city looks. You can tell that everything had been built up in the past 5-10 years. The negative part is you do not get a feel for how the ordinary people live. The People ----- So far the one thing that stands out is the outlook of the people. The Chinese young people that I have thus far encountered seem very confident & optimistic. Unlike the people in Japan (...

I am SICK and IT SUCKS - lol yea well I didn't go to the WALL but I've been there 2 years ago and everyone said that it was really crowded anyway -yea going to the wall on a national holiday probably isn't the best idea - anyway I'm in bed taking medications, eating honey and lemon - I knew I would get sick - probably because of my low alcohol tolerance - and this destroys your immune system :( Anyway, I remember reading in the Guiness book of records - when I was like 8 :) that the whole wal...

this is the EEEEENNNNDDDD OMG it all happened soooo fast, seems like three days, but full of experience, hanging out, laughing, teasing Justin. It's great - I made some new friends - got to know people from Uni in a different light ... argh well, I felt much better after a day of recovery - I was back on track - and went to the "hutongs" tour with riksaws - what a combination - :) I cycled around hutongs by myself 2 yrs ago and that WAS GREAT! :) anyway, the tour was nothing special - I haven...