China: Day 13

I’ve just arrived in Beijing.  It is the sixth city in China that I’ve visited in the last two days.  I have been on planes, I’ve been on trains and I’ve been in many automobiles in these last two days.  I don’t think I’ve ever done this much hopping around before.

Since about noon on Tuesday, my boss, Dave Gotts, and I left Hengyang by high speed train back to Changsha.  We met up with two of our China staff, Heng Khee Tan and Bruce Regier (who, incidently, comes from Langley), and we flew to Zhengzhou (roughly pronounced, Jang Joe, in case you were wondering), the capital of Henan province.  Henan province is so populous, if you took it out of China and made it its own country, it would be the 12th largest country after Mexico!  We picked up two more ICC staffers and then met up with these government people who wined and dined us with a very fancy meal as we were there to sign a contract to partly run a facility in Sanmenxia.

We then hopped another high speed train that evening to Sanmenxia.  The next day we visited our new facility, signed the contract with the provincial government (which was like sitting at the UN), got treated to two more VERY fancy meals, then a tour of an ancient city and then we hopped another high speed train to Xi’an.  Then this morning, I went out to see the Terra Cotta Warriors, caught a flight in the late afternoon and then made it to Beijing.

I’m exhausted.  Soon, I head to bed. I wish I had the energy to edit some photos to put in this post (lame).  Friday, I’ll do a bit of touring around and then meeting up with an old friend, Dan Unrau, who works at the Canadian embassy.  Saturday, I’m on my way home.