-- Posted After Returning From Trip --In Beijing for the next couple days then going to Shanghai Monday. Currently in taxi headed away from airport - the smog/haze is intense. It's roughly 100 degrees Ferenheit temperature. I'm strictly a tourist through the weekend, Monday is spent traveling, then next week I'm in a class at Fudan University.
My first impression of Beijing is surprise at how modern it is. I guess the GDP per capita stuff you read about is proof that numbers can lie... or at least they don't tell the whole story of this city. Beijing is very wealthy, on par with any US or European city I've visited. Clean, expensive cars, great roads, sprawling urban planning, a GREAT many tall buildings (there are 26B people in Beijing afterall), parks and greenways beside the roads.
I keep getting these travel books before I leave the country, then crack 'em open for the first time on the airplane. Which makes the first couple hours of my flight always very fun as I get excited for my trip. Here's what excites me about China:
- China sends 220 billion text messages a year
- It's probably illegal but I bet panda bear tastes good
- The terrain variety is baffling, from mountain borders shared with Nepal to the Muslim (yeah, when I think of China my mind doesn't jump to Muslim either) regions to the West borders shared with the -stans, desert/ tundra with camels toward Russia, sub-tropical rain forest to the East... it's boggling
- Would probaly like to spend five weeks here in a row at some future point to actually make a dent in the list of things one should see/ do/ eat/ experience in China - it's that big
- Agricultural areas with water buffalo and straw hat wearing rice farmers
- Old men who play mahjong and smoke pipes
Things I'll blog about in the next few days:
- Tienamen square
- Great wall
- Forbidden City
- Getting custom shirts for $15
- Getting a massage for $15
- The ensuing debauchery of 65 MBA students in their final school obligation
