I just got back from a trip to China. The trip was primarily for business, but I managed to have a bit of fun. I signed up for this Blogger account when I was in China, but then I had trouble accessing the site, so I was not able to publish the blogs while I was traveling.

I flew into Beijing and stayed there for 4 days. While I was there I met with some friends but didn’t really do any sightseeing. The weather was a bit cold and always overcast and hazy. I did see the new Olympic Stadium, which is under construction. They call it the birds nest.

Over the weekend I flew down to Shenzhen (near Hong Kong). I was in Shenzhen for 6 days. Again, it was mostly meetings, but I did get to relax over the weekend. I also spent a few hours at a park called Windows of the World. It one of those parks where there are models of famous landmarks from around the world. Some of them were really small, and some, like the Eiffel Tower, were quite big (around 1/2 scale).

I ate a lot of good food in China. Mostly Chinese, but some Japanese and Western food as well. I always eat too much on these trips. We always order a bunch of dishes to share - usually way more than we need. I also looked for pearl tea everywhere, and ordered one nearly every place I found it.

I arrived home this morning. I left Shenzhen via the SkyPier Ferry to the Hong Kong Airport. The ferry left from SheKou at 10 AM. I was at the airport by 10:40. My flight was at 1:40 PM, so I had plenty of time to check in and eat lunch before the flight. It was really convenient taking the ferry. It’s probably the fastest way to get to the Hong Kong airport from Shenzhen. The immigration lines are much shorter, plus, since you never really go to Hong Kong proper, you get a refund on the Hong Kong airport tax!