**This entry was supposed to be posted on 3 May but i have been too busy. Between the typing of this post and the date of posting (29 May), i travelled to China again for 10 days, which i might blog about. **
It has been some time since i blogged cos i have been in China for the whole of last week and China blocked Blogspot.
We were in Chengdu for 14 hours meeting clients before flying to Lijiang.
Lijiang looks like a place stuck in time cos they still have an old town (古城）that looks like a scene out of a period drama.
The hotel we stayed in was pretty modern actually.
After 22 hours in Lijiang, we flew to Nanjing. Man, that was a 6 hour journey due to a stopover. Damn. I shudder when i think of it now.
We arrived at the Nanjing hotel at 2am only to be told that the hotel was overbooked and they gave us the Presidential Suite which had two rooms. What the... it was so weird cos the Presidential Suite had a big living room so we just basically entered the room together and each went to a room. We stayed there for two nights and it was weird cos we didnt really "hang out" in the living room area and just stay holed up in our rooms. We BBM-ed each other instead. Like literally have a conversation like "Today was a good day ya.."
We managed to sign two LOIs after meeting the client for the first time at 10am that morning and ironing out all the details by 6pm. So that was a happy outcome for us.
WHOPPEE!
We went to Shanghai after Nanjing. My boss decided to use his own money and stay in one of the newer nicer hotels. After checking into my hotel, i went to pick him up from his hotel for a meeting. The traffic was quite bad due to the Expo but it was taking much longer than i knew it would and the surroundings were getting quite unfamiliar. So i asked the driver if she (yes, it's a lady driver :( ) knew where the hotel was. She replied emphatically "YES! My relatives have held many wedding dinners there. In fact i was there two weekends ago!"
Alarm bells just rang in my head. How can a taxi driver and her family afford weddings in one of the nicest new hotels in Shanghai? To cut the long story short, after driving for 15 more minutes, she brought me to a lousy ass hotel which has the same chinese name as the one my boss was staying. Needless to say, i was late and not a happy camper. :(
