Beijing

Back from the trip in Beijing.

It was cold but not as cold as I thought - most days I wore only my business coat..but of course my office is like next building from Zhao Long Hotel.

Infrastructure wise - it is so much better than Bangalore and this is the first place I did not see Indian staff in a IT office! Truly my last assignments in Bangalore are hardship cases:)

I had my assistant from Accenture Beijing, Ruan Hang and he is a humble and capable chap and a bunch of Oracle account managers from Hong Kong who were US citizens. So there you have it - a motley crew of chaps working together in an ancient capital of China where Kangxi and Qianlong once ruled. :)
Ruan Hang is the poor chap - always have to make sure our logistics is ok so we brought him out when we are doing business lunches and dinners. Brought him to HardRock Beijing and introduce him to burgers where he smoked a China cigarette and called it capitalist garbage ..the rest of us ROFL for minutes! Chap is from Qing Hua Uni ok...dont pray pray...and one of the Oracle chaps is a PHD in IEEE - I feel so inadequate sometimes :)

Wrapped up on Thursday evening and so went to Forbidden City (Gu Gong) on Friday morning.

The wonder of it - the vastness...you can only ... experience it when you stand in the open court and gaze at the structure...imagine the old officials of old as they make their way up to the imperial court...these were made to impress and intimidate...

Some pictures I took...