My luggage finally came! We’ll still be getting compensation since the bags weren’t here for 24 hours. I think we can push for extra since it was more than a day and a half, but we’ll see.
Tuesday the group had its first day of official business…of sorts. The morning entailed of two lectures from professors at the University of Renmin (sp?). The first was on the financial structure of China and the second was about the cultural influence on Chinese business. The financial lecture gave a good overview of the banking systems but had erroneous lies from the government (ex: China has low unemployment….riiiiight). The cultural lecture was somewhat interesting….the way the Chinese versus west approach interactions, etc. I called her out on their policy of having the government choose top business people instead of allowing the market to do so. She skirted the question as both professors did of all the questions.
For lunch we went to a ‘sitron’ type restaurant…sitron being one of the four types of Chinese food. If you ask me the four types are slimy, chewy, spicy, and noodly. Not all inclusive. We had a table that included a turn table that they called a lazy susan, and were given about 10 different dishes to pass around. They included white rice (of course), tofu, random vegetables x4, other stuff and fish soup…which only after I had tried the fish (and taken out the bones myself) that I discovered the head of the fish was included in the bowl, yum! I was not pleased with having the clean shrimp myself. Frank said we could just eat them as is and the shell would break down as we chewed but I would have none of that. Its been about 10 hours (2 teeth brushings, another meal, and 2 pieces of gum) since lunch and I can still taste some of the spices from the dishes. Yum.
After lunch we headed to the “Dragon Label” winery. They gave us a tour that emphasized their “high quality” and “100 year history” the tour guide repeated those two phrases probably about 25 times each. We tasted some cabernet sauvignon (gross) and chardonnay (yummy). Apparently the chardonnay had been bottled the day before. We learned their grape fields were about 80 km from the site we were at in Beijing. This was due to the ‘excellent soil’ and climate in the area. IE it is away from the nasty Beijing smog. Today’s smog wasn’t too bad, as it was windy so the pollution was blown away. (Watch out Cali!)
I lasted about 48 hours before succumbing to the need for Mc’Ds...thats like 6 straight meals of real Chinese food, so don’t judge. Apparently sweet and sour sauce is in the southeast, not so much in Beijing. I tried to get some last night and it was an epic fail, partly due to language barrier and probably because its just not available. The McDs fries were just like in the U.S. but my hamburger was inedible due to the excessive amount of pepper on it. Luckily I wasn’t that hungry due to the excessive amount of white rice I consume at other meals, and the delicious continental breakfast our hotel provides. I’m hoping the pepper incident was just a fluke, as I’m sure I’ll need another fix of real food in a few days. Apparently there’s a pizza hut nearby and that is going to be SO necessary real soon. We did find a supermarket, at which I bought chips ahoy. and Gatorade. Serious staples.
After ‘dinner’ we went to see ‘The Legend of Kungfu,’ which was highly recommended by our tour guide. He set us up with VIP tickets so we were sitting in the third row at the Red Theatre. The show was pretty cool, with lots of action. They did their Kungfu fighting, broke some things over their heads, and even had some sort of plot in the story. I sort of fell asleep at some point. But they hit some drums so that fixed that problem.
Now heading to bed, as we have another early morning of lectures tomorrow. Jon and I have the pot boiling water next to our beds as a make-shift humidifier. Our lungs are taking a bit of a beating between the pollution and cold. One of the guys has a sinus infection so he went to the pharmacy I found the other day and they just gave him antibiotics. He said you could live video conference with a doctor if needed so that was cool. I would like to see more of their healthcare system while I’m here.
Random thoughts from today…Beijing’s main streets are ENORMOUS…like 6 lanes each way within the city. Which I suppose isn’t so impressive compared to NYC but they are wider or something like that. Their parking laws seem nonexistent…people actually drive onto sidewalks in order to access spots. I’ll have to get a picture or else you won’t really understand it. People basically just park wherever they want….No one seems to pay attention to the police. I’ve seen police cars with lights on, but have yet to see anyone yield for them in an intersection or pull over on the street. Hmm…..Awkwardly enough what we thought was Tian’anmen square was actually the entrance to the forbidden city. Ignorant Americans, Whoops! We actually circled the square yesterday without realizing it. Now that we know what it is it is much more impressive. Apparently it’s the largest square in the world. China seems to think its got the best of everything. The winery claimed to have ‘the best wine’, the lecturers were very fist-pumping as well.
Allrighty that’s about all I’ve got.
tata!
-R-
These are couple of pictures from the Kungfu show and we drove by Tian’anmen square to see it all lit up. I don’t have anything from the day because I left my memory card (but not my camera) in the hotel room. Fail.
Tuesday the group had its first day of official business…of sorts. The morning entailed of two lectures from professors at the University of Renmin (sp?). The first was on the financial structure of China and the second was about the cultural influence on Chinese business. The financial lecture gave a good overview of the banking systems but had erroneous lies from the government (ex: China has low unemployment….riiiiight). The cultural lecture was somewhat interesting….the way the Chinese versus west approach interactions, etc. I called her out on their policy of having the government choose top business people instead of allowing the market to do so. She skirted the question as both professors did of all the questions.
For lunch we went to a ‘sitron’ type restaurant…sitron being one of the four types of Chinese food. If you ask me the four types are slimy, chewy, spicy, and noodly. Not all inclusive. We had a table that included a turn table that they called a lazy susan, and were given about 10 different dishes to pass around. They included white rice (of course), tofu, random vegetables x4, other stuff and fish soup…which only after I had tried the fish (and taken out the bones myself) that I discovered the head of the fish was included in the bowl, yum! I was not pleased with having the clean shrimp myself. Frank said we could just eat them as is and the shell would break down as we chewed but I would have none of that. Its been about 10 hours (2 teeth brushings, another meal, and 2 pieces of gum) since lunch and I can still taste some of the spices from the dishes. Yum.
After lunch we headed to the “Dragon Label” winery. They gave us a tour that emphasized their “high quality” and “100 year history” the tour guide repeated those two phrases probably about 25 times each. We tasted some cabernet sauvignon (gross) and chardonnay (yummy). Apparently the chardonnay had been bottled the day before. We learned their grape fields were about 80 km from the site we were at in Beijing. This was due to the ‘excellent soil’ and climate in the area. IE it is away from the nasty Beijing smog. Today’s smog wasn’t too bad, as it was windy so the pollution was blown away. (Watch out Cali!)
I lasted about 48 hours before succumbing to the need for Mc’Ds...thats like 6 straight meals of real Chinese food, so don’t judge. Apparently sweet and sour sauce is in the southeast, not so much in Beijing. I tried to get some last night and it was an epic fail, partly due to language barrier and probably because its just not available. The McDs fries were just like in the U.S. but my hamburger was inedible due to the excessive amount of pepper on it. Luckily I wasn’t that hungry due to the excessive amount of white rice I consume at other meals, and the delicious continental breakfast our hotel provides. I’m hoping the pepper incident was just a fluke, as I’m sure I’ll need another fix of real food in a few days. Apparently there’s a pizza hut nearby and that is going to be SO necessary real soon. We did find a supermarket, at which I bought chips ahoy. and Gatorade. Serious staples.
After ‘dinner’ we went to see ‘The Legend of Kungfu,’ which was highly recommended by our tour guide. He set us up with VIP tickets so we were sitting in the third row at the Red Theatre. The show was pretty cool, with lots of action. They did their Kungfu fighting, broke some things over their heads, and even had some sort of plot in the story. I sort of fell asleep at some point. But they hit some drums so that fixed that problem.
Now heading to bed, as we have another early morning of lectures tomorrow. Jon and I have the pot boiling water next to our beds as a make-shift humidifier. Our lungs are taking a bit of a beating between the pollution and cold. One of the guys has a sinus infection so he went to the pharmacy I found the other day and they just gave him antibiotics. He said you could live video conference with a doctor if needed so that was cool. I would like to see more of their healthcare system while I’m here.
Random thoughts from today…Beijing’s main streets are ENORMOUS…like 6 lanes each way within the city. Which I suppose isn’t so impressive compared to NYC but they are wider or something like that. Their parking laws seem nonexistent…people actually drive onto sidewalks in order to access spots. I’ll have to get a picture or else you won’t really understand it. People basically just park wherever they want….No one seems to pay attention to the police. I’ve seen police cars with lights on, but have yet to see anyone yield for them in an intersection or pull over on the street. Hmm…..Awkwardly enough what we thought was Tian’anmen square was actually the entrance to the forbidden city. Ignorant Americans, Whoops! We actually circled the square yesterday without realizing it. Now that we know what it is it is much more impressive. Apparently it’s the largest square in the world. China seems to think its got the best of everything. The winery claimed to have ‘the best wine’, the lecturers were very fist-pumping as well.
Allrighty that’s about all I’ve got.
tata!
-R-
These are couple of pictures from the Kungfu show and we drove by Tian’anmen square to see it all lit up. I don’t have anything from the day because I left my memory card (but not my camera) in the hotel room. Fail.
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