Our wake-up call was at 7:30 today, and this was the first time on this trip that I was in an incredibly deep sleep when my phone rang.

The breakfast buffet in this hotel, Le Royal Meridien, is unfreakingbelievable. I started off with twice slices of toast, eggs Benedict with a hard-boiled, instead of soft-boiled egg, a slice of bacon and some coffee.

After some watermelon and fresh pineapple, I still wanted something sweet, and scouring over by the waffle and pancake stand, I saw beside the peanut butter, a bowl marked dulce de leche. I took two teaspoons of the sinfully delicious looking and tasting goo, and spread it on a croissant. OMFG.

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On the way down to the lobby, the background music in the elevator sounded like a babbling brook. When I first heard it, I thought, “Oh no. My stomach is not making that noise.” Discussing it once we all got in the lobby, every person who noticed that sound thought it was their stomach. How funny. I guess knowing you might have to use a “Chinese toilet” really makes you stay in tune with your body.

Today made three-for-three with regards to our “cultural days” in each city being overcast and rainy. What a bummer. It rained the entire day, more some times than others, and getting dark rather early because of it.

Our morning was spent at the Shanghai Museum. Here I am at the entrance:

The museum used to cost to get in, but now it’s free. As you can see by the lines, it’s quite the popular place:

Might I suggest, “Visitors 70 and over” instead? I’m just saying…

There was a good diversity of people visiting the museum today—from the aforementioned elders, to white people, to this black cowboy, who was a part of a group of very, very dark-skinned people presumably from somewhere in Africa:

I’m just going to shake my head with regards to the bathroom situation. This sign was on the back of the door to the stall in the men’s room. And yes, this means toilet paper used for that. Men don’t use toilet paper for the other thing. It’s just hard to understand. And this was a “Western toilet,” not a “Chinese toilet.”

There were four floors of exhibit halls in the museum, and we were provided with recording devices in English, on which we punched a code shown at a particular piece to hear its history. Here I am listening to the background on these boats:

It’s me again… this time communing with the coins:

Yep. Me again. Hanging out with the old guys:

A couple other of my favorite pieces—a “belt tail piece with dragon design” made out of jade and a ceramic “Heavenly Guardian” statue:

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On the bus ride from the Shanghai Museum to the silk rug factory that was next on our agenda, I read these headlines over the shoulder of Richard (of Richard and Nadine) in the paper that he was reading in the seat in front of me:

At the Shanghai General Silk Rug Factory, we started off with a tour of the factory during which our guide showed us how rugs are made from start to finish. And it all starts with the moth cocoons, from which the silk is derived:

Nothing up my sleeve… presto… silk!

Next, our guide explained a few things about a rug that a lady from Los Gatos, CA ordered a few months ago, on which the lady in this next picture is working:

This young lady has 6 years experience making rugs, and she’s considered an expert. Even as an expert, and working eight ours per day, with 10 minutes break every hour to give her eyesight a break, she hooks only five rows of this rug per day. At that rate it will take her eighteen months to finish this 6 foot-by-8 foot rug.

The lady who ordered it is an older lady, in her seventies, and she said that she couldn’t wait that long for a rug, so the factory said they would put another girl on it; that is, add a shift and have it done in nine months—to which the lady agreed.

The guide asked our group what we thought a rug like that might cost. Someone said, “$10,000,” and the guide said, “Sold! If you’d give that much.” It’s going for right at about $6,000.

Of course, the tour ended up in the retail showroom of the place, in which several people were hounded until they purchased a rug. I picked up one that caught my eye, and it was small, something like 3 feet-by-1 feet, and the price tag said 3300 yuan (about $532). “Specially for you, 20% off, so 2640 yuan (about $425). I don’t think so…

As far as I noted, Kirsten, Debbie, and Jenny and Bob bought a rug. Kirsten and Jenny got these little squares, maybe 1-foot by 1-foot for $320, and Jenny and Bob got a bigger one, I’m guessing in the $1000-$2000 range.

I really liked this one with the pandas on it. This one probably cost two- or three-thousand dollars, if not more:

Right across the breezeway from the silk factory, we had lunch at Dim Sum Restaurant, which was very good. Chinese food. Lazy Susan. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

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After lunch a couple of people stopped in on the second floor of the silk factory, where they were making cashmere items, mostly sweaters. There was a window through which you could see the workers making the items. They were all standing up at large, loom-like machines working away.

For a reason not understood by me, at least, in the hallway of this area, there were three goats (not alive) grazing in some grass (not real). I began to sing, “High on hill, was a lonely goat herd, yodel-odel-odel-odel-ey-eeh-ho…”

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We made a quick stop at The Bund, which most people in our delegation had heard of, though I hadn’t. That could be because I did zero reading about China before I came. Things that make you go, “Hmmmm.”

I’m sure the view from this place would be phenomenal if it weren’t as incredibly foggy as it was during the short fifteen minutes or so we were there. However, from this point, you can see across the water, what’s called Pu Dong. Pu Dong is the financial center of Shanghai, which is the financial center of China. So, Pu Dong is to Shanghai what Manhattan is to New York City.

Pu Dong is also where we will be visiting the Hewlett-Packard office that we’re visiting tomorrow afternoon as part of our professional day. HP is also the company our leader, Linda, works out—in the United States, of course. Here’s a picture of Pu Dong on the other side of the water:

Right on the corner near The Bund is the famous Peace Hotel—also a place of which I’d never heard.

A few other interesting buildings viewed from The Bund:

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Our next stop was at Yu Garden, which was beautiful in the misty, and sometimes harder, rain. This used to be a private mansion, and the man built this garden for his mother and his family. However his mother didn’t live long enough to see it finished. Here are some shots from within:

I really like that dragon’s tail “slithering” along the top of the wall.

This tree was in one of the squares in the shopping bazaar we had about 45 minutes in after strolling through the garden:

I finished shopping in about ten minutes, and treated myself to a Dairy Queen (yes, our Dairy Queens!) small vanilla cone 5 yuan—about $.80. Cheap.

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Dinner was on our own tonight, and I walked through a square near our hotel, during which I was three times offered sex—once with a massage, once without, and once by a woman who actually touched my stomach and said, “Mister, you lonely?”

Uh… no.

I made my way to a Pizza Hut, where I used their 3-step menu-pointing procedure to order my dinner: (1) Put to either Pan Pizza, Think Crust Pizza, or Stuffed Crust Pizza. (2) Point to the size 9, 10, 11, or 12. (3) Point to the variety of pizza; I chose the one called “American Style,” which had a picture of a well-populated pepperoni pizza.

“That’ll be 15 minutes,” she said.

It arrived in 10 minutes, and I guess most of the pepperoni population had moved to the suburbs. There were about three pieces on my 9-inch pizza. At any rate, it was freaking delicious, and I ate the whole thing, minus the crusts. I got a Pepsi Cola with it, and my total bill was 68 yuan (about $11.00).

A couple of things were interesting about this dining experience:

1. When I ordered, she said, “That’s it? Just pizza?” As I waited for my pizza to arrive, I watched the other tables, and all of them had at least two, and most three, other dishes that they bought in addition to their pizza. A lot of them were Chinese things that you’d never see on an American Pizza Hut table. They involved noddles and soups and shrimp… stuff like that.
2. They put an itemized receipt in this little box that was affixed under each table to hold it. As each item was delivered to the table, they pulled the receipt out and marked a line through that item indicating that it has been served. My 12 yuan Pepsi got marked out right away, and when the pizza arrived, a line went through that 56 yuan item.
3. I was unsure if they tip here, or if it’s included in the price of the food. All of my food on this trip until now has been provided by People to People, except my outing to McDonald’s the other night, where of course I didn’t tip. I ended up leaving a tip here, something between 10% and 15%, just in case.

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On the way back from dinner, I stopped into the Hershey’s store, where I just couldn’t bring myself to pay $10 for a package of six thin, plain, milk-chocolate Hershey bars.

Beyond the Hershey’s store, but before my hotel, was a Starbucks. I stepped in, just to see if they had wireless access. Normally, I’d never pay for access, but if they did have it, it would have had to have been cheaper than what the hotel is charging, so I would have considered using it. I didn’t see anyone with laptops in there.

There was another exit to the place, and in taking it, I found myself in a multi-level mall. I walked around just to see what kind of stores they had, and when I reached the third floor, I looked up from the escalators to see that there were seven stories in all. Excessive.

At the top of the escalator, where I had decided I would just turn around and head back down, there was a bookstore. I took a stroll through there. 98% of the books were in Chinese, but there were two bookshelves whose label said, “Imported Books,” so I took a quick gander through them.

One of them was “The World is Flat,” which had been mentioned in one of our professional meetings this trip, and which I’d heard of. There was also Covey’s “8th Habit,” and of all things, a book by coach Dean Smith, the former basketball coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Strange.

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I had planned to go to Eddy’s tonight, but the weather was so nasty, and I’d heard someone say that it was going to be impossible to get a taxi tonight, presumably because everybody would be using them, so I decided to stay in.

I finished up another batch of post cards, for which the front desk charged me a dollar a stamp instead of the fifty-cents they were in Guilin. Rip off. I hate when hotels do that shit. And that’s what this hotel is doing with Internet access, too. Not only is it not free, it’s outrageous. It’s 5.25 yuan for each minute for the first 20 minutes, and then it’s 1 yuan an hour after that, up to 24 hours. So, it basically comes out to just under 20 bucks a day for access. Highway robbery.

After that I was going to start right in on my blog for today, but I decided to reward myself with a break and flipped on the TV. A movie was on that caught my attention for two reasons: (1) the main character on screen when I turned it on had just said that he was an obituary editor, and (2) the actor playing that character was Jude Law. Yummy.

As the movie went on, Julia Roberts came into it, and then it started seeming familiar to me. Within a few more minutes, I realized that I’d seen it before, but of course I couldn’t remember the name of it, but I watched it to the end.

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After that, I devised this blog entry, finishing at about 1:00AM. Tired.

Our wake-up call was at 6:30 this morning, and our bags had to be outside the door by 7:00. I got mine out at 7:10, and then went down to breakfast where I joined Nadine and Richard, and Paula joined us a few minutes later.

While I was getting some fruit, this man next to me missed putting the top of a water container back on securely, and it fell crashing to the floor taking a coffee cup with it. It made an absolute racket, and the whole place looked over. Glad it wasn’t me.

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We left the hotel at a little after 8:15, and I had these fleeting thoughts fleeing Guilin:

• This city was so beautiful. If I were to ever come back to China, I’d probably spend a week here.
• Tan, our local guide, told us that she’s had seven bicycles stolen, so she’s stopped buying them.
• She also told us, though, it was on Sunday when we arrived, that they paint the building fronts every two years, to “keep up appearances,” so they look good on the outside even if they’re run down on the inside. “It’s such a shame. We could use that money on so many other things.”
  
• Tan told us several stories during our time here in Guilin, and she told her last two on this bus ride to the airport.
  1. After talking a little bit about Mao, and how he is viewed very differently by different people in China—that the older generation tends to revere him and the younger people, not so much. Well, it was her mother’s life dream to see Chairman Mao (at rest in his mausoleum in Tienanmen Square), and when she retired she (along with Tan’s dad) took her first train trip, from the south of China and rode 42 hours, standing up, to Beijing to see him. And then, 42 hours back, starting off standing, but eventually getting a seat after some people got off at one of the stops along the way. Tan had told them to stop in Guilin to visit her on the way back, which they did.

     Her mother had seven bags of souvenirs that she brought back from Beijing. She wanted to get something for everything in their family, which is large. When her parents were getting on the train to leave, Tan was handing the bags through the train window to them to get them all on. And somewhere during that trip, it was so crowded on the train, that her mother got a few cracked ribs from the pushing and shoving. When she got home, she said, “I don’t ever want to travel again. I’ve seen Chairman Mao.”

  2. She told us about the first time she saw a westerner. “I was in grade school, and our teacher told us that a westerner was coming to our class, and that he wanted us to show him how smart we all were when he arrived. So, we studied and studied for weeks and weeks, and when the day finally came, I remember thinking when I first saw him, ‘His hair is a different color. He’s so tall. And his nose is so big.’ 

     When the westerner asked them the question, “What were the four greatest inventions of ancient China?” I was fortunate enough to be called on, and I was so proud to give the right answer. Later on, we found out that the man was a ‘fake’ westerner. He was a very tall friend of the teacher, whom the teacher had asked to put on a wig and a big fake nose and come to class.”

     We all laughed, and then of course, wanted to know the answer to the question: gunpowder, the compass, paper, and printing. 

• We passed a man riding one of those tricycles hauling live chickens, in cages, as his payload.
• All along this trip there have been “love” stories told in context of the history of China, and I’m always struck how they’re all always about straight people—or animals. Tan told this drawn out story about two panda bears that were mates, but the male died, and so they had an elaborate search for a new male to be brought to Guilin. When they finally found one, it was such a big deal, that people from Guilin met him at the airport, and they had a big celebration of his arrival. They put him in with the female, and after a few weeks, they were getting along so poorly, fighting even, that they had to build the male a separate room. I’m thinking that male panda is gay as hell. It is possible you know; there is homosexuality in the animal kingdom. This doesn’t seem to even occur as a possibility to any of the straight people.
• Several of the stories disengaged me right at the beginning—the emperor’s daughter was looking for a husband… Were any of them ever possibly looking for a wife? Bitter. Party of one? Your table is ready.
• I’m not saying it was humid in my room, but this morning my postcards were all in an arc on the desk.
• I think I said this in an earlier entry, but pedestrians absolutely do not have the right-of-way in China. It was true in Beijing, and it’s certainly true here. It’s incredibly precarious trying to cross any street.

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Our bags for this flight were taken care of from our hotel door all the way to Shanghai. That is, we didn’t have to collect them at the airport. Shawn had the porters take them directly to the airline check-in, where they did a group check-in for us.

While we waited for all of that to happen, and for our boarding passes to be delivered to us, I took some pictures in the Guilin airport. We all had a good chuckle about all of the things you had to be in order to take one of these seats:

Your choice of Chinese bathroom or Western bathroom in this airport:

Chinese

Western

I didn’t take a picture of the sign that said, “Civilized Airport,” which I’m quite sure was supposed to be “Civilian Airport,” but I did get this one reminding you to save your baggage for the personal columns:

I got my first aisle seat of the trip so far. Paula was going to be in the middle seat next to me, but when we got to our row, some switching had taken place, and I took my aisle seat next to James and Kathleen. Paula took the middle seat on the other side of the aisle.

The two hour or so flight to Shanghai on China Southern was uneventful. We had a quick meal, Chinese food, and I read a little and then nodded a little. I’m reading the book Katherine gave me right before I left. It’s called “Lost in Planet China,” and it’s by the same author who wrote “The Sex Life of Cannibals,” by J. Maarten Troost.

I’m glad I waited to start reading this book a little ways into my trip, instead of at the very beginning. I laughed out loud several times, including while reading these two relevant passages:

And so, as I arrived at the airport to begin the long flight to Beijing, I practiced the few phrases of Mandarin I had memorized. Yes, the Chinese language, every variant of it, would be unfathomable to me, but that didn’t mean I had to arrive completely unprepared. “Qingwen. Wo buhui dun zhege cesuo. Youmeiyou biede cesuo keyi yong?”

“What does that mean, Daddy?” asked my four-year-old son, Lukas.

“It’s Chinese for Excuse me. I am not proficient at squatting. Is there another toilet option?”

And this one:

It was after crossing a street that I came to my second observation about life in Beijing: Do not play chicken with Chinese drivers. Even if they see you, they will not slow down. Even if the pedestrian light is green, they will not slow down. So do not play chicken with Chinese drivers. Or you will die.

A moment later, I made my third observation about life in Beijing: Do not play chicken with Chinese cyclists. See observation 2. Same applies. You will die.

So, so true in our experience, too!

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When we arrived in Shanghai, we met our local guide, whose name was Yao Qian, “but you can call me Annie,” she said.

The ride from the airport to Le Royal Meridien in downtown Shanghai immediately confirmed Shanghai as the financial powerhouse of China. The roadways looked like L.A. and the high rises like NYC.

On the ride, Annie introduced us to Shanghai, intimating over and over that it is the most Westernized city in China, and the Chinese people here like that about it. It’s all about the excitement, the Western stores, and the financial and technology markets here.

We talked a little bit again about the “one child per family” rule here, and how if the first child is a girl, after four years you can try again, for a boy. If the second one is a girl, that’s it. She then pointed out that Chinese families actually can have more children, they just have to pay what amounts to a “fine” to have them. In Shanghai, you have to pay 58,000 Yuan (about $9350.00) per parent. In Beijing, it’s double that 116,000 Yuan, or almost $20,000, again per parent!

I asked if there was an issue with abortion here. “No, there isn’t. It’s legal. And since China is not religious, it’s not really an issue.”

Annie pointed out that an issue they do deal with is that some people who can afford to have more children (because they can afford to pay the fine) don’t want them, and some people who do want more can’t afford to have them.

Our outrageously opulent hotel rooms were definitely “Western” style. Here’s some shots of mine:

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We had a couple of hours to unpack and freshen up before meeting the bus for our evening out. I got some help in the lobby with directions on how to get to a gay bar named Eddy’s that my friend Adam from Atlanta told me he went to while he was here.

It was kind of funny, as the same thing happened here when I asked where a gay bar might be. Obviously the way to do that with the “underground” gay life here is to invoke a lifeline and “phone a friend.”

When I showed the lady concierge the name of the restaurant, she shook her head to indicate she didn’t recognize it.
“It’s a gay bar,” I said.
Her face lit up, and she said, “Let me call my friend.”

She phoned Leo, who also worked in the hotel and ended up coming down to help me. He was Filipino, is gay, lives here, and has a partner here. He was very, very nice, and wrote the address down, and then the concierge translated it into Chinese so I could just hand it to the cab driver.

Leo told me it would be about 20 yuan for a taxi there, which is cheap, and that a lot of people stop there after work on their way home, so between 6:00 and 8:00 would even be a good time to go during the week. I asked him if people there would speak English, and he said yes, and that the owner and his partner actually lived in NYC for a time.

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Most people agreed that tonight’s dinner was our favorite so far. Yes, it was Chinese food again, but again, being that Shanghai is so westernized, several of the dishes were like those you might find in a good Chinese restaurant in the U.S.

The most interesting thing about this restaurant was that it sold the most incredible embroidery tapestries, which were hung on the walls of the entire first floor, where that’s all there was, as well as on the second floor on the walls all around the restaurant.

Expensive. We’re talking Madonna-can-afford-them expensive. I think the lowest one I saw was $980. A majority were between $12,000 and $25,000—yes dollars, not yuan. Here are few of them:

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The last thing on the agenda of our long day was attending, “ERA: Intersection of Time,” a most incredible Chinese acrobat show.

It started off with this guy setting down a large cylinder, on top of which he places a flat board and stepped onto it, rolling back and forth and balancing. Then he added what looked like four cans, one in each corner, and then another flat board, which he stepped up on, and a third layer and a fourth layer.

As if that wasn’t precarious enough, he then balanced on one foot and putting the other one in the air, put a bowl in the crook of his foot. Then he kicked the bowl up in the air and caught it on his head—no hands of course. Then he took two bowls and did the same thing, as they began to stack on his head. Then three more bowls, then four more bowls, then a teacup, which landed in the top bowl, and finally he flicked a teaspoon up in the tea cup. Just amazing.

A bunch of kids, they’re all young Chinese kids, except their “mentor,” and one of the finest Chinese acrobats around, jumped through a bunch of hoops, first stacked on top of each other, and then facing each other from four directions, and then rotating. They did various other acts with two people jumping onto one end of a see-saw type thing, flipping the person standing on the other end up on to shoulders and a chair being held high up into the air.

The mentor guy did an act with this quite large vase that he tossed in the air and caught in various ways—with his arms, legs, the back of his neck, and eventually his head. He spun it around on his head, turned at a 45° angle, and moved his head to switch it to the opposite angle, and that sort of thing. Then he took one perhaps twice that size and did the same kind of things. Quite amazing.

There was this huge contraption in the air that looked a little like a ferris wheel, and the gymnasts climbed in it and on it, and did crazy things while it rotated high into the air.

The final act, which was the most amazing as you would expect, involved driving motor scooters into this hollow sphere. First one went in it, and drove all around it first horizontally, then vertically, and then in ovals in various directions. Then a second scooter got in there, and then a third, and a fourth and a fifth. It was absolutely mesmerizing and incredible that they did what they did without crashing into each other.

After that three more went in, and this thing wasn’t that big, that’s what was so incredible about it. The last three weren’t in there very long, though, and they mostly stayed around the bottom third of it, while the other five went wild above them.

I remember sitting there at one point, totally engrossed, and thinking, “I am in freaking Shanghai, China, watching this incredible entertainment.”

I had breakfast with Kathleen and James this morning, both of whom I really like. They are partners and they live in Seattle, Washington. Kathleen is a delegate, and James is her guest. She’s a user experience specialist.

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Our morning professional meeting was with the Guilin Hunter Information Industry Limited Corporation. I like how the Board Chairman and General Manager of the corporation, Mr. Jiang Tai, asked us to give him our thoughts on what their logo meant—smart to take an advantage of a free international usability test or focus group.

Unfortunately, we didn’t notice that the logo formed a sort of “H” (for Hunter), but probably mostly because we weren’t expecting it to be something English-related. He talked about how, basically, they’re big on the H—three of them, for: Hunter (as in hunting and gathering), Highway (as in going/moving forward into the 21st century), and Hero (what they want to be—heroes).

Next they covered their goals, their historical milestones, and their main businesses, which are software outsourcing and product development. Their main product is RFID, known by lay people as barcoding technology.

They had 12-15 people present, and here’s a shot of them. Mr. Tai is the guy second from the left. (Notice the nice banner on the wall.)

Here’s a subset of our delegation. Linda, our leader, is in the middle of the picture in the brown jacket, and Shawn is sitting to the right of her, partially hidden by the plant.

Shawn is our People to People “National Guide,” which means he travels throughout the trip with us to the three cities. He’s also our translator during meetings, and today I made this note when he was translating some extremely technical stuff: “Shawn is fucking brilliant.” Mind you, he is not a technical communicator, or even a computer person, so his job is very, very challenging; especially when people go on and on with a technical response and then he has to translate it.

In addition to having a great personality, he had superb language skills, both in speaking and translating, and uses shorthand as well to capture main points in long responses.

Their delegation asked us two heavy-duty questions:

1. What impact do we feel the subprime mortgage debacle is having in our industry, and
2. What are the implications to our profession on outsourcing technical jobs?

We groveled through that with various perspectives from our widely diverse delegation. I gave the specific example of the impact of a technical writer being outsourced by noting that in my job as an editor at IBM, I edited for one outsourced writer, a lady from Bangalore, and the impact that I experienced was that, at the beginning, I spent more time on copyediting her work than on doing a technical edit.

Earlier when Mr. Tai was speaking, he mentioned that he had spent six months working NYC, and he found the biggest obstacle for him to be not understanding the American corporate culture. I asked him, “Can you articulate what about the American corporate culture that was so confounding to you? Was it the capitalistic mindset? The professional and social interaction of the employees of the company? The language itself? Or something other than that?

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After our usual group photograph consisting of both delegations together, our exchange of gifts, and exchange of business cards, we headed off to Yuxi Lou Restaurant, which was in the midst of a beautiful park, in which we had some free time to roam after lunch. Here are some pictures from the park.

It had a cute little bridge in it, and here I am on it, compliments of Konrad’s photography work:

Here’s another angle showing the mountainous rocks in the background. On the bridge is Jeanne (a delegate) and her daughter (Kirsten) a guest:

A couple of shots of the flora:

And, as always, there’s always a pagoda lurking surreptitiously:

And, of course, a couple of sign pictures:

I actually didn’t find any grammar issues in this one:

Nor with this one. I just liked it:

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Our afternoon meeting was with the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at Guilin University of Technology. We actually met with a programmers’ club of theirs. The folks were all programmers, two women, and the rest guys. Here’s a picture of most of them:

And our delegation—this is a better picture of Shawn, our guide:

You remember earlier, part of the plant covering Shawn’s face? These folks are very fond of plant life down the middle of conference rooms. As you can see in this shot, it was also the case here:

This meeting was by far our best one so far, for a few reasons:

1. None of these programmers were sure what technical communicators did. And when they found out we were coming, the googled the profession, and even after trying to read up on it, still didn’t quite get what we did.
2. They were students, so they were tonally open and forthcoming about their questions and answers.
3. As a result of that, it was very informal and comfortable.

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Back at the hotel, I spent some time writing out postcards and putting the $.50 stamps on each one. “They” say they take 5-7 days to arrive in the States. I’ll probably beat them home.

Dinner this evening was yet another Chinese restaurant and yet another Chinese meal. (I’m not sure what I expect. I am in China afterall.) I really didn’t feel like going, though, and almost bowed out, but in the end said, “Go. You don’t have to eat very much. Just go, be social, and take advantage of the opportunity and experience.”

It ended up being a very enjoyable evening. I sat next to Richard, Nadine’s husband, whom I really hadn’t had any interaction with on the trip so far, and whom I really liked immediately. Nadine is a hoot, and they seem like a fun-loving couple. They are always off to find a bar to have a few drinks in wherever we go. They are from Belgium.

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Back at the hotel, I walked around the city taking snapshots of its beauty and openness. First, I stopped at a coffee shop that Tan, our local guy had told us about, where they sell cheesecake. At first I thought maybe they were all out, because the only thing I saw that looked like cake slices were slices of Tiramasu and what was labeled Mocha Chocolate Cake.

Eventually I recognized the cheesecakes, by the little sign on them that said “Cheesecake,” but they were in round ceramic bowls, much like you get creme brulee in in the States, only much bigger. It was way more than I wanted.

We had joked at dinner earlier that maybe the dessert was going to be chocolate cake. That being on my mind, I bought a slice of the Mocha Chocolate Cake. As I counted out the 50 Yuan for it, the cashier pointed down to the little pad on which she’d recorded the sale, where it said 15 Yuan.

Thank goodness she was honest, as $8 for a slice of $2.50 cake would have been a bit much. Okay a lot much, if you know me.

Here are some of the pics from around the city. People just seem to break into exercise along the river at night. Someone commented that it was leftover from before the “opening up,” when the citizens were required to exercise:

“Foot Massage” on the left and “Body Massage” on the right:

This is the view from the bridge, looking down over the main street running around the lake. The neon arches are on this side of the street, and that building in the background is on the other side of the street.

This is the view of that bridge from which I took the previous picture:

Here’s a shot of “The Nine Horses,” except that I only see five. Tan told us the story of them, and I’m pretty sure that there were nine as that represented a lucky number of some such superstition, which the Chinese are big on. I’ll have to google this when I get back.

And finally, a few of the local eateries:

We had to have our bags outside our doors at 7:30 AM, which I did and headed down to breakfast. When I returned at 8:15, my bag was still outside my door. I just grabbed it and brought it downstairs with me assuming they’d missed it due to my room change. I’m certainly glad I went back up to my room before leaving.

Since we were unable to visit Tiana’man Square yesterday due to the beginning of the Asian-European Summit starting here in Beijing, we drove by it this morning on the way to the airport. We had only about 40 minutes to walk along the side of the square, basically for a photo op. Here I am with Chariman Mao hanging over my head, well on the wall of the building in the background to the right of me:

As I reflect on my time in Beijing as I depart these things come to mind:

• I never saw the crowding that I expected to, as almost everyone I talked to before coming who had been to China talked about. I expected always to see people walking shoulder-to-shoulder in the streets, but this was never the case. The only places that were what I’d even call crowded, were the toursist spots, which is no different than in the States. Perhaps it’ll be different in Guilin or Shanghai.
• And that made me wonder about when people say things sometimes just to let you know they’ve been to a place, which then made me wonder about what I would say when and if I wanted to make the point, “Oh, I’ve been to China,” in the future. Though, I really try not to do that, it’s quite difficult to resist especially if it sounds like the other person is just mentioning their anecdote to let you know they’ve been somewhere. It’s a good exercise, however, in not making their story be about you.
• Pedestrians absolutely do not have the right-of-way in Beijing, and that may be in all of China. And it might be rooted in possible arrogance of those who have cars. Car drivers have to pay up to $5,000 (a one-time charge) to get a license plate in Beijing. This can be almost 50% of the price of the car!
• I was struck not by the number of cyclists in the city, and not even by the number of three-wheeled cycles, but by the variation in payload on these tricycles. I saw them hauling: jugs of water, pile-upon-pile of multipack toilet paper rolls, tools, street-cleaning tools, and even people. Here’s a couple of shots of some:
  

  

• The providing of condoms in the bathrooms of a 5-star hotel room is an interesting juxtaposition. They’re festive boxes, I’ll give them that. Perhaps this is related to the limit on births in the country. That and other interesting cultural things in the room:
  

  

  

• The day before yesterday, I asked our local guide about whether there was a gay bar nearby, and I was surprised by several things in his response: (1) He didn’t bat an eyelash about the question. (2) He thought that the Coco Banana (gotta love that name) near our hotel was gay, or at least a bi place, so called a friend of his to make sure. The friend said that it wasn’t, but that there was a gay bar right across the street from it called Destination. (3) That our guide didn’t give any indication that it might be unsafe or that I should be careful going there, and (4) That the bar was only about two blocks from our 5-star hotel. Gay bars are notoriously in bad parts of towns and cities.
• A blurb in a Beijing paper said, “The presidential race may be close in America, but in China, Barack Obama enjoys a significant lead over John McCain—75% to 25%.”

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As we approached the airport Shawn collected our passports to do a group check-in for us. I asked him if the toilets on the plane were going to be “Chinese-style” or “Western-style.”

While we were waiting for Shawn to check us in, I asked Linda if the foot massage thing had ever been settled, and she said as far as she knew it was still on and it was going to be easy to bow out without a problem.

At the gate, we had only about a 20-minute wait, and I sat on the floor in front of a plug and plugged in my laptop while I used it. My adapter wouldn’t fit in the socket, but the plug on my regular power cord did, so I used that. After about 10 minutes, my battery had gone from 95% down to 89% and I noticed that the power indicator was green, not yellow, which means that it’s running off the battery.

Our flight was fairly uneventful. I sat between Sherry and Paula—obviously it’s my trip for middle seats. We had a spurt of conversation about Sarah Palin and her inanity, though it was mostly between Paula and Sherry.

We had a nice enough meal on the three-hour flight—at least you still get meals on intra-China flights. A small, hot tray container held rice and some beef and vegetables. I think it was beef any way. The container was accompanied by a box, which contained a roll, a most delightful mixture of some vegetables and ham, and some dried cherries, which tasted more like raisins, for dessert.

I picked the ham out of the ham and vegetable medley and put it on my roll for a little ham sandwich. I was jonesing for some mayonnaise, but it didn’t happen.

The three hours just flew by. Badabump. Bump. We’re here through Halloween, folks.

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It was quite warm in the airport, and after receiving our bags, we received tags to put on our big bags, which were carried directly to our rooms from the bus.

All of our rooms were in the same area, and there were about four of us in the hallway sticking our keys in the door only to find them not activated. Linda got on a house phone in the hallway, and as she connected, I flipped the key upside down and tried and it worked. As did all of them. We Americans are so set in our ways. Gotta think outside the (locked) box, sometimes.

As soon as I got in the room, I saw a card that said that there was free wireless Internet in the lobby area, and free wireless in the rooms “for our Club Level members.” I immediately took my Starwood Gold Card down to the lobby, and after being an obviously appreciated customer, I was offered a nice, decorative tin of tea, and promptly moved to a room up on the Club Level.

The first thing I did was connect to the Internet, and wade through about 150 e-mails, looking for anything important. We only had about an hour before having to be in the lobby for dinner, and I spent the entirety of that time online. I wrote Robert a quick e-mail telling him how much I’ve missed him, and that I’d be on AIM in a couple of hours after returning from the restaurant.

Dinner was, let me see, oh yeah, Chinese food. A plethora of dishes, all served family style from a huge lazy Susan. Beer for drinks. The highlight of this meal for me was the fried bananas, which were a first for these lunches and dinners we’ve been having, and which I love.

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We had the most delightful 10- to 15-minute walk back to the hotel. This city is just beautiful, so luch and green, full of natural wonder, and open. It’s a nice break after the big city of Beijing, and from which Shanghai will be more of the same.

I stopped in a shop and found a bottle that I earmarked for my collection. I was thinkiing I would rather get it in Shanghai, but will at least wait until tomorrow night, our last night here, to buy it here if I do. Debbie Davy bought one. It was 280 Yuan, which is about $45 with the 6.2 to 1 exchange rate.

We passed some people doing exercise by the river, complete with a leader up front with one of those microphones on her head like tour guides use.

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Back at the hotel, I was the Internet whore that I am at home and spent nearly four hours online. I had the most wonderful instant message conversation with Robert, and shared a couple of pictures with him, one of which he forwarded on to his mother, who loved it so much she made it her computer wallpaper. I told Robert that that touched me, and that touched him. Bless our messes.

I uploaded the pictures that I want posted to my blog to my personal web space, and then sent an e-mail to Kevin Myers attaching text files of my blog entries for the first four days of my trip, asking him if he’d be kind enough to post them on LiveJournal for me, since I can’t access it.

I got to bed at somewhere around 1:00 or 1:30.