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nicoladoeschina · 5 years

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Beijing Business Trip aka Mini Holiday :) Oct 27-31

Beijing isn’t really known for its sunsets, or sunrises for that matter.

So when I saw some amazing skies this weekend, I knew it was special.

Marveling the beautiful Beijing skies was like pressing pause.

Especially after a whirlwind of a week starting my new job at Yili.

But lucky me, I got to take a “business trip” back to Beijing for a long weekend.

On Saturday morning, October 27, I got off the overnight train at Beijing Railway Station.

I slept for nearly the entirety of the nine and a half hours, and was ready to load my Saturday with friends and fun.

I made my way through the throngs of people outside the station, and onto to the subway headed to my hostel in Sanlitun. Beijing was considerably warmer than Hohhot – so walking the final 1000m stretch in all my layers with my bloated backpack was a tiring! Yoga House, Beijing was where I stayed. It is absolutely STUNNING. The owners converted their two-story corner apartment in Yongli Plaza to a yoga hostel! The views over the Workers stadium, of GuoMao business strict, and along Gongtibei Lu towards the mountains west of Beijing was to die for. I definitely made the right choice.

I took a truly lovely, much needed shower, and was back on the road. This time, headed to Dennis’ rugby match out by the airport. I biked to the airport express, shot over to the airport, then took a taxi to the pitch at Dulwich International School.

It was the perfect day for rugby – blue skies and crisp autumn sunshine.

Dennis’ team, the Beijing Devils, pummeled the opposing side. No surprise. They’re the best team in Beijing. This was the third time I saw them play. The first time was in Beijing October 2016 when I came up from Nanjing to visit, then in Shanghai December 2016 when I popped over from Nanjing to join their tour (SO MUCH FUN – I’m talking lots of rugby, lots of beer, lots of players accepting awards with a make-out, lots of tour virgins in drag, lots of superhero costumes, and ME). You could say I’m a pretty committed fan.

Anyway, after the match we took the team bus back to the city, and went to Dennis’ apartment to freshen up before going to the team’s bar, Schillers, for their pub quiz that night.

Coincidently, the joker cards during the quiz were from the Shanghai 2016 tour – and our card was Frazier, whose virgin-drag outfit I helped fix that night. He was Beautiful, and I remember so clearly at the rugby match awards dinner him singing Can You Feel the Love Tonight from the Lion King – winning the praise of the ladies and NOT having to strip naked.

So trivia was great! But as midnight came around, I was insanely exhausted. I walked like a zombie the wrong direction home for 20 mins before realizing it, then had to walk all the way back home. It should’ve been a 15-minute affair. My eyes were about to fall out of my face. I made it home and crashed HARD.

Sunday I decided to sleep in and rest. After all, it was my first real break day after getting back to China, period!

For lunch, my friend from uni, Yasser, picked me up and we went for Turkish doner and coffee in Sanlitun. YUMM!

After we parted, I went on a nice walk around Sanlitun. Lots of fun things to see.

I went back to Yoga House and was treated to a beautiful panorama sunset. The clouds !!!! Amazing.

After taking in the views, I biked over to Guomao to have beers with Ricky at BeerSmith. It was definitely more upscale, but not as good as Slow or Great Leap.

It’s in the China World Mall, across from the CTV Tower, aka Pants building.

It was nice seeing Ricky! He’s a traveler like me so we can talk forever, but we were smart and didn't stay out too late.

Monday morning I literally rose with the sun. When I walked downstairs the sunrise before me was absolutely incredible. And I had all the views to myself. So SO so so SO beautiful.

Once the sky reached a uniform calm blue hue, I curled up with my book for some morning reading.

At 11am I was scheduled to go to Slow Boat Brewery, where I interned the year before, to hang out with my former boss, Chandler, and the master brewer, Daniel. What I thought would be a few hours – I planned to go to the tea market after – turned into the WHOLE day! Daniel and I had such a great time chatting about so much random stuff. Around 1pm, we did a tour of the brewery with the Chengdu brewers that were in town – so that’s when the beers started flowing. After that, Daniel had me sample a lot of their new beers, and we eventually made our way to the roof to bask in the sunshine. It wasn’t until 4pm that we decided it was time to go home. Some take-aways: baby cows are like puppies, terroir, darker teas actually have MORE caffeine than the lighter colored ones, and Daniel needs to run a pub quiz. #Knowledge.

Afterwards, I went to LingErJiu for my very favorite youpomian – super fat noodles topped with pork, bean sprouts, bok choy, carrots, and of course hot chillies – and roujiamo – a shredded pork sandwich. YUM! It was delicious, but I also remember why eating it once a week last spring made me fat. Truth.

That evening, I had arranged for Dennis and Doc to meet. Dennis will assume teaching the Doc while I’m in Hohhot. At 6pm we met at Beijing Union Medical College for our lesson together. The Doc was delayed by an emergency surgery, so Dennis and I hung out with his assistant, who likes to go by the nickname Little Shrimp. She’s adorable.

The Doc finally joined us. He and Dennis really hit it off! Dennis actually knows a lot of anatomy owing to his rugby life. We chatted about the Doc’s upcoming conference and made great progress!

Around 8:30pm we left the hospital with Little Shrimp, and two of the doctors colleagues for some beers and light snacks nearby. It was a fun time!

Afterwards, Dennis and I hopped on some OFO bikes, which were all broken by the way, F U OFO! But we finally found properly working ones. Dennis and I were headed the same direction and had a great chat biking home! Love him!

It was late when I got back, and I hit the pillow hard in anticipation for a working day.

Tuesday morning I woke early to prepare to head down to Yili’s office in the southern-eastern quarter of Beijing proper. The morning was packed with presentations given by group that was just finishing up their training period.

The 60 trainees were divided into 8 teams that had to come up with ideas about new marketing and sales strategies for given Yili products. The groups all did great jobs, and really got to showcase their creativity. One group wanted to pitch a new yogurt product as a cure for spicy and oily hotpot. Another group wanted to link soybean milk to beauty of traditional Chinese small towns. I was impressed!

For lunch, we went to the basement cafeteria. It’s very interesting how basically every office building in China has a food court. I think on one hand it’s convenient, but on the other hand, it’s too closely integrating work/the work place into break time. There’s not a great division between work and private life here in China.

After lunch we went back upstairs for the afternoon program. We watched a video about Yili’s culture.... which is part comical and part infuriating.

Basically, the video was a compilation of professional speakers talking about “Yili Spirit.” One Yili delivery man left his family behind in Shanxi province, to travel 4000km to deliver Yili’s milk to families in need. He persevered despite wind and rain and cold – to get that milk to its destination! Yili Spirit!!!!! They even played “You Raise Me Up” during the presentation...

Then there was another speaker who literally showed a picture of a rainbow and discussed how there’s beauty after a storm, just like how if you work hard, you will create beautiful things!!!!!! Omggggggggggggg!!!!!!! I laughed a LOT. But also WTF.

When the onslaught of ridiculousness finally stopped, we had some free time before the dinner party in the evening.

ZhenZhen and I headed over to the Panjiayuan Antique Market. It was way cooler than expected! There was a whole slew of traditional Chinese products, ranging from meditation walnuts, to porcelain, to paintings, to polished jade in every color you could imagine.

I LOVED it! I now know where to go to furnish my apartment in Beijing when I finally move there in mid-January.

At 6pm we joined the festivities. It was an evening of good food and good company. Each of the small groups had made up some song or dance. SO CUTE! Then there were some people that sang or danced individually. All in all, everyone was SO talented!!! I was really really impressed and humbled.

I love this aspect of Chinese culture where everyone is so supportive and ready to showcase their abilities. It’s very common at dinner parties to celebrate with their talents, good food, and many many toasts where everyone stands to chink glasses and even move around to different tables to toast with everyone. Why don’t we do that at dinner parties in Western culture? It’s great! I’m going to make it happen.

When the festivities ended, everyone said their teary, semi-drunken goodbyes – the training program was over for that group and some were headed down to the Shanghai branch.

Around 9pm I hopped onto a bike to make my way up to Beixinqiao to meet Berit for some beers. It took FOREVER on the 3rdring road. Ugh. But finally I made it.

She took me on her scooter over to Side Street, formerly known as Ron Mexico. Who did we see outside, but Ian! My former classmated from UIBE, and Tom’s best bud besides yours truly. What a coincidence!

Then two of Berit’s friends also met us, and we grabbed a table. There was a pub quiz in progress, and we joined the last round – music! Sexual Healing and Biggie Smalls made an appearance. Good times! I did a lot of heckling.

Then the four of us went over to Great Outdoors. It’s a hiking/outdoorsy themed hutong bar nearby. Very very cool vibes! By midnight, I was falling asleep so Berit drove me home on her scootie! WEEEEEE!! Riding with friends on scooters in Beijing is one of my favorite things. I absolutely love biking, but you can’t go two or three people on one bicycle. Scootin in Beijing is love.

When I arrived back at Yoga House, I promptly hit the pillow.

The next morning, Halloween!, I rose early-ish because at 9:00am I had to make my way over to Beijing West Railway station for my 11am train back to Hohhot. First I walked around to pick up snacks for the nine and a half hour train ride, then I headed out. First I biked to Chaoyangmen, then hopped on the subway. Beijing West is quite far away with a transfer in the middle, but I made good time.

On the train I alternated between reading, sleeping, and snacking. The time passed in a cinch. One complaint about the slow trains in China, however, is that everyone smokes in-between the cars. The smoke stays trapped inside. I hate being smoked-out on the train. Otherwise it’s quite comfortable even in the hard-sleepers, where they give ample blankets and pillows.

SO, that was my first business trip that was 90% mini holiday with friends, and 10% business. I am so grateful !!!!!!!! I love Beijing, I love all of my amazing friends, and I love everything I’ve worked so hard to build during my time there that brought me HERE. To this crazy roller coaster ride of my first job.

Love all around!

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