Around-the-World Wrap-Up

This trip was a blast, but I also learned a lot taking it. The things I learned, however, were not the types of things that you learn in a classroom, but rather were the type of things that you can only learn by being somewhere and experiencing a place, supplementing formal education rather than being a substitute.

While some of the places I visited seemed quite different from home and naturally quite foreign nothing that I saw was really that different than I or any rational person would do if they lived in the same place and operated under the same laws and economic conditions as the people in the countries I visited. Its amazing nonetheless how many different sets of laws and economic conditions people live under.

If you’ve read all or some of what I’ve written and are now thinking about how you take a similar trip, please don’t hesitate to ask me for advice. The truth is that its not really that hard to do. You just need to be courageous enough to decide that you want to do it and there are ways in almost every American’s life to find the time and financial resources necessary to do it. One suggestion that I think is important to make, however, is to travel alone since while I was a little hesitant of doing so to start out with, it made my experience a lot better in many places as I was able to interact with local people in ways that I was not able to during the portions of the trip when I was traveling with other people.

Still to come (in the next few days of when/if I have time):
1) Pictures
2) The trip by the numbers
3) “Best of” list from the trip

China Wrap-up

Traveling in China it is hard not to come away without seeing mostly good things especially when you are traveling with a tour guide as we were. This brings me back to the India-China comparison, which still seems silly if you’ve been to both countries, but still worth mentioning again in this context. I the big difference between China and India is that its hard to see the good things that are happening with India’s technology services revolution since a few people are becoming rich and then building walls around themselves to insulate themselves from the rest of India; whereas in China it seems that a larger number of people are benefiting from their technology manufacturing revolution.

Other observations:
1) China is a very dynamic place. Changes in China are very evident even in a short period of time as I can tell that things have changes a lot since being there three years earlier.
2) Many people in China are clearly now living a first world life. There are still a lot of people that aren’t but they seem to be getting some of the benefits of development nonetheless.
3) Tourism in China is on the rise. Both domestic tourism and international tourism seem to be increasing and this should have some serious implications going forward as people from different parts of China and the rest of the world become more familiar with and comfortable with the country as a whole.

Day 93 (7 September): Flying Home

I took an early taxi to the Beijing airport and made my way through immigration/customs where I received the last stamp of the trip on my passport putting it two stamps shy of being full. I then waited for my flight which departed and arrived on-time putting me back in San Francisco several hours on the same day before I left Beijing (thanks to the cool little trick of crossing the international date line.)

Observations:
1) Longest lines to leave a country yet. I spend two full hours in immigration lines to leave Beijing.
2) Renminbi conversion. I didn’t have receipts from converting dollars into RMB at the airport so to convert the Chinese currency back to USD I had to go through the black market which isn’t hard to find since the black-market money-changers wait by the official counters and charge almost the identical rate. In fact, some other people I saw avoiding the real currency counter line since the black market one was faster.
3) Fat people. This is always the first thing I notice when I come back to the US and the same was true this time.

Day 92 (6 September): The Great Wall

Today we toured the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs and the sacred road to the Ming Tombs.

Observations:
1) Imposter goods. We went to a government-factory shop today where the guy told us to beware of buying imposter goods. I found this amusing since China is know for being a source of imposter goods and some people travel to China explicitly to buy them.
2) Traffic jams are common now in Beijing. They are working on expanding the subway, but things are only going to get worse given that a very small percentage of the population actually owns cars and that the number is going to start growing rapidly sometime soon.
3) Bikes set up improperly. Despite the large number of people riding bikes in Beijing and elsewhere in China, it seems that no one knows how to properly adjust the seat heights so that people’s legs are nearly straight at the bottom of the pedal stroke. You would think that if people were riding bikes everyday they’d want to set them up in the most comfortable and efficient way possible.

Day 91 (5 September): Forbidden City

We arrived in Beijing early in the morning after taking the overnight train. We spent the day seeing Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Temple of Heaven. Along the way our guide took us into various government-sponsored factory shops for silk, perals, and tea. In the evening we saw a Peking Opera production.

Observations:
1) The manager of the tea shop was trading stocks behind the counter. When I asked him about it he said its how he spends most of his day.
2) Tourist overload. Compared to when I was in Beijing three years ago and at the same sights there is a complete overload now. China has definitely seen a tourist explosion. In fact, there are so many tourists now that seeing these major sights in Bejing is almost unpleasant now. Three years ago in parts of the Forbidden City you could be alone; now you are elbow-to-elbow with people fighting to make there way through it.
3) Corner bike repair shops. Instead of car repair shops bike repair shops for quick flat fixes abound in Bejing. This makes getting a minor problem fix easy and keeps the bike traffic flowing.
4) The relative ‘richness’ of Bejing to the rest of China seems to have decreased in the last couple of years at least based upon the places I went this time (which were different than last time) except for Bejing.