At the zoo

One more tourist


The Entrance


Getting to the Panda

More Pictures

It's a Saturday and it's time to go around the city. Today the plan is go to the zoo and see the panda bear. No cab rides this time. Do as the locals do - take the subway. Here are pictures I took today.

Where I stay when in town - Marriott Beijing City Wall


Reminds me I'm far away from home


3-levels of McD


DQ's are usually red

Anything - Just to learn English

I've been in several bookstores in Beijing, including the ones located at the airport. You will see that the Chinese are very keen on learning English. There are hundreds of books, videos and other materials that they are buying just to learn English.

There are aisles full of books on grammar, Technical English, Business English, and English for Tourists. You'll see just about every available learning tool for English. There are DVDs of American TV shows and CNN broadcasts - apparently to get one's ear to get used to sound of the spoken language.

Watch "Friends" and learn English


There's probably better learning materials than these 2 shows

Makati Skyline

I'm staying at the Renaissance for 4 nights before heading back to China. Here are pictures that I took from my room and from the concierge lounge. Click on the pictures to view the full image.

View from room towards NAIA


Familiar structures: Landmark, Shangri-la, PLDT, The Peninsula, Mandarin Oriental, Pacific Star


The pool (Greenbelt 3 is the building the across the street)


More skyline

One More Trip

Here I am at LAX, waiting for my flight to Tokyo. Took a picture of a Boeing 747 right beside our gate.


The 747 that took me from Tokyo/Narita to MNL.

Unrelated: Food and Non-Food Topic

Carving a Beijing Duck


Everytime I go connect through the Tokyo/Narita airport, I go to this small place the serves Japanese noodles ("udon"). After being confined in an airplane for many hours, a hot bowl of udon is very refreshing. Here's what I ordered today - udon with thin slices of beef. If you're wondering if the beef was trimmed of the fat, this is Asia so the fat is there. You should taste the broth. Highly recommended. If you are a vegetarian, be a carnivore for a couple of minutes and try it.


Nothing to do with food. These are some of the Japanese ground staff at NRT. It's about 2:30 pm on a Saturday and they are on the airport tarmac exercising. Of course, they do this in-between arrival and departure of airplanes. That would be so annoying to wait for a long time for your luggage only to find out that the baggage handlers are doing jumping jacks.

Snow

It has been snowing for the past 2 days and will continue till tomorrow. Northern China has not had any rain in a while so any precipitation is welcome. There's not a lot of accumulation but the locals are totally fine with it.

View from office window


Office grounds

Beijing Duck and McD

"Beijing" is the Chinese name of Beijing while "Peking" is the corresponding English name. So "Peking duck" is the same thing as "Beijing duck". If you are in Beijing and you ask people where you can get "Peking duck", they probably will say, ah.. you mean "Beijing Duck". Anyway, here it is just before it disappeared within 30 minutes.


Tried McD for the very first time in Beijing


The selection


And I was told not to take pictures. Too late.


Big Mac

Signs

I went to a bookstore today and you can't miss this sign on the door. A timely reminder to the millions of people who have difficulty opening doors in places other than home.


Name of a store


And they do have a branch here

Visiting the Summer Palace - In Winter

Despite having a partially frozen lake, the Summer Palace is still worth a visit in this cold weather.

Click to see Pictures

The Water Cube

I also went to the Water Cube today.

Click to see the pictures

Bird's Nest

Earlier, we went to Beijing's National Stadium, a.k.a. "the Bird's Nest" , the site of the 2008 Olympics.

Click to see some of the pictures

More Pictures

Here are some pictures that I took while walking around the downtown area.

Click to see the slideshow

Guitar

I probably need to bring one of my guitars here - or I have to buy one here in Beijing. I've been itching to play for a while now. Anyway, here are a couple of songs that involve Dominic Miller (a favorite guitar player), Chris Botti (trumpet) and Sting that I enjoy playing, alone or with friends.

Small USB drives... really small

USB drives (a.k.a flash drives, thumb drives, jump drives, etc) are small. When I saw one of these mini-USB drives, I knew I had to get one. They're smaller primarily because it's just the part that slides into a USB slot and does not have the silly, bulky case that we all know. Today I went to that part of the city that specializes in selling computers and all things related to it.

I bought 3 USB drives (capacity 2 GB each): one for myself, one for my girl, one for my boy. They'll be using these for their school work. The white one has a panda design and the red has an ox design. The bottom picture shows the drive in its "pouch" when not in use. The size is not obvious from the picture so I need to compare it with something else.


The USB drive beside a passport


Compared to a pen

Hotel Switch

I'm now staying downtown. Previously, I was staying at a hotel that was much closer to work. However, there was hardly any life in that location. Downtown means more options for restaurants, shops and proximity to the subway so we can go places without having to deal with possible communication problems with cab drivers. Here are some pictures:





Sitting Area


Welcome Gift


Nighttime view from the room

Pictures

These pictures were taken when I left Beijing for a 1-week stay at home because of the Chinese New Year.

The hotel was decorated with fruit-bearing plants. Not sure if these are clementines, oranges or calamansi.


Waiting for check-in at the Beijing Airport for my flight to Newark.


One of the books that Marlene gave me on my recent trip to Manila.

Ice - inside my room

Everytime I get back to my hotel room, I login to check work email and Skype the family back home. The desk is close to the window and I've been hearing cracking sounds every night this week. I've been ignoring any noise that I hear because each night, there are firecrackers and fireworks (Chinese New Year) around the vicinity of the hotel - and these are loud.

This time, I checked the source of the "noise". Ice formed around the window frame because it's just way too cold outside. It's 10 F (-12 C) outside, and it has just been cold here. Since I've turned on the heater, some of the ice has started to melt, thus the cracking sound. Here are a couple of pictures:

Ice around the window


A closer look


On an unrelated topic, these are pictures taken this past weekend. Click

Forbidden City - again

I took an officemate (from the US) on a tour of the Forbidden City. After the tour, we walked towards Tianenmen Square and proceeded to Beijing's shopping district.

Click here to see the pictures from today

The Great Wall - again

I'm back in Beijing and will be here till the 3rd week of Jan. My officemate from Los Angeles has not been here before and asked if it was okay to accompany her to the Great Wall. The Badaling Great Wall is about a 40-minute trip from where we are staying (Loong Palace Hotel) so this morning, we asked the hotel to arrange a cab to take us there, wait and take us back to the hotel.

Click here to see the pictures from this morning (increase the intervals to at least 6 seconds)