I do not know if this is becoming boring for my readers, all I can write about is what we are seeing and how we are living on our first trip to Beijing.  Thank you for your interest.

I didn’t realize that we would be treated to so many extraordinary experiences on this Genesys President’s Club Trip, several that seem to be unattainable for the general population of this country.  Our large group moved about the city and countryside in a procession of coach buses, with a police escort stopping traffic to let us pass through busy intersections and highways, as we set about to go somewhere.  We never waited meal service or museum entrance, everything was prearranged and prepaid.  Each evening when we returned to our room, a gift with a note of appreciation for the hard work of 2006 would be waiting.  They admin hosts guiding us through the week’s events seemed to want it to be lasting good impressions for us … we are sure we will have fond memories of Beijing (even though there is horrible pollution and smog, the worst I’ve ever seen.)  I witnessed firsthand the global influence and internationality of a large company, there were literally people from all over the world on our trip with beautiful accents:  England, Australia, South America, India, Canada, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Singapore, all parts of the US, I could go on and on, all speaking English.  It made for interesting conversations and observations, and everyone connected with ease and seem to have much in common.  We laughed about the Chenglish … mixing Chinese and American words or phrases:   “Don’t stroke the works” meaning “Don’t touch the paintings” and other phrases they are hoping to clean up before the Olympics next year.

To sum up our last day, we enjoyed an afternoon of shopping at the Silk Market which had much more than jewelry, in fact 5 floors of booths packed with bargains and all kinds of merchandise.  Haggling over price with the merchandise vendors brought both exhaustion and fun, and we became better at it with each purchase.  In the end, we decided to exit while we could, before we bought more things than we knew what to do with, just because there were bargains to be had. For our Beijing finale, the Genesys group enjoyed an outdoor cocktail hour on the terrace of Forbidden City overlooking the lowering of the Chinese flag at Tiananmen Square with hundreds of onlookers, and we were told that Richard Nixon was last person entertained behind this first gate of Forbidden City, it’s been closed since.  The semi-formal gala dinner that followed was at Great Hall of the People, the Chinese congress a couple of blocks down, which was a beautifully decorated grand ballroom.  In between dinner courses, talented and exotically costumed dancers and gymnasts entertained with dancing, balancing, flipping, even some intricate stunts on Indo Boards.  The executive management made ovational remarks for the success brought to the company by those on the club trip.  It was a fun evening in a place I will never forget!

My attempts to visit Beijing #80 High School (sadly) were unsuccessful.  The person I was to see was unavailable (Miss Li), you had to have an appointment, and they seemed to be impossible to get.  I tried calling numerous times, of course emailing requests for a tour before I left the States, I tried to hire an interpreter to go with me, visited numerous times with the Concierge about my possibilities … none of it worked out.  Our schedule didn’t give me much extra time, but I’m very disappointed not to see the highly regarded school, now I have a reason to return.