July 30, 2008 Ni hao from Beijing...where the sky is definitely gray, but the air has been surprisingly fine to breathe. Well, I made it. My trip started off with a chance meeting with Darryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins (former 76er) in the terminal in Philly, where he blessed my trip to China. You can't make this stuff up. My 13 hour plane ride from Chicago to Beijing was long, but I was very thankful for Tylenol PM's. My body clock is still very screwed up, so I woke up at about 5am wide awake today. After a short introductory meeting this morning with all of the people working on the Visa program, I went with my Account Manager Thomas to the Bank of China to pick up all of the 15,000 or so tickets for Visa. The Bank of China is a legit bank. Security guards everywhere who stare at pretty much everyone as if they are doing something illegal. It probably didnt help my cause that I was wearing a Red Sox shirt and cargo shorts - I couldnt have looked more American - but I just smiled and strolled along. So Thomas and I met our two "security guards" at the bank, who were hired to escort us from the vault to the car and back to our offices at the hotel. Needless to say, I was bigger than both guards, and neither of them had any weapons - polo shirts and pants was their dress of choice. Nice fellows though. Once in the bank, we went down about five hallways and onto two elevators before arriving at the safety deposit vault. I had visions of Oceans 11...the vault door was circular and larger than life, and we had to go through airport-type security to enter the vault. Pretty cool. After returning to our hotel, me and my Australian assistant Cassidy spent the rest of the day and evening beginning to inventory our massive amount of tickets. This is going to be quite an undertaking. It is about 8:30pm now and I am going to have dinner in the hotel and try to stay up as late as possible to try and get my body on Beijing time. PS - My first plate at the breakfast buffet this morning consisted of an omelette, sausage, fried rice, noodles and a croissant. Heaven. Until next time... -Nino |
