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Clayton: Happy Birthday from London!!!

So long Beijing! (Outside the walls of the Forbidden City.)

So long Beijing! (Outside the walls of the Forbidden City.)

Out from under the communist thumb

In Tokyo on the way home. There wasn’t much to post this week between working a lot and this site being blocked.

One amusing moment this week was when I was giving a presentation to 35 or so of my Chinese colleagues Thursday afternoon and Riley made a video call to my computer. It was late at night back at home and he was having trouble getting the printer to print his homework. Riley appeared on the big screen in front of everyone and I turned my laptop camera around so the audience good give him a hearty hello from China. They all started waving and Riley gave a wave back. They thought it was pretty funny and several came up afterward asking how old my son was and such.

Beijing has had one of the coldest and snowiest winters in very long time but at least the folks are getting out and enjoying it. I’ve never seen these riding/pedaling skating rigs before. We need to get some for up at Muleshoe!

My guide also took me to Gulou -The Drum Tower on Sunday. It was built in 1272 during the reign of Kublai Khan. The drum performance you see below is quite impressive. On a sad note, linking to this on Wikipedia reminded me that this is where the Americans were attacked and killed by the insane guy during the Olympics. Here’s the Wikipedia post about the tower.

My guide also took me to Gulou -The Drum Tower on Sunday. It was built in 1272 during the reign of Kublai Khan. The drum performance you see below is quite impressive. On a sad note, linking to this on Wikipedia reminded me that this is where the Americans were attacked and killed by the insane guy during the Olympics. Here’s the Wikipedia post about the tower.

Experiencing this in person is certainly loud but what I really noticed is feeling every vibration of the drums. They actually played for six or seven minutes. My guide told me these guys performed at the Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremonies.

A little taste of China

I haven’t been able to connect to this blog from my hotel room but I can here in our offices. I thought it might be a poor internet connection at the hotel but a colleague just told me that Tumblr, this blog service, is likely blocked by the goverment. We have a special pipeline out here at the office. I also cannot use Facebook from the hotel.

My rickshaw driver Mr. Lee.

My rickshaw driver Mr. Lee.

  • January 25, 2010, 4:39am

          1 note

On Sunday I took a guided rickshaw ride through one of Beijing’s hutongs. Hutongs are the old streets of Beijing which are disappearing due to the rapid rate of development. The hutong rickshaw ride is No. 3 on the list of tourist things to do in Beijing. I did No. 1 The Great Wall and No. 2 The Forbidden City the last time I was here. The ride ended with having tea in the home of one of the residents. In my case that was Mr. Liu, a kung foo instructor. I couldn’t tell if his kicks were as fast as lightning. By the way, the guide told me the guy hawking rice in the video yelled “Buy rice for the foreigner!” right after I stopped filming.

In Beijing! More soon.

In Beijing! More soon.