9/8/08

Ni Hao Journal,

Well – I made it to Beijing in once piece! Sorry I haven’t posted sooner but we have an action packed scheduled since we arrived.

Our group all arrived via Korean Air at 830pm on Sunday night. By the time we got all our bags and made it to our hotel (Beijing Hotel), it was around 930pm. A large group of us took a five-minute walk to the Forbidden City. It was not too crowded and really quite a sight to see at night when it was all lit up! After the short walk I passed out and slept pretty well.

Monday was the day much anticipated by most in our group. We took a 2.5-hour bus ride out of Beijing to the Great Wall (of China) at Simatai. There are multiple points at which you can access the Great Wall but Simatai was more remote and less touristy. On the drive over I had a few observations: Audi’s and VW seem to rule the road (my type of town) and the traffic was surprisingly calm. Unlike many other Asian cities (most noticeably Saigon and Bangkok), Beijing drivers are relatively tame. Really, if it weren’t for the surrounding scenery and I were just looking at the roads alone, I could’ve mistaken it for any US city. In class we learned that Chinese infrastructure has been improving over the last few years – thanks to the Olympics. Obviously, this is most noticeable in the host city of Beijing where China was (and still is) able to show off their strong infrastructure, among many other offerings.

Finally, we made it to the wall. Madhu mentioned that it would be quite the physical task to reach the top of the wall. I underestimated him. My walks around Green Lake back in Seattle did little to prepare me. I was panting after climbing the first few steps! This section of the Great Wall, at least the part open to visitors, consisted of 12 connected watch towers snaking their way up a steep hill. My guess is this was probably a 2.5-mile climb with an increasing elevation of up to 2,500 feet, Everyone in our group made the climb to the top! All in all, getting up and back down was about a 4-hour journey. It was kind of neat because this portion of the wall also acted as a border between China and Mongolia so I was able to look over at the Mongols!

Back to Beijing and everyone was pretty exhausted. Most people went to get feet massage but a small group of us went to get dinner at a nearby restaurant. As we ate a tourist-oriented restaurant for lunch at the Great Wall, dinner was really our first authentic Chinese meal since we arrived. It was delicious and very cheap. I am not sure of all that I ate but no complaints…at least yet. After dinner we passed by our hotel and made it to the Night Market. This market is none for its exotic “culinary delights” such as fried scorpion and fried seahorse on a stick. Three members of our group tried the scorpion and I split a seahorse with a friend. It wasn’t exactly great but really it tasted like a shitty potato chip.

Another observation when passing through the Night Market and a busy pedestrian mall was the International influence as well as IPR issues we discussed in class. Nike, McDonalds, Rolex, KFC and many others were all readily available on the busy pedestrian mall. Although, usually across from each of this was a similar store with a different name. Across from Nike was Ni-ling with the slogan of “Everything is possible”. Across from McDonalds was a jewelry store with very similar golden arches. I was surprised how obvious these “copycats” were and how they operated so close to their competitors.

Tomorrow we are off to visit Lenovo. Will keep you posted!

Paul