Things that happen in China

Posted on 2009/03/14 12:23:43 (March 2009).

[Tuesday 9th - Saturday 14th March 2009]

the trip is taking me further into Asia, this time I got to Zhongshang by boat from Hong Kong. From there a series of 1 day stops, first in Dongguan then Guangzhou to end up in Beijing for two nights.

I am working every day now, even today and tomorrow (when I also move to Shanghai), this is one of the hardest business trips that I have ever done so far. And it's not even at its half yet!! I still have two more weeks to go, but in Japan at least I will have the weekend to recover...

Coming to China this has to be recorded as one of the most unlucky trips ever under the services in Zhongshang the room that I was given had a problem with the electrical system and it took them half an hour to figure out that it was better to give me another room, shame that I didn't have time to prepare or anything and I had to rush for dinner after the boat trip...

In Beijing the unlucky spell intensified, first I was given a room that was ALREADY OCCUPIED (and I found out by chance just before I was leaving it), technically I was given an "upgrade" for the inconvenience, but in fact the only thing that was upgraded was the floor (from 6th to 7th) as the room was exactly the same as the previous one.

Then I tried to go to see the forbidden city, after we worked all morning on Saturday at one of our shops to do the visual display of our products, in the shop (an Italian department store) I was offered lunch but they forgot to bring my stuff, even if I asked TWICE...
Then I rushed to Tien-an-min square to the forbidden palace to find out that I arrived JUST IN TIME to see it closing...

To cap it all off the taxi driver back to my hotel didn't know the way, he took me to the opposite direction and then moved me to another taxi that knew the way and got back to the hotel after 1 hour...

I really hope that I have seen the end of all this misfortune because frankly speaking I have had enough... Still I never got upset, I never screamed at them or anything, I am behaving like a perfect Englishman under that point of view!

What is the perfect Englishman.... if not someone who says "fuck off" while singing God Save the Queen, a cup of tea in one hand and a horse whip in the other?

Posted by Sheri at 2009/03/17 19:10:00.

Sheri: Nope, I thought of the perfect Englishman as someone depicted by Monty Python in a famous sketch, where a guy is run over by a car, the driver is American. Although the bike rider was clearly injured badly he keeps saying "sorry" for the incident and eventually walks away all dead and battered. Genius!

Posted by Lox at 2009/03/17 23:18:53.

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