My 1st Business Trip

Last week, I was in Beijing for a 2 days business trip. I took a midnight flight and arrived in Beijing extremely early in the morning. I couldn’t really have a nice sleep in the flight as it was really crowded. Why there are so many passengers on a normal weekday? The food served on the plane wasn’t that appealing as well. The airport looked very misty.

As I reached, a young lady from the hotel was at the airport to get me. She brought me to the hotel limo and then the driver fetched me to the hotel. I find it a bit strange. Why doesn’t the driver get me from the airport and then fetch me to the hotel? Why they need 2 people?

The journey from the airport to the hotel was approximately 30 minutes. The signboards are mostly in Mandarin with some direct translation in English. Beijing is a much more modern and developed city than I thought. There are a lot of grand and huge buildings.

My first impression of the hotel is “wah, nice fountain!”. As hotel limo stopped, one of the bellboys opened the car door for me. He spoke to me in English. However, I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. Feeling a bit frustrated, I told him that I can speak Mandarin. There were a lot of customers around the lobby, mostly foreigners. They allowed me to check-in early and I headed straight to my room. They gave me a card for my luggage and the bellboy showed up shortly with my luggage after I entered my room, which was fast! Thank god, the room is not that big as I imagined (in the booking, it’s stated there – King-sized bed). I took a short nap and then prepared myself to the office in Beijing.

At first, I thought that both the office and the hotel are in the same building, Oriental Plaza. Actually, Oriental Plaza consists of a few blocks and the office is a few blocks away. I liked the buildings there; it’s well designed, but a bit squeamish. The temperature was just nice, a bit cold but not too dry.

My heart beat faster as I get nearer to the office. Yuan Jun was really busy as there were a few meetings going on in the office at that time. She showed me to the Visitor Area and I was seated there till my session. The internet connection was extremely slow. Since I got some buffer in between, I looked thru all my presentation slides once more to familiarize myself.

Yup, it’s my turn now! Shortly before my session Jun told me that there will be 35 participants and then she showed me the lists. Wow… it’s almost 2 times the amount of people I expected and some of them are in HDS longer than me! Now, I must make sure that I am mentally prepared for unforeseen questions. It has been a really long time since I have spoken with such a loud volume, to such a huge crowd and for so many hours. I noticed different facial expressions from different people for different topics that I have presented. I was trying to find out more about their thoughts and feedbacks while presenting. There was a lot more things to handle than I thought. In addition, I was given the “mission” to get to know more people and I am glad to say that I have really made some effort in this.

For lunch, I have them with Jun and Zhang Lu from Finance at Jun’s room. I really like the room - well organized, clean, glass cupboards for files and a glass window. Beijing food’s taste is a bit flat. Lu recommended me a few places to explore around.

Shortly before I leave, I found out who Maggie was (she helped me with the hotel reservation). She helped me to take photos around the office and assorted things (driver and showed me the way to “wang fu jin” street).

After work, I was the lone ranger, wandering around “wang fu jin” street for my dinner and did some shopping. I went to one of the famous Peking Duck shop in Beijing. There were a lot of customers and I waited for a while before someone served me with the menu. Then, it took some time for the order. Don’t think that everything is cheap in Beijing. The meal was quite expensive!