The Beijing arrival
I arrived in Beijing late last night coming off a fairly uneventful trip from Seattle. I flew through Tokyo and everything was on time so my transfer through the Narita airport was painless.
Flying business class both legs sure makes flights this long much easier to stomach. I’m always amazed at how cushy flying business class is and I feel like I’d gain 10 lbs per trip if I flew more often this way. The sheer amount of food and booze they provide you is enough to feed an entire 3rd world country. Having said that, who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth? 2 minutes after I sit in my seat on my first leg out of Seattle, I have a glass of white wine in one hand and am eating off an assorted cheese plate with the other. Tough life, eh?
Whenever I have a transfer on a big trip like this, I’m always afraid they’re going to lose my luggage in transition. There I was, standing at luggage carousel #4 waiting for my bag and about 2 dozen bags came out before I started to get a bit squeamish. Just when I thought things were heading south, the luggage beast spit my bag out on the conveyor belt. Hallelujah! Thankfully my bag is this weird gray and black camo print so it was easy to identify in the endless stream of bags shooting by.
After exiting the secured luggage area, I entered the madness of what is the arrival terminal of the Beijing airport. People are yelling everything you can imagine (and not imagine) in Mandarin and English and the scene is completely chaotic. I scanned the rows and rows of people for the driver that was supposed to pick me up, but alas, he was nowhere to be found. I waited around for about 20 mins, then at the point where I thought I’d have to corral a taxi on my own, I spotted a guy walking into the terminal with a sign with huge block letters “Trevan Cho Microsoft“. Yup, that’s me.
The driver didn’t speak a lick of English, but thankfully the Beijing office pre-paid and gave the instructions to take me to the Jade Palace hotel. At this point, I was dying from jet lag falling in and out of sleep the entire ride to my hotel. The Jade Palace hotel is quite nice the rooms remind me of a W hotel — very modern looking without being overbearing. The only reason I know I’m not in a W hotel in the US is that every TV station is in Mandarin and all the light switches make no sense. I still haven’t figured out a way to turn off the lights when I sleep without going to each and every lamp and flipping their switches individually.
I started work bright and early this morning heading into the Microsoft Beijing office at 8am. Unfortunately, my 2 contacts didn’t arrive until 9am and the security guard at the reception desk didn’t speak English. Thankfully I had my Zune with me, so I just listened to some tunes in the waiting area for an hour.
After people started to stream in at 9am, I was finally let into the 3rd floor and got an introduction to the team I’m training on this trip. Everyone is super friendly on the team and eagerly attended my first presentation on the super exciting topic of Security Threat Modeling (weee!). The presentation was nearly 2 hours when coupled with Q&A, so it was a pretty packed morning. I spent the rest of the day reviewing the team’s specs and meeting one-on-one with a few of the PMs for some feedback and mentoring.
Tomorrow is another early morning with my first meeting at 8am. Since I can now get in the building with my own key card, I won’t have to wait around like a vagrant in the lobby this time. I’m hoping tomorrow night I’ll be able to head out somewhere, and also plan the rest of my week. I haven’t been able to take any photographs yet since all I’ve been to is my office and my hotel room so far, so I’m getting a bit anxious. Luckily I’ve found out that several of the guys on the team are photo enthusiasts, so I’ll be able to get some tips on great places to shoot in the city!
PS — It’s colder than heck here with the wind really making it horrible. I have no idea how to dress here since I walk to work and it’s like 20 degrees outside and yet they keep the office about 75 so I’m sweating when I’m inside. God help me.
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