Last night was great… Best dinner of the trip, and the followed up with a wonderful cruise on the river that runs between the old and new sides of Shanghai… Even though it rained a bit, and was a bit wet all night, it wasn’t too wet and we had a great time talking about the week… The architecture on both the new and old Shanghai is amazing… Barely believable that the new part of the city has been mostly built since 2000… And in the early 90’s it was a rice farm…
Yesterday, we got up in the morning and flew to Weihai and drove to the CCT plant to have a business meeting and the tour the factory/warehouse at CCT… The facility is impressive, and incredibly neat and clean… And getting to see the warehouse full of Roadmasters was interesting also… The CCT team was great, and the hospitality was, as it had been all week, wonderful… Then a drive to the hotel, clean up, and another incredible dinner… After dinner, we went to the karaoke bar, and after a few too many shots of JD, I actually participated for the first time… We stayed there until pretty late, and had a blast… Hoban did his usuals, and pretty much everyone joined in at one point or another…
Got up around 7, had a nice breakfast, and then on the bus for a 1.5-2 hour trip to the Great Wall… As on all the other bus rides, our guide talked incessantly about pretty much anything that he could think of on the way… Must be something that they teach in guide school, that you have to talk about something all the time… When it is on topic, it is interesting… when not, not… And either the average person needs to hear the same point 5-10 times to have it stick, or the guides use that technique to fill the time… anyhow, he is entertaining for the most part, and I even got a short video of him in the Forbidden City just so that I could remember the experience…
Today was a pretty long day… up at 7 (well, up at 1,3,5, and then finally 7…) and then a light breakfast (not that it had to be light… anything and everything that you could want was there…) and then off to Tiananmen Square… Interesting, and people everywhere… (well, there are basically people everywhere all the time… 20M in Beijing means that…) and then off to the Forbidden City… Long, long walk (I think he said about 4 miles…) and it just seems to go on forever… The Emperor was one ambitious guy… 300,000 workers for 14 years to get it done… Took lots of pics (will post when I get back… too much of a pain to do with the phone…) and learned all about that part of China’s history…
Got into the hotel around 4 Beijing time ( which is 12 hours of of EST… ) and cleaned up and went to a nice dinner, but am beat from the long day… Should easily sleep soundly through the night and should be ready for tomorrow… Forbidden City, TSquare should make a good day…
Figured I might as well type a bit… Flight left 6 hours ago, and the map shows that we have gone 3282 miles so far, with 7 hours and 3620 to go… Fortunately, business class is incredibly nice, and I didn’t have to rent so many movies, since there are at least 100 to choose from… Watched Captain America (yeah, wanted to see that for a while… okay, not great…) and Devil Wears Prada (yeah, yeah… I seem to watch it every time I have the chance to…) and then listened to a bit of music to try to sleep… Since it is only 7 pm, I’m really not tired enough to sleep now, so I think that I will watch a movie or a few tech videos on the iPad and then maybe try to get a bit of sleep… I thought that maybe the great dinner (shrimp cocktail, salad, a nice cabernet, wonderful steak with asparagus and potatoes, cheese and crackers and finally ice cream… God it’s nice flying this way…) would make me tired, but it just made me full… even with about a half bottle of the cab…
Heading off to China tomorrow morning… Long flight (almost 15 hours…) but looking forward to the trip… All packed (I think it is the lightest I have ever packed for a week, thanks to the suggestion of getting a RedOxx carry on bag and watching some good packing videos…) and for the first time, I won’t be dragging a laptop along… Just using my iPad 3 with a Bluetooth keyboard if I have a lot to type…
Here are the pictures that Ann and I took on the cruise… Might get around to organizing them sometime, but I think that I got them in chronological order (for the most part…)
Greek Cruise Pictures on Flickr
Day 10 – Friday
The day started with the alarms going off at 4… Showers and final packing, triple checking drawers, checking for passports and other documents, and to the checkout at the gangway… Had our passports stamped, everything loaded onto the bus, and about 8 couples were headed to the airport… about a half hour trip to the airport, and then we got the bags sorted out and went through the first security check at the Istanbul airport… then to the baggage check in, where we got all of our boarding passes (some of the others only got the first one…) and had our passports looked at and scanned again… then down the hall (literally…) and through bag and body scan number two… then a long walk down to the gate and we sat outside the gate area, where there was security scan station number three… These were all luggage on scanner, laptops out, through a metal scanner stations… don’t know where they thought we were going to get anything along the way, but I guess it’s good to know they are careful… I had to explain to one of the security guys what my iPad stand was… he sort of thought it could be a weapon… Time passed pretty quickly and soon we were on the plane… Turkish Airways… Needless to say I wasn’t expecting much, but other than the fact that the guy in front of me almost immediately reclined his seat and my knees were in my face the rest of the time, the service and food on the plane were great… Now one interesting point… we get scanned three times for weapons, get on the plane, and right away the pass out a meal with metal knives, forks, and spoons… far more dangerous than the iPad stand that was questioned, but whatever… And I have to hand it to Turkish Airways on two other counts… One is that I can’t remember the last time that I had a meal (that was actually edible…) on a 2.
Day 9 – Thursday
It was very stormy during the night, and even though our tour wasn’t going out until 1:30 in the afternoon, I had talked to Chris last night and wanted to get together and talk, and he suggested 7:30 so I sat my alarm for 7 and got up then… When I woke up, it was raining outside (the first time during the trip…) and it was very rocky on the boat… so much that the shower door kept sliding open and shut and the water was sloshing all over the place on the floor…
