Beijing

After a week of productive meetings in China, another Chinese colleague and I headed to Beijing Friday afternoon.  We stayed at a hotel overlooking the site of the 2006 summer Olympics.  Very cool place to stay for sure.  The "bird's nest" (Olympic stadium) was closed for touring but the water cube was open.  Pretty cool that it's open to the public not just for touring but to swim!  The main pool is 9x50m lanes and people just like me were out there doing their laps.  There was also a 6x50m warm up pool open for lap swimming.  Very cool.

The view from my hotel.  

Pretty sure the smog was pollution.  I had a slight burn in my eyes and the back of my throat in Beijing and in Shanghai.

The bird's nest

The water cube

normal people doing laps

After walking around the Olympic park for a bit, we took a cab to Tiananmen Square .
We couldn't walk on the square because Congress was in session and it was roped off.

Tiananmen Square

Saturday morning, we took a cab to the Great Wall.  It was cold, 20F with 30 mph winds, but that kept the crowds down.

The Great Wall is 5,500 mile long!

Very steep sections

we bought stocking caps at a souvenir shop

Two shirts and two spring jackets, I was cold!

After the walk on the Great Wall, we headed to the airport where our flight left at 5 pm Saturday and after 13 hours of flying, landed in Chicago at 4 pm the same day.  Kind of Matrix like :-).

What a great trip!  Besides being productive for work, I was able to see two major cities in China.  Very cool.  I also used chop sticks for lunch and dinner all week and while not an expert by any means, I didn't starve :-).  I guess eating sushi with chop sticks a couple times a month actually turned in to something useful.

Shanghai

A week ago Saturday I went to China for business.  Our flight left Saturday morning at 6 am (ouch!) and we changed planes in Chicago then had a 14+ hour flight to Shanghai.  I was dreading the long flight but kind of looking forward to it in a weird way.  The thing is, I like to read, but rarely make time for it because it seems like there is always something better to do.  So 14 hours on a plane was kind of nice.  I read the first Hunger Games book and a third of the second one, and really enjoyed it.

I traveled with a colleague from work that was born in Shanghai so I had my own personal tour guide/translator!  I would have had trouble getting around and communicating with out her. Our hotel in Shanghai was right next to the TV Tower which was the tallest structure in China until 2007.  The second ball in the tower is a revolving restaurant overlooking The Bund.  The weather was overcast and dreary so my pictures don't do the area justice. The view from the TV Tower must be amazing when the weather is clear.

The TV Tower

Dreary day with low clouds made for bad pictures

Looking down at our hotel from the restaurant in the TV Tower

I was standing on a glass floor looking down about 500 feet

In the morning we took a tram under the river and walked around the Bund area.

Looking back across the river

Crappy day so it wasn't too crowded

Statute of an old mayor

After walking around The Bund, we went to Yu Garden and did some shopping.  We also ate at a famous bun restaurant.  Again, it was great having a colleague fluent in Chinese to show me around.  I'm not much of a shopper (hate it actually :-)), but had fun walking around seeing what goods were for sale.  One of the coolest things we did was sampled different Chinese teas at a little sampling table in one of the stores.  I bought some Jasmine tea and Oolong tea. I guess I need to start drinking tea now :-).

entrance to the shopping area

rainy day

can you spot the tired American?

Starbucks, KFC, Subway and McDonald's have a decent presence

restaurant we ate lunch in

my colleague at the tea table

Sunday evening we left for the city we had business meetings in.  Interesting that it's common not to have heat in Shanghai.  Many apartment building had lots of windows open even though it was 40 degrees and raining.  The company we did business with didn't have heat either.  The conference room we met in had one small space heater.  When I pulled out some wool socks during the meeting, they went and got more heaters :-).  I was freezing until they did that.

One the way back, we flew out through Beijing.  I'll save those pics for another post.