Wo, bu yao, xiexie!

Left to right: Forbidden City, Beijing; Victoria Peak, Hong Kong; Houhai Lake, Beijing; Taxi race to airport (3rd place); Downtown Hong Kong; Starbucks:green tea frappachino, Forbidden City; Great Wall of China; The gang, I don't remember where this was : ).

Eating in China

Well. There were plenty of times to be bold and order an exotic dish. I think I ate rat at some point during the trip. I could have been when I ate the tasty skewers of the back of a bike. I don't even care to know. The food was amazing. The Skewers were a great way to go. For 10 cents each you could order about 30 of them and fill your tummy. Other foods that I had never tried before were toad, jelly fish, and shark fin. My friend Joel has a great snake story. The food was great.

The Great Wall of China

I was able to visit two different sections of the Wall. It was like day and night different. My favorite part of the wall was the section that was left untouched by human hands for over 700 years. Many parts of the wall are now being redone... I guess you could say that they are rebuilding it. Adding cleaner stones and making look like it did 2000 years ago. If you have never wanted to visit China, I suggest you have a change of heart. It is an amazing place.

Back from China

The flight was one I was not looking forward to. Here is a great way to make the trip go by faster. Joel and I decided to befriend the flight attendant and see if we could help ourselves to the mini bar. It worked. We slept like babies.

Great Wall

Today is the day I have been waiting for since i signed up for this trip. we are going to the great wall. we will be there all day. I will take about 100 pictures. I have taken about 400 already.
Yesterday we went to the forbidden city. it was amazing. I bought an ice green tea frapachhino. It was great. I also got another massage. 20 bucks for a full boddy thai massage. life is good here. Thank you Bree!!!!! For supporting me on this great trip. I have so much to tell and share with you abaut this great Country. Okay off to breakfast.
Un beso,

Edu

Great Wall

Today is the day I have been waiting for since i signed up for this trip. we are going to the great wall. we will be there all day. I will take about 100 pictures. I have taken about 400 already.
Yesterday we went to the forbidden city. it was amazing. I bought an ice green tea frapachhino. It was great. I also got another massage. 20 bucks for a full boddy thai massage. life is good here. Thank you Bree!!!!! For supporting me on this great trip. I have so much to tell and share with you abaut this great Country. Okay off to breakfast.
Un beso,

Edu

Beijing

So we arrived yesterday. It was a long day. One of the guys on the trip got sick. He was not able to fly to beijing with us. His name is Jimmy. He got food illness, dehydration, and a blood clot in his leg went up into his lungs. He was shaking in his shoes at the airport. Doug was able to take him to the hospital and unfortunatly he will miss the rest of the trip. He is still in Beijin today and will fly back to the states tomorrow. Doug stayed there last night and should be arriving today to meet up with us. okay off to breakfast. I love you all. oh,.....
Beijing is a different place than any of the other cities we have visited. it's pretty mellow.


-edu

Shangri-La

Okay so I just got back from eating dinner at a very nice Japanese restaurante. It was great....sushi was on the menu. I was able to order a nice bottle of Rioja, Torres to be exact for 51RMB, which is about a 55 dollars. It was great. Real networks is paying for the dinner at the japaneses restaruant. It was about 300 dollars total. It's great to have connections, isn't it? We are now going out to see what Shanghi as in store for us on our last night.

okay...now for something funny. It can be said that someone has officially "Sharted" on the trip. It was great! I could not beleive it. It was every where. The house keeping had to come and clean it up....sick. Okay I will have to tell this story in person. I hope all is well in seattle. Oh, it rained today for the first time. It was nice to have under 90 degreee heat for a change.

okay , talk later,
edu

Shanghi

Last Night in Shanghai

Okay so We went for another massage, this time it was 90 minutes for just over 9 bucks. It was great. We then ate across the street form the Massage place, at a japanese restaurante. After that we went shopping. I managed to buy nice stuff, mostly for Bree. I have'nt bought much for myself. Tonight is Pizza night at Pizza HUt for those that are tired of chinese food. I will not be eating pizza here. INstead a group of us are going to the nice part of town to eat Sushi. It will cost about the same as in the states.
Last night we met with Christopher V. Horris, CTP, Vice President of General Electic in Shanghai, Capital Markets. It was great. We also met with the VP of Starubucks China. WOW! what a power couple. they use to live in bainbridge island a year ago. they now live in 3000 sq ft. condo in shangahi. life is good! they were treating us like kings, buying 60 USD bottles of wine. It's funny becasue, Doug, the Prof, was right there and he didn't say anything. I guess it dosen't bother him. Speaking of "D", Doug Downing. We have started to call him D now for obviouse reasons. He is such a great guy. I have come to like him more, and respect him more. Anyway. That is what went down last night. People went out and danced. I didn't. My buddy Joel, and I stayed behind and had a few beers on the street corner of the hotel, which happens to be infront of the Russian Consulate. GOod times. It sounds like people will want to go out tonight becasue it is our last night in Shanghi. We will probably go to "Park 97", a latin club. Apparently Chris, the VP for "GE" goes there with his wife. He is the one that told us about it. It is also near a lot of other clubs and nice bars. You maybe thinking...."what the hell is going on in shanghai"? ...."When do we have time to study"? Well. According to the Prof, he said that being out among the Locals is the greatest study we could have. Again, this is why everyone in the group has come to love "D". Okay, I need to get ready for our last night here.

I love you all. We leave tomorrow morning at about 10 am for Beijing. We will be there for 7 days. Next time you hear from me I will be in Beijing.

ciao, Edu

Massages and River Cruise

Today we had the first half of the day to ourselves so we decide to go into the streest of Shanghi looking for a foot massage. We found a great place not far from the river. It cost 78 yuan (8 U.S. dollars) for a 1 and a half hour full massage. It was amazing!!! It was so cheap. I could not belive it. A 9o min. massage cost 90 yuan just over 10 bucks. It was great, while we were there we were practicing our Cantonise and we in return were teaching the staff English words like, "relax, comforable, flip, feels good", it was great. The Massage was a perfect way to begin the day becasue at 1:30pm we were going on a River cruise of the Huangpu River. The river cruise was 3 hours. It took us to the mouth of the Yangiz river. I has to be the biggest river I have ever seen. Words simply can't explain. I will show pictures later. We are now, in about an hour going to meet with the Chinese rep. for Starbuks.
Got to go.
Talk to you guys later.
having a wonderful time.

love, edu

Shanghi Nights

Today was our first day of class. We had a 2 hour session about exchange rates and China, U.S. relations. Very interesting stuff. We then went and saw the amazing gardesn and went up to the Pearl Tower for Dinner. It tops the space needle. It was 20 bucks for the elevator ride up and a full buffet w/ drinks, fyi, it cost 15 bucks just to go up the space needle. We will be meeting with the the representative of Starbucks in China tomorrow for dinner. Starbucks is treating us to a French/ Chinese Dinner at an amazing restaurante.

China has to be one of the most amazing countries I have ever visited. We in the U.S., are so blinded by what the government says about this great country. More Americans need to come to this great place and have their assumptions put to rest. The people on the street are very friendly and are respectful of tourist. Even thought it's a communist country it is slowly moving away from this to a more free market economy. In a nut shell, the U.S., is very dependent on chinese imports and as long as we keep buying their products we will continue to have a good relationship with China. We owe them so much money too. They have been saving up millions of U.S. dollars. This all may not make sense becasue I'm just rambaling but if you do a bit of reading you will quickly see how dependent the U.S. is to Chinas enourmouse economy.

Anyway, tlak to you later.

edu

Hong Kong

Hong Kong :first day

This picture is of us the 1st day in Hong Kong. We are looking towards Hong Kong Island. We are standing on Kowloon, which is on mainland China. It is very interesting how Hong Kong is it's own separate country in a way, "Two countries, one system", is what it's reffered to. It was crazy hot all 3 days in Hong Kong, about 30 degrees celcius and humid.

Hong Kong.

We just left Hong Kong yesterday. It was amazing. Probably one of the richest cities I have ever been in. We took a funicular up to this peak and watched a light show. The buildings light up and flash all over the place. We are now in Shanghai. This place is great. There are about 15 million people here, twice as many as Hong kong. The city never sleeps. We are going to the Pearl Tower tonight for dinner. It is the version of the space needle here but better. We have been going out to clubs a lot and dancing. The group that I am with never sleeps. I sometimes have to be the designated tour guide becasue no one has a tour guide book. Anyway, I am left with having to decide were we hang out some nights. I have been taking tons of photos. You will love them.

Travel

Some photos of our travels in Europa!