Another huge day

After another huge day of activities, I was just too sleepy to blog last night, so I'm up at 6 am (2 pm yesterday in SLO) to record some thoughts from Day Two.

Tuesday found us at the Forbidden City, Tian An Men Square (the largest square in the world), the Emperor's Summer Palace (where it was anything but "summery"), a bike-shaw (sounds right for a rickshaw bicycle, don't you think?) trip through some neighborhoods, an unbelievable dinner at someone's home, and a meeting in the evening with business leaders from Beijing.

Although there's lots of traffic in Beijing, there's very few horns sounding, even when it seems you have countless close calls. You drive on the right here, just like home, and there are well-marked lanes, but drivers are fluidly aggressive in their approach to lane-changing. They weave in and out, never signaling, and merging is a courteous free-for-all -- including bicycles who seem to have the same disregard for their own safety that student pedestrians display in SLO. If there were ever a place where you'd expect road rage, this is it, but there seems to be none. As close as everyone gets to one another (you'd SWEAR that your bus HAD to clip that other bus that just went by), we've only seen one fender-bender. The drivers were negotiating the damage payment at the accident site, and apparently it's expected that an agreement will be made and payment concluded right then and there. Not a good job environment for insurance adjusters...

Most apartments have central heat, but air conditioners are usually wall units sticking out underneath the window like an afterthought. Some apartments cover their windows with bars to protect against cat burglars -- even on the upper floors. Our tour guide calls them Spidermen burglars.

We went by the under-construction Olympic Stadium, a huge structure of swirling steel, looking much like a giant steel bird's nest. There's another soccer stadium under construction about a half-mile away, and the Olympic Village is another few blocks away. Everywhere, people are renovating the historic sites for next August's "coming-out party" for China. They have enough people to do the work. Consider, for example, that last year the US had a great year for employment, creating 2 million new jobs. China needs to create 2 million new jobs per month! We just wonder whether they'll have enough toilets -- the women now have to wait to use the restroom at the historic sites -- and this in 20 degree weather. Plus, it will be an adjustment to adapt to the Eastern toilet -- if you don't know what that is, suffice it to say there's no equipment reaching above floor level, and you understand why they have great thigh muscles.

Until tomorrow...

Bob Wacker