Asia

Well.. since it has been awhile.. I thought I should catch all of you up on my crazy life.. In the past three weeks... I have been in 7 countries ( 8 after tomorrow) in the past three weeks..

On March 4th.. I left Danny at home to fend for himself.. and flew to Tokyo for a quick work presentation.. although I must say I highly recommend not scheduling a work dinner on the night you land.. especially if you are the only one at the dinner who will be jet lagged.. I almost fell asleep at the table..

However.. for the week after that... I met Jenba in Bali.. which was a great time..

But the story for the day is in Beijing..

Robin and I decided to try and go see the Great Wall.. but convinced we would not be the normal tourist who either takes a tour bus or arranges a taxi.. we thought we will go the local route (which is also much cheaper.. 3 bucks instead of 40).. So we asked at our hotel about the local buses and as usual they tried to sell us a tour and explained a local bus would be quite diffucult.. we finally got the bell boy to try and point us in the right direction..

I must admit we did get a little lost going to the subway.. and may have had a little trouble finding the bus station after the subway.. but after asking "Badaling?" Badaling" a few times.. we finally found the green and white "fast" bus to the great wall (Note there is a fast bus with no stops for $2 and a slow bus with several stops for $1.. we figured we could "splurge").. so we made it the great wall.. it is amazing to just see this wall going up the mountain.. plus knowing over 1 million people died just tryign to build this wall is incredible.. although i worried people still die just climbing it.. (these climbs are not made for people over 5 feet tall.. all the handrails seem more like footrails and it is quite steep).. but we made it up and down.. and even found the local starbucks to get a caramel mnacchiato after our climb.. yes there was a starbucks :)

However much to my surprise the bigger challenge of the day was getting back to beijing.. we easily found the "fast" bus back.. however for a reason we could not figure out every kept getting off the bus and on to other buses.. we eventually figured out that the bus driver said the bus would not leave until it was completely full and so everyone ws boarding the slower buses.. well needless to say after waiting 20 minutes.. we met another american and decided to split a cab back.. i wish you could have seen our cab.. it had no a/c.. oh and only four gears. and was slower than a bus.. plus it was illegal.. so we could not get out just anywhere.. but after much frustration.. i threw some money at the guy and jumped out at a light once we hit the city..

so in summary.. maybe it does make sense to stick to a tour :) oh but what fun would that be..

check bac soon and i will post pics from the rest of the trip.. to bali, seoul, shen zhen, beijing, kuala lumpur, singapore and malaysia.