The Great Wall

Kinda blurry pics from my cell phone but still looks grand. The Great Wall was truly great and I'm glad I got to see it. I do hope to go back again. Kenn definitely wants to see it so it's likely. I am in Beijing now if you haven't guessed. Shanghai at the beginning of the week was ok. From the very very little of the city I got to see, I liked it. Lots of skyscrapers and pretty modern where I was. I stayed at the Radisson by People's Square. I only got to walk around a few evenings around the area, down the famous Nanjing Road, and to the Bund by the Huangpu river. I had to work much of the time, had client meetings and a client event at the office that I presented at. It's so much more lonely traveling by myself. It's not much fun to be honest, it's tiring walking around alone, no one to share insights with. I hate eating alone and the real shame of my trip to Shanghai is that I really didn't get to eat out anywhere good. Oh well, maybe next time. Oh at it was sooo hot. Just like Guangzhou, maybe around 90-100 degrees. I don't know how people can deal with the weather. I was sweating like crazy, how uncomfortable.

I am in Beijing for 5 days and colleagues here took me to dinner Friday night. Today one colleague took me and another person visiting from a different office to the Great Wall. She was so nice to drive us there in the terrible traffic here. It took at least 2-2/12 hours with the traffic. Great thing about going with a local was that she had a good plan. Her husband happened to also be taking colleagues so snagged us a parking spot. Then we took the cable car to one section that was less crowded. Most people don't take the cable car because 1-it's a little expensive (for China that is - I think it was like $6) and 2-many of the tour busses go to a specific area and 3-many people like to walk up. It was hot and personally I didn't find the need to walk too much of the wall. It's pretty steep, I was surprised at how steep some areas are. What an amazing structure, it's hard to imagine how people built it. Tomorrow another colleague is going to take me to the Forbidden City. How nice of the office folks here to be such great hosts.

I now realize just how differnt Tokyo is from other cities in Asia. Tokyo and Japan really is very orderly and efficient. People are polite and restrained. In China it's a whole other story. Spitting, shouting, pushing, walking around with your shirt up or off (men) is all acceptable behavior. I've never seen people yell into the phone so loudly before. What a contrast from Japan where people don't really talk on the phone loudly in public and it's taboo to do so in a subway. Traffic and driving seems crazy to me.

I am looking forward to getting back to Tokyo. Funny how that idea feels much like "home" to me and so much more comfortable. Will write again soon.

Oh one more odd thing. I cannot access any blogs here in China, no pages will load from Blogger including my own. I can write to my blog though. Weird, I wonder if it's a government block thing. I just did a search on it and think that's what it is.... crazy. You guys can read this though right? Judging by some comments that got sent to my email, it seems so.