I’m in China!!! After 24+ hours of travel (not including checking into a not-so-quality Quality Inn for 4.5 hours on Christmas night to ensure I would make my 6:30am flight given the shitty WI weather conditions) I landed in Beijing at 6:00pm local time, 5am body time. I have to admit I was more excited to see Laura (who was patiently waiting for me in the mob of Chinese people outside of customs) than to be in China. Our first order of business, of course, was to get a ridiculously large meal at a delicious restaurant downtown. Second order of business was a trip to Laura’s office (Clinton Foundation) to pick some things up. Hmm – sounds like a typical night for us in NY.
Unfortunately, I have nothing too exciting on the China front to report after only four hours. I was surprised I didn’t see more of a skyline coming into the city. Apparently, there are two reasons for this. 1) Laura compared the topography of Beijing to LA (as opposed to Shanghai which is more like NY). 2) The pollution is every bit as bad as you hear it is – it’s like a perpetual fog hanging over the city.
List of things Laura warned me about (e.g. China-land annoyances)
1. The bathrooms are disgusting
2. Smoking is allowed in restaurants and bars and the pollution is terrible – translation, my cough will likely return in full force
3. Tacky decorations are everywhere (picture gold aluminum foil draped haphazardly over the front desk of her apartment building)
4. Impossibly strict rules and institutionalized corruption (this comes from Laura's friend Matt who is standing over my shoulder as I write this)
5. This blog (among MANY other websites) is actually censored (Laura says that the New York Times went down for three days last week, presumably because there was a negative article on China), but luckily Matt knew how to proxy around it - still can't insert links properly though so sorry for below
Tomorrow we leave for Harbin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbin which supposedly is home to a city made of ice that is carved every winter. I’m a little skeptical about taking an eight-hour train to visit a city that averages -30 degrees but maybe I will meet the snow queen or something (I’m picturing a very Narnia-esque place… we’ll see tomorrow) http://2eblog.com/images/harbin/JPEG/harbin-1.jpg http://chinatour.net/images/tour/Harbin/ice.jpg
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2 comments:
Hi Sweetie
Hi Honey, I got your blog and I sent you an email on your gmail account. You can read a little more there. But we are happy to hear you are there safe and sound. I am sure Laura is thrilled you are there too. Tell her hi from you Bernier family in WI. Have a great time honey. We love you lots.
Auntie
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