A colleague of mine on the project lives in Beijing came by the hotel and picked me up for a hot-pot dinner. Those are flowers that I’m holding that went into the hot pot along with mushrooms, tofu, green leafy veggies and little hand-rolled balls of ground beef, pork and chicken. The liquid in the pot is actually a mushroom soup .. all very very good! (Did I have some famous Beijing duck? asked people back at work. No – I’ll catch the duck next time. Best to be part of a group since in many restaurants they serve up a whole duck). The spectacular arch building belongs to China Central Television (CCTV) and is in the central business district. The ones on the next picture are from banks and insurers.
After dinner we stopped at a plaza called The Place also in the Beijing CBD. The LED screen was the biggest in the world at one time. (I suspect the four-screen high-definition LED display that now hangs above the center of the pitch in the Dallas Cowboys’ football stadium is bigger. Or is there a bigger one already in Dubai?) And check out the welcoming message on the screen that my colleague texted to me from his phone !
The final picture is of the Forbidden City’s entrance at night.
