I've already been to Beijing, already walked the Great Wall of China (and rode the toboggan ride back down to the bottom), Tiananmen Square, etc. when I was touring with the Notre Dame Glee Club. Still, that was back in 2001-- Beijing was in the middle of their campaign for the Olympics, and a lot has changed since then.
The Beijing portion of my trip is not organized around all of these touristy things anyway. The main purpose of my trip is work related. I had hoped that this international project would not be happening so quickly as I wanted a bit more domestic success with this particular product before embarking on an international project. However, I will have one more week of domestic work in this area before the first week in Beijing, so that brings me comfort. There is a second week of work that will take place either immediately after, or after a week of vacation.
It would be best for the project to have that break week in between for a variety of reasons, plus, I would be able to pay a friendly visit to Thailand. I realized today that in either case, I will "in the neighborhood" for the Chinese New Year, occuring on Sunday the 29th, so that could be way cool. For now, I'm in a bit of a holding pattern, awaiting contact from my friends in Thailand (I forgot to mention-- after I sent out an e-mail announcing this blog, I discovered that I know two people currently living in Thailand!).
I'm trying to get some critical things taken care of though, most importantly, I contacted Notre Dame's health services today to have my medical records faxed to me. I am definitely due for a tetnus shot, probably others as well. They said they'd have it to me by morning sometime.
As far as travel goes, I will be booking the major flights through my business travel provider, American Express. There's a non-stop flight by United that I'm going to try to get on, departing on Friday January 20, probably around noon or so, and ariving in Beijing sometime in the late afternoon on Saturday. That will give me a day to adjust to the time zone change. That previous week will be busy though, as I'm scheduled on a project in Dallas, TX, so I anticipate arriving home in Chicago on Thursday night, quickly doing laundry/repacking, and heading back to O'Hare in the morning. So in a sense, that gives me just a little over a week to get anything I need done locally, which reminds me, I need to contact Saks to see if the alterations on my new pants are done, make sure I get my new cell phone ordered, and get whatever shots I need. Yikes....
Due to its close proximity to the client, it sounds like the best hotel option in the Beijing area is a Holiday Inn of some sort. Other hotels are a cab ride away I guess. I usually go for Marriott so I can get nights and points, but if it isn't an easy option, I'd probably rather avoid the hassle. Holiday Inn is part of the Intercontinental group and I have a frequent guest card with them too. I could probably jump around a bit for a weekend night or two as well to experience a bit more variety. My roommate, Aaron, has a Lonely Planet guide to Beijing from 2001 that probably shows where the Holiday Inn is located. I need to find out exactly where this client is located so I'll know how close I will be to the action.
A few people have responded to me with information on travel agents, service organizations and other tidbits of information. For Beijing, I found out that my friend Tim took three years of Mandarin, so I'm going to meet up with him this weekend to learn some basics, like saying 'hello' and 'thank you.'
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