A Taste of China
We started our visit in Shanghai, where I had two days of business meetings. Normally, I get to see very little of the cities to which I travel on business, and my sightseeing is typically limited to what I can observe from car windows while travelling between hotels and office buildings. So, Doris and I got to Shanghai on the Saturday before my business meetings began, with the objective of seeing the highlights of the City on Sunday.
The skyscrapers aren't just numerous -- they're stylish, too…
Doris and I had a relaxing dinner on the "Bund," a beautifully lit area of restaurants and shops along the river. Here's a photo taken from our restaurant:
Shanghai is very international and cosmopolitan, and one of our favourite areas is the "French concession" area of the city, which consists of many European-style boutiques and restaurants. Some of the streets look as though they would fit well in Paris…
at which we sampled different teas...
and ate quail eggs and tofu...
and considered eating a few other things we never did succeed in identifying.
Speaking of eating, Doris joined me for a couple of business dinners, including one with almost the entire Ford China legal team, pictured (with me) below.
After three days in Shanghai, Doris and I flew to Beijing, the political center of China, visiting the Forbidden City…
We encountered many tour groups from across China. Our guide told us that tour organizers issue red caps to participants, because many participants are visiting Beijing for the first time from the countryside and easily become lost. Of course, I'm not sure how it's supposed to be easier to find people from your own group, when literally thousands of tourists are all wearing red caps.
The highlight of the Beijing area, though, was the Great Wall. It's truly mammoth and awe-inspiring and requires much more climbing than we had imagined. We could numb you with statistics, but the most impressive are that the Wall was built over a span of about 2,000 years and is roughly 4,000 miles long. Beyond that, we'll let the following pictures do the talking:
We also visited the Summer Palace…
and Tiananmen Square, the political heart of Beijing, which is bordered by the building housing the Chinese Communist Party Congress, the Mao Zedong mausoleum, etc.
Here's a picture of Doris standing with the warriors, illustrating that the figures actually are life-sized. From the photos above, you might think they're miniatures. And no, Doris didn't scale the walls and stand among the actual warriors. These imitation versions are on display in the museum's souvenir shop.