This time in Beijing was a lot harder, but a lot more fun. I am not sure if it is because my Chinese is worse than before or because I was there longer and did more.
Starting with the fun. I continue to travel a lot and see very little. This trip I decided to get in a day early and see some of Beijing. It's a hard decision to add an extra day away from home, but one of my long time friends at the company, Catherine, was going to be in China too so we convinced each other.
I don't know when I have ever packed so much into a Sunday. After 17 hours in transit to Beijing - we did the Great Wall, Tian'amen Square, The Forbidden City and the Olympic Village - and none of those places are close to each other.
The hotel tried to convince us not to go to the Wall - saying the weather wasn't good. Well, we only had one day so it was good enough.
Did you know when you barter in China you are supposed to go down to 15-20% of the starting price? Yeah, me neither...I think we did alright. The morning started with the Great Wall. We had to negotiate with a taxi driver to take us there (2 hours), wait for us and bring us back - we were speaking English, he Chinese, the bell boy "translating" (you never really know do you?). I think we made the right choice, not only did we get a fair price ($650 RMB), but he shaved 30 minutes off the Lonely Planet estimated time, while providing a thrilling experience.
The Wall was spectacular. We chose to go to Badaling. Badaling is further from the city, but worth it. After being harassed by hawkers (they convinced Catherine to buy a hat and gloves with the promise that it would be very cold up there),
we took a cable car up to a section of the Wall. The sm/fog made the Wall look like it was suspended in the clouds. The climb is challenging and invigorating. One of the more surprising things was the lack of white people. It was crowded, and everyone was Asian. When we had seen enough, we took the cable car back down. Within a couple seconds of arriving in the car park, our taxi driver had spotted us (super impressive) and we were on our way back to Beijing and on to the Forbidden City/Tian a'men Square.
Upon arriving in Tian'amen Square (later we found out that what we thought was the square wasn't actually the square, it was in fact the one across the street!), we realised that everyone thought Catherine was Chinese (she is Korean). Throughout the whole trip people were approaching her and speaking Chinese. Then they were taken a back when I told them (in my very broken Chinese) that she didn't speak Chinese, followed by confusion that she wasn't actually Chinese. I am not saying it wouldn't have been helpful if she was.
We met up with the rest of the team for some Peking Duck at one of the most famous restaurants in Beijing. Fortunately, we had an actual Chinese colleague with us so it was ensured that we would actually get the duck.
Time to get to work...
We woke up Wednesday to about 4 inches of snow. Snow makes it impossible to get around!!Realising that my feet were still wet, my throat was getting sore, I wasn't going to get to Shanghai until midnight and I was meeting with one of the biggest, most important companies in the world the next morning (GE), I called the hotel and arranged a car to pick me up. Best decision ever!
