Arrival

The Beijing airport is huge. I think it was built in the last 5 years for the Olympics and has very striking architecture.

My company arranged for person to meet me at the gate to take me thru customs and baggage claim. He was maybe 19 or 20 and spoke pretty good English. He asked me if I had a muscle car in the States as he like to "drive" a Shelby Mustang in his favorite video game.

The aiport was pretty empty. Not sure why - perhaps because of the volcano or the time of day. The Chinese are defintely embracing the whole market driven economy. Even the customs counter had buttons to measure your level of satisfaction with the check thru process (I pressed the smiley face).

The hotel had a car sent to pick me up so I got a glimpse of the city as the sun was setting. It's hard to tell where the 'center' is --- it's just like miles and miles of 10-40 story high-rises.

There is definitely a boom-town vibe though. You see a lot of new construction and advertising for new luxury apartments. There are also a lot of new cars on the freeway, particularly Audi's, VW's and Buick's (of all things).

I am staying in the Financial District which looks to be all new constuction. The hotel is very nice and they ran out of standard rooms so I got an upgrade to a jr suite. They gave me some champagne at check in and I almost fell asleep and spilled it all on the white couch. My goal was to stay awake as long as possible and go to sleep near 9 PM Beijing time so I could acclimate to the 12 hour time change.