Safe and sound I landed in Beijing. First thing I notice is that the airport is not as nice as the one in Seoul. Looks older and a bit worn out. Getting through customs is always nervewracking for me, always nervous they are going to stop me for something, not sure what. I get through the first checkpoint and wait for my luggage, and YEA there it is on the carousel. Thanks again Adam for lending me your new suitcase. I change some money and go through the second checkpoint and the big glass doors and look hopefully for my escort. There she is, and her driver, with a sign printed out just like in the movies. I’m so glad to be in friendly hands I can’t describe it.
   We step out into Beijing. I can tell it is warm and humid. The sky is hazy, and I can’t tell if it is due to pollution or just the weather. Lots of cars, even for an airport. Being an automotive engineer, I notice that most taxis are Volkwagons from about two generations ago, and also Hyundai’s, and, get this, Buicks. We drive out of the airport, go through a toll and hit the main freeway.
   Ok, I have to disconnect my eyes from my brain: the driving style here is different, as in lacking discipline. People sort of wander from lane to lane with little use of signals. It is nerve wracking for me, but I sense there is some order in that no one quite hits anyone else. Later in the day, we add bicycles to the mix…
   We drive by the site of the 2008 Olympics, and I wish I had my camera out of the trunk. Wow, the Olympics. I can see the Village going up, all three high rise apartments, and the athletic center, and some sort of weird basket weaving like sculpture several stories high where the gymnastics will be held. Right smack in the middle of the city. Local word is that they are ahead of schedule. It sure looks like it with all this going on with one year to go. The amount of construction is pretty amazing.
   Check into hotel, make arrangements for rehearsing my keynote speech later tonight, get a shave, and meet my host for lunch, the founder and president of iSIGHT, the company’s whose conference I will address in a couple of days. Lunch is pleasant, and I learn to eat spicy shrimp without taking the shells off. Also served is Peking Duck(not very good example, according to my host), Shark Fin Soup, rice noodles, and Jasmine tea(no tea bags here, just raw leaves in the cup). I get a few tips for shopping and sightseeing, then up to my room to brush teeth(the bathroom warns you not to drink the tap water, and there are several bottles of water on the shelf) before going back down for my first sightseeing tour.
   I take a Hutong tour. A driver takes me through downtown Beijing to the tour launch point. Here is where we add bicycles to the mix. Holy Cow! You know those old pictures and video of hundreds of bicycles on the street with a handful of cars? Simply replace about 80 percent of the bicycles with cars and buses. On the same streets, crossing the same huge intersections, and not a single rider is wearing a helmet. And people in cars and busses are still wandering through the lanes as if they lane markers are only suggestions. Everytime I think we are going to hit someone, or crush a cyclist, we don’t.  I can’t believe what I am seeing, but again, no one seems to get hurt, at least not while I am watching.
    We arrive at the tour lauch point, and I meet my guide, Jessie. She’s a full time tour guide, which she does to improve her English. We meet two more guests from Australia and walk to the Bell Tower and Drum Tower(here is where I want to post pictures later, but I can’t because I brought the wrong stupid cable!). Both were originally built in the 13th century, and rebuilt in the 15th. So I am walking on and inside of things humans built over 600 years ago. This always instills a sense of awe in me, to be around structures like this built without modern machines. Both structures are about 50m tall, over 150ft. In the Drum Tower are, well, huge drums, including the largest in the world, and a very old one that is 700 years old. A few minutes later, we are treated to a drum concert by 5 drummers. There is also a water powered clock. We walk around the outside of the Drum Tower to see Beijing and the Hutong area, and I notice that there are lots of small roofs attached to each other at strange points, and some seem to be in the process of being demolished. Our guide says that the government wants to demolish some to make way for larger streets…
   In the Bell Tower, we are treated to proper Chinese tea, which I learn is not served with boiling water, but water at about 80 C. We are introduced to lots of kinds of tea, and get to sample two kinds, one with rose petals that is very sweet. I scarf up the first souvenirs, some large tea cups with cool designs on them.
   Then we take two rickshaws to tour the Hutong up close. ok, now we’re the folks on the bikes trying not to get run over by cars and buses. The streets are amazingly small, even for bikes. We are given a tour of the outside of a ‘rich persons house’, and told how to recognize certain signs around the door that mark the wealth of the owners, including the number of cross beams, the fancy paint(pics would be nice here, huh?), and the two cool lion statues standing guard over evil spirits. Then we visit a normal house, and walk right in on its residents, two retired persons. Although the footprint is very small, there are lots of rooms(not lots of room) and the residents share the house with at least one of their sons and his family. It is very modest, and consists of a small, open courtyard surrounded by the tiny rooms. This explains the odd way that the rooftops from each room meet, which I saw from the Drum Tower. There is a coal fired stove for winter heat, and a tiny two burner gas stove for cooking. The residents are very gracious, and tell us that this house has been in the family for 150 years. It sure does feel awkward to be part of a tour that goes right through someone’s modest home.
   We take the rickshaws to another home, this one belonging to someone a bit higher up on social status. The layout of the house is similar, but the decorating and state of the structure is clearly where someone spent some money. This one is feels weird for a different reason. Still, it was good to get a glimpse of real life, in a real neighborhood, with real people. Taking the rickshaws through the narrow streets shows you all kinds of things the tourbuses probably don’t show you. There are lots of repairs going on, and suddenly I realize that things are probably getting cleaned up for the tourists coming to the Olympics next year. My fellow guests have been to Beijing before, and they indeed tell me that things are far cleaner than they used to be. So what I have seen is then some reality that is in the process of being modified to not look so glum, yet interesting enough to draw in the tourists. Hmmm.
   Ok, I need to freshen up and grab some dinner, then off to rehearsal and perhaps an early bedtime. More tomorrow!