eeee! we just purchased tickets for boxing for me and ben and shasha! monday aug 11th! tickets were $7 USD each, but a hefty fee went along with that, so they're actually $17 each. they were cheap! events that are popular are much more expensive and pretty much sold out - swimming, badminton, basketball, etc. www.cosport.com yay! [View Full Entry]

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Gah the photo editor won't upload my photos and it's driving me nuts! **** So Saturday Ben and I stayed up all night watching movies in prep for Chloe’s owners coming back early Sunday morning. They were supposed to fly in at 7am and said they’d be to the apartment by about 8:30ish. I went to bed at 3am after almost falling asleep watching Die Hard 4 - after watching 1-3 one each night. Got up at 6:00 to shower and get the rest of the stuff packed before they got home at 8:30….But at 7am the door opened and there [View Full Entry]

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Snip-its for all of you who A.D.D. and can't read non-broken up long text: SUPERSTAR STATUS: I LOVE CHINA (or at least the semi-fake, propagandized Beijing, China I've seen)! I'm pretty much a superstar here and you can be one too if you come! Every day, I've been asked by at least 5 Chinese/Asians to take pictures with them. Sometimes, people just take pictures of me right in front of my face and then try to be slick about it even though I see the camera a few feet away pointing directly at me. Trust me, I'm not alone. This happens [View Full Entry]

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This city is at its peak. Olympics fever is raging, creating a cleaner, tidier, and stricter city. Everywhere you turn, there are these “One World, One Dream” signs with the little Olympic monsters running around. Even on the street signs, you were reminded of the cities importance in the international arena with the words “Beijing 2008” added onto the top. I could’ve spent a whole month here, but we had to compress everything into 4 days. The first place we went to was Tiananmen Square. Although it’s portrayed as a family friendly area with [View Full Entry]

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Still trying to find out how to properly use the lamination folders... (Apparently the Chinese letter underneath doesnt make much sense either.) [View Full Entry]

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From the moment I arrived in Beijing I felt like I was transported to the future. In all the places I've traveled to, I've never encountered such a "perfect," (deadly heat and humidity aside) asthetically pleasing and well planned city. The only question is if Beijing was always like this, or has become so because of the Olympics. Imagine if San Francisco, Boston, NY or any old city in Europe got the chance to be partly demolished, re-planned, re-designed and re-built today. All of the roads and buildings would look new, clean and beautiful and the organization of the city would [View Full Entry]

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This morning, nearly 1,000 staff (400 from overseas plus about 600 locals) gathered on the steps of the majestic Temple of Heaven for a company-wide photo. It was an impressive feat, gathering 1,000 people together and getting them all to stand still and behave in the blazing hot sun. Only a team of Type A Control Freak Event Planners could pull this one off with such flair. The highlight of the morning was having a chance to walk through the Temple of Heaven Park. Emperors used to come to this temple to pray for good harvests, and today the park is [View Full Entry]

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This friday we had some free tickets to a local Kungfu show (which would have cost us about 260 kuai/$40). It was pretty sweet. The show itself described the story of some Kungfu master and his life story. Oh, and there was a solar eclipse too. It was pretty hard to see because of all the crap in Beijing's air, but it was still pretty cool. [View Full Entry]

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It finally rained, for two days in a row now. Reportedly, this is because "magical pellets" were shot into the air to make the rain come and help wash away the ick-factor. Slight improvement noted. This is my last morning here at the Ritz. I have to move to another hotel in just a few hours, as do many of the staff, and it is for the best since my program operates on what is currently the other side of town. But I will be sad to go, and even warned the concierge (Echo) that I was going to buy my [View Full Entry]

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CHINA (to begin with) KFC. I may have told you already that putting your hands close to and especially into your mouth is considered the height of bad manners in China. Well KFC chicken is by far the most popular "Western" fast food company in china. And as their catch phrase all over the western world is "Finger Licking Good". Can somebody please tell me what it is in China?? PEA ICE-CREAM Now whats all that about? It does exactly as it says on the tin, An ice cream that is made from, looks like and tastes like.....PEAS? And it tastes [View Full Entry]

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