Well, I'm here and checked into my hotel. I'm posting with my blackberry from the hotel bar :)

It's almost 9:00 pm here now, but it's 8:00 to my body. I ended up sleeping about 10 hours on the flight, so if I can get to bed on time, the jetlag shouldn't be too bad.

As soon as I got off the plane, I got an email telling me the project I'm here for has been postponed until April or May... There's some busywork for me to do, but it looks like I'll probably be headed home on Wednesday or Thursday instead of Friday.

The good news is, it looks like I'll have the whole weekend off to sightsee instead of working.

So far, it's not that different than many other cities I've been to, but the smog here is incredible. I've seen bad smog in L.A. And New York, but nothing like this. At 5:00 pm you could barely see the sun!

Anyway, I'll try to keep this thread updated while I'm here. What passes for a burger and a beer just showed up.

Later!

Heyyyyyyyyyyyyy Phurst!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Waving at ya!)

I hear those long transits can really suck the life out of ya. Nothing like state of the art electronics to keep life moving along. :tongue2: What a bummer to be wired and geared to go to get a job done and then they siddle off. Anyhoo, looks like it's a plus for you and I hope you get to see something more than that mercurial sunset haze there. Be sure to ask for safe places to eat and stay away from side street vendors! Meow!

Hope you have a blast and a safe trip back to the States. :love!:

Ni hao! :cool:
So you can just look at it as an all expenses paid weekend away by the company. Gee the City never does that for me! Hope you can play tourist, enjoy your time there and bring home some wonderful memories.

Thanks Skurvey.

I'm hoping to see the Great Wall this weekend and get some shoping done for the family. Anyone need a cheap knockoff Rolex or a Kate Spade bag, LOL. There's a section of the wall about an hour from the hotel, but the place I want to go is about 2 hours away, and is an unrestored section, and far less "touristy". A friend of mine spent 2 weeks here a few years ago and said the restored wall is almost "Disney-fied".

There's currently an all-Chinese jazz band in the bar playing old american standards in "engrish", it's pretty darn funny.

I think I'll try to stick to eating at the hotel (the office is in an adjoining building), or with the locals from work. Should be pretty safe...

Thanks Carmie, I hope so too!

phursty for a bintang

wow, just think your closer to me already, i can almost feel your love..lol
have fun brother, mix as much business with pleasure i say!

dont forget to bring us all back something !!

hmmm, what can I bring back...

Knowing my luck, bird flu or lead poisoning :)

Yeah V, I'm right around the corner. Maybe I'll stop in for dinner, LOL.

Yeah V, I'm right around the corner. Maybe I'll stop in for dinner, LOL.

OK, went to my GeoSafari Talking Globe which is one of my favorite toys. It says Bejing to Queensland (I couldn't remember for sure where V lives) is 4600 miles. Bejing to Richmond is 9800 miles. I think while you are half way there you should definitely stop by for a couple tinnies and a burger on the BBQ!

Look what I found in my mini-bar. On the bottom left, WTF is that????

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/HPIM4050.jpg

Look what I found in my mini-bar. On the bottom left, WTF is that????

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/HPIM4050.jpg

IDK, but I would avoid it!

Sounds Austrailian! :P

Last night was the last night of the Chinese New Year celebration. After nearly 20 hours of travel, I just wanted to go to bed, but I guess the Chines know how to party. This was going on outside of my hotel literally all night :(

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/HPIM4048.jpg

Sorry, those are fireworks if you can't tell...

I'd definately bring that back home and stick it in your bar as a "Conversation Starter!" :D And I thought they'd be like Italy and have little mini bottles with the fruit grown inside of them. :D

watsonadrink (http://www.aswatson.com/corp_milestone.html)? i try to say that at least every night..lol

not every thing strange is ozzie :p

Stick with the coke, at least you know what you are getting.

Actually, the coke here seems to have a different formula. It tastes very different to me. Almost Diet Coke like. Tastes like they use a different sweetener. Also, drinks are not served with ice. Nothing like a glass of room temperature Coke :)

I guess I'll have to stick to Beer. The Heiniken here tastes fine and is ice cold :D

If you get a chance try Russian Coke. It is horrible. My dad brought some back from his last trip there.

If you get a chance try Russian Coke. It is horrible. My dad brought some back from his last trip there.


Isn't that like saying "ewww, this milk is bad, try it" :)

"Eweee, I'm not gonna try it, You try it!" "I'm not gonna try it, You try it!" ..... "Hey, I know what..... Let's get Mikey!" Yeahhhhhhhhhhhh...... :D


(So, are we keeping you from getting homesick too terribly much?) :up:

(So, are we keeping you from getting homesick too terribly much?) :up:


Absolutely. Nice to be able to stay in touch with my second family :D

Actually, the coke here seems to have a different formula. It tastes very different to me. Almost Diet Coke like. Tastes like they use a different sweetener. Also, drinks are not served with ice. Nothing like a glass of room temperature Coke :)

I guess I'll have to stick to Beer. The Heiniken here tastes fine and is ice cold :D

Thats cause you have an operator named kwant sumdim sim at the bottling plant saying to himself " try some real asian flavor foreigners" whilst releaving himself in the latest batch:huh:

:shout: He Will NEVER Be Able To Look At That Drink Ever Again! You are rich V. :tongue2:

Lori, I LOVE your new signature picture!

Thanks CJO! :p

Went to Tienanmen square this afternoon after shopping.

Here I am posing with The Chairman.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/HPIM4073.jpg

The Peoples Monument:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/HPIM4070.jpg

The Southern Gate to old Beijing.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/HPIM4069.jpg

Unfortunately, because it's winter The Forbidden City closes early, so I didn't get a chance to go in.

I've made arrangements to go to this part of the Gret Wall tomorrow. It'll be an all day trip.

Simatai - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simatai)

lol you look like a cheesy american tourist! lol jk

=P


thats awesome that u got to go for free. man i need a job that will do that...haha
i wouldnt mind going there, hehe. their architecture looks so much diff than here in NY. =] its awesome.

Next shot suggestion - hold your your thumb & your index finger up for a perspective shot - that way you can hold a chinese person like your about to squash em!
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/HPIM4073.jpg

Wow Phurst! I'm so glad we got this exclusive, extra special package deal, for the low budget individual, who wants to travel. :D We get to see all the sights and hear all the tales and you take all the risks! Lol Food poisoning, exposure to crime, language handicap, cultural barriers, jetlag...... Gotta love it!

Thanks a million for all the pics, it's so very good to be able to see the world through the eyes of a friend. :up:

Pearson :kewlpics:. I am really enjoying this thread! I want to goto China!

I am going to hijck your thread a minute. We hosted a Chinese exchange student in 2001-2002. We love being host parents and always learn so much about their countries from our exchange sons and daughters. We always tell people that we can't travel the world but we bring little bits of it into our home with every student we host.

Back to our Chinese son. In November he came home from school and asked if we knew about Tienanmen Square. All of us, including our (natural) son who was 13 at the time answered yes. "No, no, no!" says our exchange son, "Do you know what happened there?" When we assured him that we indeed knew what had happened there he said "I have never heard of this before. Has anything like this happened in the USA?" We told him that the closest thing would be Kent State and he wondered if everybody knew about it. We said maybe some younger people were not aware of this but unless you lived under a rock in the 70's you would have had to have known about it.

We always emphasize to the kids that things are "different, not better or worse" when they see that things that are not the same between countries but this exchange sure made me glad that I am an American! What a difference the First Amendment makes!

OK, back to your regularly scheduled thread!

LOL, yeah, I totally look like a tourist, but it's kinda hard not to here.

It's funny Skurvey mentions crime. This is a HUGE city of 16 million, a large percentage of whom are rather poor. There are also a lot of wealthy (relatively speaking) tourists walking around, yet there is very little crime here. After work I like to go wander around downtown Beijing just to see the city. many times I have found myself walking down narrow alleys, through slums, through crowded markets, or down lonely roads at night and I have never felt unsafe at all. Everyone I pass in those places has a warm smile, or is too busy going about their lives to notice me. It probably doesn't hurt that there are police or soldiers just about everywhere here, but I'm not sure that's why I still feel pretty safe everywhere.

Anyway, enough of my social observations.

Yesterday I went to The Great Wall at a place called Simatai. Here's the Wikipedia article: Simatai - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simatai)

It was far and away the most physically demanding walk I have ever taken :) It's way up in the mountains, about 2 hours outside of Beijing. Between the fact that the temperature was a balmy 23 degrees F, and there was a steady 20 mph wind, and the fact that the wall is about 5000 feet above sea level, and I do nothing but sit in front of a computer all day, and many sections of the path were at a 45 degree upward angle (one section is at an 85 degree angle), I was absolutely beat when I got to the end. The thing is, it was so incredibly amazing, I would do it again today, and again tomorrow. It's one of those things you read about, and see pictures of, but it's absolutely impossible to truly appreciate unless you see it for yourself. The section I went to was unrestored, and it really makes the history come alive.

This is what you see when you get there. I thought surely that wasn't part of the wall I was going to climb, but it was.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/China/HPIM4112.jpg

About 200 feet below the closest tower in the picture below, there is a reservoir. That's where you start. From there, you can go east or west. This is a shot of the western path, which I did not take. It's not nearly as steep, and the going is much easier, but the views are not a good either.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/China/HPIM4080.jpg


This is the view of the reservoir from the second of 12 towers on this section of the wall. That should give you an idea of how steep the climb is.
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/China/HPIM4083.jpg

Here I am at tower 4 or so, with the wall spreading out behind me. Everything to the righ of the wall is Mongolia.
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/China/HPIM4087.jpg

I mentioned the wall was unrestored. many of the guard towers looked like this:
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/China/HPIM4086.jpg

And here I am, cold, sore and exhausted, but thrilled to be at the top. The view was breathtaking!

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/China/HPIM4097.jpg

Wow! That is an impressive climb! Pretty cool to know that you are sitting on the only man made object visible from space!

Thanks, yes, quite a feeling. In fact, I'm still feeling it today, LOL.

Interesting tidbit. You can see the reservoir below is half frozen, half not. It's fed by 2 springs, one cold and one hot.

good god... to think that wall stretches for like 1200 miles is insane. All done with out any mechanized equipment. Makes my head spin just thinking about it.

Mine too. And not only did they just build it, they had time to do other stuff as well, like mark all the bricks with the unit that made them and the date:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/China/HPIM4095.jpg

And carve the occasional lotus:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/China/HPIM4105.jpg

I think that one says "Inspected by A14"

I don't think it's fair to call her a ho.....

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/China/HPIM4114.jpg

holy crap, i forgot to ship your ballasts !! i will get them out ASAP !! i completely forgot until i checked your thread. 2 jobs is killing me. sorry man.

Phurst,

What a fantastic trip and reporting. Unfortunately Photobucket has been removing your photos. Is anyone else seeing the box below???

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/HPIM4073.jpg

All except your latest photos have been removed.

Keep them coming though. I'll have to return to this thread more often before the latest have disappeared .

Thanks again.

Dick

Bobby, no sweat, don't kill yourself.

Dick, the pics are my fault. I moved all my China pictures into a different album in Photobucket. You can see them all here:
pearsonhurst/China - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting (http://s42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/China/)

Pman, I'm curious...

I have heard the expression "more chins than a Chinese phone book" many times. How many chins are in there anyway??

Check into it and get back to me please! :D

Thanks for the link, Phurst. What a trip.

LOL, I actually did find a phonebook, but I don't read Mandarin, so I still don't know how many Chins there are :)

you know they built that wall to keep the rabbits out:huh:

Take care phursty!

Thanks V, take care brother.

Jon, what do you do for a living? You're always on here in the middle of the night. I have an excuse, I'm in China :D

Jon, what do you do for a living? You're always on here in the middle of the night. I have an excuse, I'm in China :D

I wish I were in another time zone, but truth be told, I own a (struggling) printing company. Given our present financial situation, we cannot afford to turn down work, so I have become the second shift until we get caught up. I stroll into work around 9 AM and leave around midnight... and then unwind here.

The worst part is that except for top offs and little food once in a while, my tank is pretty neglected. The front glass is looking mighty fuzzy these days!

Last night in the hotel, and happy to be heading home tomorrow. It's cool here, but I'm long since done with my work here, and I miss my family, and my dogs, and MY TANKS!

I was looking forward to a nice quiet night in my hotel room, watching MTV Mandarin (hillarious, by the way), but it's not to be. Evidently some big Chinese pop star is staying at the hotel tonight, and there are several thousand screaming teenagers outside, and hundreds more in the lobby. At first I thought they were here for me :D.

Oh well, at least it's buy one, get one free beers at the hotel tonight.

Safe trip home, my friend.

Dick

Thanks Dick. One more day of work......

Flight is getting ready to depart to Washington, DC.

Woo hoo, back to the states!

Welcome home, Phurst. Thanks for the pictorial walkabout in China. I enjoyed that very much.

Dick

Welcome back to the good old USA.

:welcome: to the USA! Chinese rock stars, sounds like that part isn't any different than here! Glad you are back home!

LOL, all rested up and mostly back on local time. Sure was nice to see my family.

I got to do one unexpected additional bit of sightseeing on the way home. I was awake for a lot more of this flight, so this time I got to hear the pilot announce we were passing over the north pole:)

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/pearsonhurst/China/HPIM4128.jpg

North Pole! Did you see Santa?

North Pole! Did you see Santa?

First thing out of my daughter's mouth :)

oooook....im confused....u came from austrailia which is in the southern hemisphere......ur going to america..... which is barely northern hemisphere.....why the hell did u travel over the north pole? lol detour? o_O

or is there another north pole between here and there that i dont know about? lol

I was coming from China to Washington DC. The flight route takes you out of China, up over Russia, into the Arctic Circle, over the North Pole, down across Canada and back into the US.