Quick Siteseeing update

Well, it was a brutal day for siteseeing here in Beijing - tremendous downpours, thunder and lightning, and quite cold. Nonetheless, here are a couple of shots and some good advice. Tomorrow is the Great Wall! Time for bed...

Lunch with Hilton

On Thursday, Laura and I followed separate paths. I worked from my hotel room and went to lunch with my colleague Hilton Zhao while Laura and Annabel visited the Temple of Heaven, Tian'anmen Square, and the Forbidden City.


While I don't have Laura's pictures loaded onto my laptop yet, she said it was an amazing day. The Temple of Heaven was beautiful - here's the Wikipedia link:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altar_of_Heaven


Thursday was May Day - a National holiday to celebrate Workers and their contribution to the prosperity of the country. As such, apparently Tian'anmen Square - the largest urban square in the world - was absolutely jam-packed with people, many of them in line to visit Mao's tomb. It is said that Tian'anmen Squ. can hold up to a million people, and Laura said it felt like there was easily 500,000 people there with them yesterday. The Forbidden City was also crowded, but not quite as crazy.


Meanwhile, I had the fortune to meet Hilton Zhou, a colleague of mine based in our Beijing office. Despite the holiday, he was kind enough to come to our hotel and take me out to lunch at a beautiful restaurant built around several inner courtyards, with beautiful woodwork, painting, trellises and plants. In one room was a waterfall, coy pond, and river that flowed underneath the transparent tiling under your feet. A very cool effect, though it unfortunately did not lend itself to an interesting photograph.












I just saw Laura and Annabel off with their driver for the day to go visit the Great Wall, and I will head into our office in a little while. I will have my chance to sight-see over the weekend while they head down to Hong Kong Disneyland. On Monday I'll fly down to Hong Kong and meet up with them for a day before we take the train up to Guangzhou and picking up the new baby!

First Afternoon in Beijing

After a relatively easy 13-hour flight from Newark, we have arrived in Beijing and settled into the hotel. The picture above is the gate in from of our hotel, which is just off the Wangfujing shopping street, just to the East of Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City.


We basically flew over the North Pole to get here and approached Beijing from the Northwest, over Mongolia, hooked around south of Beijing and then North to the airport. Mongolia and the land north-west of Beijing was dry, brown desert, with breaks of sharp hills / mountains.



Once we landed, however, there were more trees and greenery around the airport than expected. Traffic was slow getting into the city but we eventually arrived, checked in, showered, and changed into more comfortable clothes - as it was around 80F and sunny.


We went out into the streets for a bit of a walk and some dinner, though our bodies felt it was morning. Beijing is exactly 12 hours ahead of the East Coast. We immediately met a couple of Beijing University students who invited us to their student exhibition up around the corner from the hotel. Here are the two artists we met with their artwork:





They then showed us to a restaurant where we had some dinner. The young waitstaff were very interested in Annabel and came over to play with her. In general, people here are very interested in children and will come right up to play with them in a way that most Westerners would find disconcerting in its forwardness. However, it's a very interesting cultural difference relating to privacy and personal space.


After dinner we wandered around the Wangfujing shopping district, went into the Beijing Olympics store where Annabel got a mascot doll, and went down a very crowded vendor / foodstall alley.





After that, it was time to go to bed and try to get onto the right schedule. More tonight, as right now Laura and Annabel are off to the Temple of Heaven, Ti'ananmen Sq. and the Forbidden City while I work from the hotel. We'll try to upload Laura's pictures tonight as well.

At the Airport in Newark

Greetings from Newark Airport! As you can see from the picture at left, everyone has arrived safely and we are sitting at the gate as I type this.

Laura is off wandering the shops here in the terminal; Annabel is engrossed with her new Nintendo DS, and I am posting.

I believe our plane is completely full, so space will be at a premium. They just made an announcement about getting our documents checked again at the gate podium, so I will be back to finish the post later.

That didn't take too long, but I find it a bit disconcerting to have people checking your paperwork all the time - as the people behind the counter ultimately has the power to prevent you from leaving - or entering - the country. It's a transaction that carries more tension that you might think, even when it goes smoothly. Nonetheless, I am always pleased when it is over.

Here are some pics of us in the terminal, and one of Laura and Annabel in from of the Gate, and you should see the "BEIJING" in lights behind them.

The first leg of the journey

I've made it as far as Newark, NJ tonight, after taking the train from Cape Elizabeth, ME, with a "self transfer" from North to South Station in Boston.

All was well at breakfast.

Then it was off to the train station where we met our friendly neighborhood Train Conductor.

After that it was into Boston with a view to the Charles River, then the Park Street T Stop, the train that took me to Newark, and then the lovely view from the hotel here at the airport. Tomorrow, Beijing!

Almost ready

Well, we're down to the last few hours before I have to hop onto a train to Boston's North Station. Then I'll "self-transfer" to Back Bay Station where I'll catch another train all the way to Newark airport. I stay there tomorrow night and then we fly out Tuesday around noontime.

Here is the first actual trip pic - some of the stuff I need to try to pack in my backpack for the plane, including food, medicines I don't want to lose on the way, books, electronics and cables, some toilettries, etc.

More to come tomorrow from the road!

Video Upload Test

This is to see if I can figure out how to record / capture webcam video and post it to the blog.