The Weatherman

I’m sitting in the Hainan Airlines lounge (no, I’m not flying bus class, I paid $30 to get in here) drinking Captain Morgan and coke    I do have an exit row seat however so that is exciting…well, not really, but at least it makes it easy to use the toilet.

My thoughts on Beijing…

Lots of Traffic.  Lots of History.  Big disparity in prices.  Lots of Traffic.

First, the traffic.  Let me start by saying they limit the cars on the road depending on the last two numbers on your license.  Roughly 20% of the cars each day are not on the road in Beijing.  Yet, there were times when it took us 45 minutes to go 2 miles.  The only time traffic seemed to flow well was in the weee hours of the morning (like around 4 or 5 am).

As for driving ability…the people of Beijing are the most talented drivers I’ve ever seen.  Seriously, there is no way I could drive in this city.  Lane markers are only there as a suggestion.  Cars seem to always straddle the line as they jockey to move forward.  Bikes, mopeds, and scooters are constantly shooting against traffic without regard for their life.  I saw single left turn lanes become 4 cars wide in the intersection…everywhere cars would head against on coming traffic to move ahead of the car in front them.  The shoulders were passing lanes.  The beauty of this chaos was how things seem to flow – people just make it work.  Lots of honking but no road rage (absolutely none).

As for crossing the street, that can be adventurous.  My only close call came with a bus that wasn’t going to stop (even though I had the green walk sign).  So you always need to pay attention.

I took the safe road on food.  Nothing too outrageous.  Lots of Peking Duck – which is very good.  A fish that is carved up to look like an Outback Steakhouse Bloomin Onion (see photo of fish here).  I also had hot pot (like shabu shabu in Japan).  Hot pot has a spice in it that tastes like soap and numbs/tingles your tongue/lips.  I believe it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_Pepper.  I even drank corn juice (think – pureed cream of corn).  I ate lots of dumplings (ie Dim Sum) and I even tried McDonalds.

SightSeeing.  Not as much as I wanted to do but I did take a tour to the Ming Tombs, the Great Wall, and the Summer Olympic Park.  I also drove by Tianamen Square.  There is plenty more in Beijing that I missed and would like to someday check out.

I stayed at the Hilton Beijing – I highly recommend it for the business traveler.  And if offered, take the upgrade to the executive tower which provides free breakfast, free water/soda/coffee all day, and free happy hour.  The rooms in this executive portion are large, comfortable, and very modern.

Photos to come later.

First off, I made it without shedding a tear.  That’s a big step for me – normally I lose it when saying goodbye to Nate and Zach.  For those who don’t know, I took the only non-stop from Seattle to Beijing on Hainan Airlines (China’s largest private airline).  The flight left about 1 hour late, the flight was around 11hrs and 15min.  Overall, it was a good experience.  Seats were comfortable, in flight entertainment was good (but no where near as good as Delta international flights), and the food was OK.

I watched ‘Crazy Heart’ with Jeff Bridges…not my kind of movie but when you have 11 hrs to kill, you need to pick something.  I read some and I played lots of yahtzee (like 2 hours worth) on my ipod touch.  The flight went up the Canadian coastline and flew directly over Anchorage…since it was clear I got to see a ton of mountains and glaciers.  I also pretty confident (based on my current research) that I saw Mt McKinley off in the distance – even though it’s over 100 miles from Anchorage – it is 20k ft tall – hard to miss on a clear day.

The flight crossed from Alaska over the southern Bering Sea and into Siberia – it really did look cold down there.  Lots of sea ice!  Along the way there were really cool views of mountains, glaciers, icebergs, and sea ice – at least until it got cloudy.  From about 90 minutes, it started getting pretty bumpy.  There are some thunderstorms moving through so the plane was bouncing around a bit.  About 20 minutes before landing they announced that they were going to spray disinfectant in the cabin since it was international flight.  Basically they shot something through the air system (you could smell)…I have no idea what I got exposed to…oh well.

Once on the ground, customs was easy…not much different from the US really but less of a line.  I carried my luggage so I didn’t have to wait for it.  Everything at the airport is in English (and Chinese obviously) so it was easy to get around.  I stopped at the currency exchange to pick up my RMB (Chinese money) – you can’t pick this up outside of China as it is a closed currency.  Next was the taxi.  They have a taxi line so I hopped in one and handed the driver the address…in English.  Crap!  He doesn’t understand “Hilton Beijing” in english…nor do the 3 other Taxi helpers standing around the car.  I pulled out a Google map (which was partially in Chinese) – I think that got him going but he still wasn’t sure.  Fortunately there was a phone number on the map – so he called it and got directions.

The Hilton is nice…I flashed my hilton honors number, paid a fee to add breakfast and got an upgraded room which also includes complimentary happy hour.  That’s where I’m at now.  The room is nice.  They say you don’t want to drink the water…I saw why in my room…it had a pale brown color to it in the sink.  At least there is bottled water everywhere.

Well, that brings you up to speed.