我去北京旅游 - Going to Beijing for "Business" =)

Well it had to happen I guess eventually, staying in China for now nearly 5 months and a week ago I get to hit China’s Imperial Capital. Thanks to the help of work in Dalian I managed to get to attend the 4th Annual China Shopping Mall Conference which was plushly situated at the New Nikko Century Hotel. Well I was excited about the chance to revisit 4 star luxury until I found out that the hotel was literally in the burbs! You know the Beijing 3rd Ring Road, yeah well keep going haha. And for those who haven’t been to China believe me ring roads here are rings like you have never seen!

The conference was attended by a mixture of leading business people, government ministers and university professors and included a smattering of speakers from all over the world including my boss over here Michael Lloyd. Being an ex Lend Lease man he has managed to grace the stage here for the last 3 years, this year being no different. Attended by over 200 ppl and with speeches being held in 2 languages I managed for the first time to participate in a conference with the help of a translator device which boomed the voice of some poor bloke in a box that attempted to keep up with the occasional ramblings of Chinese shopping centre “experts”.

As these things go, some speeches got you thinking, others got you sleeping but on the whole was definitely a worthwhile couple of days and confirmed for me my choice to pursue this industry and also what I have managed to pick up in the last 5 months. Biggest points of amusement amongst other things were the confused looks from my fellow delegates when the English speakers swapped to Chinese ones which resulted in them promptly removing their translation earphones whilst I fumbled to don mine.

Well all work and no play wouldn’t be a very Terence Koo like adventure at all so naturally the nights were filled with partying of sorts. Yes AIESEC exists in Beijing so it was great catching up with an old friend Tzzy Wang for Thanksgiving Turkey and cranberry sauce and an old boss from PricewaterhouseCoopers as well. Upon talking to them they noted that him and his wife although English had had relatively few problems settling into a black haired city of 20 Million which is testament I believe to the globalisation which is happening in what I consider a pretty cool city.

I was showed just how cool after the conference where I first accompanied my boss to eat French Fusion at the Forbidden city and this made my way over to night club central to catch up with some friends from Dalian. Upon arriving, I was heartily greeted by 2 bottles of Bombay Sapphire and a bottle of red which the 4 of us during the night proceeded to finish off. The confidence building effects of these cocktails were more than welcome when we ran into 2 stunning models from Dalian but unfortunately my primary school level Chinese was only able to engage them for a period of 15 minutes before they left me for the much more attractive dance floor =) They can say ‘When in Rome..” but when you don’t speak Latin you don’t get too far haha!

Well all good weekends come to an end and all wallets also wear thin with trips such as this so going back to Dalian was more than welcome by the Sunday night came around. Might be swinging past there in January next year so something to look forward to aside from -20C!

因为工作的原因，上周末我去北京参加了中国购物中心国际论坛第四届年会。这个会议在北京新世纪日航饭店举行。四星级的饭店所我来说不错！我的老板已经连续三年在这个会议上作报告。今年也是一样。

我参加时听说与购物中心有关系的题目。做报告的人种，有些是从美国，欧洲，亚洲和澳大利亚来的。还有些人是中国人。除了公司老板，中国政府官员和大学老师以外会议参与者大部分是公司的雇员。跟我一样。一共，会议参与者差不多两百位，这个会议举行了三天。它是政府安排的所以比较重要。

虽然我应该跟我的老板一起参加会议，因为开会的时候他还没好准备他的报告所以我就一个人参加。有的报告有意思有又用但是还有既没有意思又没用。听起来很想睡觉！可是报告者大部分说的内容很有用所以我学到了很多。我听中国人的说话的时候我需要用翻译机，不过听西方人说时刚不用。别人看着我觉得很奇怪，哈哈。为什么这个中国人需要用翻译机听汉语报告。

但是我这次去北京的感觉非常好。因为现在我中文水平有很大的提高，经验也就随之增多。我到了北京机场我可以告诉出租车的司机去哪儿。不用让他看名片儿。然后坐车的时候我能跟司机聊天。我以前来中国感觉很难受但是现在很幸福。我上次来北京是2004年。聊天的时候我知道了现在北京改变很大。发展也很多。比如今年北京的汽车到三百万。我的司机说，为了准备2008年的奥运会，政府已经决定将于明年把旧得出住车全部换掉。他说要像发达国家一样。

尽管会议期间比较忙，晚上的时候我也有机会去看我住在北京的朋友和我以前的同事。周六晚上我先跟我的老板一起去一家很有名的法国饭店。然后我以前在大连的朋友邀请我去一家非常受欢迎的迪斯科。我到的时候他们已经买了两瓶杜松子酒还有一瓶红酒。晚会结束时我们四个人把酒都喝光了！哎哟，醉得很厉害啦。而且我很幸运，我们碰见两个从大连来得特别漂亮的模特。不过我汉语不够流利所以十五分钟后已经没有题目跟他们说。我很遗憾.

周日我跟我以前的老伴和他的老板去吃午饭。他还在PricewaterhouseCoopers北京的公司工作。我们见面的时候我有点儿惊讶。虽然他们都是英国人可她们告诉我住在北京没有问题。很容易习惯，可能北京比大连更适合外国人居住。
虽然北京实在是好玩儿的地方可是我还是很想念大连。如果明年一月有机会再去的话，我会高高兴兴地去北京。