My apologies for not writing sooner. I have been a very busy boy. I'll make up for it by making this the longest post in the world.

Let me take you back to Christmas. Actually, that was a pretty boring day. No presents, no family/friends - just me and Jess and a turkey and gravy. Yum! Lets talk about my trip to China instead!

First - here are the pictures that I took.
Later I may have pictures that other people took, but for now- here are mine. Feel free to browse them as you read this post.
Also - you may want to grab a snickers. You're gonna be here a while!

Ok.... I set out for China on January 30th. Jess drove me to the airport where I met up with my team: Mandi (another 1st year), and Christina, and Jamie - both 2nd years. Also, our faculty advisors: Marc (our professor from our speech class) and Kewei (Kewei is a finance professor from Beijing). We flew into Midway in Chicago, and then had a 13 hour flight to Beijing. The flight wasn't as bad as I thought - it was only about half full, so pretty much everyone got a whole row to themselves and got to stretch out.

I did a bit of studying on the plane, but was really surprised when I looked at a map and saw that we weren't traveling west, but north. We went pretty much straight over the north pole and then straight down to Beijing. Really cool.

I stayed awake pretty much the whole plane ride, and we finally got into Beijing around 4pm on Monday (after leaving on Sunday at 10am). We met up with a prospective MBA student and her boyfriend, and between them and our finance professor, we packed into 3 cabs and headed to our hotel downtown. 45 minutes later, we arrived, and our hotel was AWESOME. I think it is one of the nicest hotels in Beijing. It was certainly the nicest hotel I've ever stayed at. The girls headed to their room, and the professors and I headed to ours - we had a suite- and it was SWEET. 2 bedrooms, one with 2 single beds (I stayed in one with our american professor), and a second room with one bed and its own bathroom. There was also an office, a living room, a kitchen, and another bathroom. One thing that I noticed- every light in the room was on when we walked in. And every time the maids made up the room, they left every light on too. I noticed that about China - there is a lot of power consumption, and no recycling. YIKES.

Anyways- everyone got cleaned up and showered, and we met back up in the hotel lobby. After changing some money, (each dollar got us a little more than 7 Chinese "RMB" - also pronounced "Yoo-wan") we then headed below the hotel - it connected to an underground shopping mall. So cool. Anyways, we went to a really cool restaurant in the mall - we ordered tons of food, and it was brought out as the dishes were prepared - then they placed them on a giant glass lazy susan that you just rotate and grab some food and put on your plate. (Using nothing but your chopsticks). Yeah... chopsticks were used for pretty much everything except soup. Oh- and I recommend staying away from most soups. YUCK. The only good soup I tasted was (get this)..... Duck Blood Soup. Made with duck blood, and livers, and eel, and all sorts of gross sounding foods.... it was GOOD!!!! REAL GOOD!!! I ate a lot of crazy stuff... most of which I don't even know how to describe. I will say that several dishes still had their heads attached, and were staring back up at us.

Marc and I decided to go back to the hotel and get some sleep, while the girls and Kewei decided to go out. (They all slept on the plane, while we stayed up).

Marc and I woke up by about 3am, and we started talking. And talking. We got to know each other really well over the course of the week. At about 5am, we decided to go downstairs and explore. We used the business center to send a couple emails, and by 6am headed up to the buffet breakfast. OMG. SOOOOOO good!!! Lots of american food, but also some chinese. Tons of pasteries and fruit, there was even a honeycomb that was dripping honey into a dish!!!

Everyone met up around 10am, and we headed off to the forbidden city. This former palace was just about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. We went with the prospective student, and had a great time. It was really cold outside, so we were pretty frozen, but it was such a cool place - I can't even begin to describe the size of the place- you walk in and think, ok- its big... and then you get to the back wall, go through, and there is another big open area... you walk to the back wall, go through the arch, and you have another huge open area - and you can keep going, and going, and going! To the sides, there are all these smaller rooms that have been converted into a museum- each room has different artifacts, dishes, pieces of art, etc. It would have taken us a couple of days to see everything!

After taking in our fill of the forbidden city, we wandered across the street to Tienamen square! Really cool - there were Chinese guards everywhere- and none of them would speak to you - kind of like at Buckingham palace. After that, we started to get really cold, so we went back to the hotel to get cleaned up for dinner. We then went to a restaurant and met up with about 8 prospective students, and a couple of alumni. I had my first taste of peking duck (delicious- especially when you dip the duck skin in sugar!) and then we headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

Wednesday morning, Marc and I woke up around 5am, and we headed down to the hotel's spa. We spent an hour or two in the spa, sauna, steamroom, and pool. And we had it pretty much all to ourselves! We then had a nice leisurely breakfast, and we then met up with the girls and boarded a tourbus to the great wall. Besides us, there was only one other couple on the bus, so that was pretty cool. We drove through Beijing, saw the Olympic facilities, and headed toward the countryside. We made a stop at a handicraft factory, and got to see how they make painted copper vases. (The women there work 7 days a week for 8-10 hours each day - I have no idea how much money they make). There was a HUGE gift shop attached, and lots of Chinese handicrafts - vases, fans, bracelets, jewelry, etc. I bought something for Jessica - a little glass ball that is hand-painted- from the inside through a small hole in the bottom. I then got to watch a woman paint Jessica's name on the inside.

We got back into the bus, and headed to the mountains. We arrived at a parking lot, walked up a steep hill, and then boarded a gondola to take us up the mountain. We got to the top, and got to spend a couple of hours on the wall - it was incredible. Truly an amazing sight - and perhaps most remarkable was that each brick was made by hand, and each one was brought up the mountain and laid by hand. Amazing.

On the way down - another great treat - street vendors. All of them were little old women who spoke very broken English. The street on the way down was lined with people trying to get you to buy something. There was no escape. Each had their own little covered section with things inside- some had t-shirts, others had hats, some had rosewood and jade statues, others had great wall souveniers. It was really something- every conversation would go something like this:

Vendor: My friend, my friend - you want postcard? I have postcard for you.
Me: How much?
Vendor: Friend price - 300. (Their RMB - just divide by 7 - thats roughly $40 for postcards).
Me: No. Too much. 20. ($3 for a pack of 9 postcards)
Vendor: Oh! Too low! Too low! special price for you - 200.
Me: No. Still too much. 30. ($4)
Vendor: Too low! Too low! 200.
Me: No thanks. (Then I try to walk away)
Vendor (Grabbing my arm): Ok. Ok. Final price - 100.
Me: No (Then I try to walk away again)
Vendor (Grabbing again): Ok - Final price - 80. ($11)
Me: No (Then I try to walk away again)
Vendor(Grabbing again): How much?
Me: 30.
Vendor: No! Too low! Too low!

Anyways- this would go on and on - basically, the trick was to decide the maximum you would want to pay, and then stick to that price and keep trying to walk away until they agreed. It worked almost every time. There were only 2 times that it didn't - but we'll get to that later in this post, when we talk about the Silk Street Market.

So I bought a few more things - a pair of rosewood lion statues, chopsticks, postcards, and a panoramic picture of the great wall. It was fun.

We went back to the hotel, and I forget what we did for dinner.... but I'm guessing it was Chinese food.

Thursday, more sauna/hottub/steamroom in the morning, and then our team practiced our presentation, and got some feedback from our professors. That afternoon, Marc and I headed to the Silk Street Market, while the girls went shopping to some other place. They weren't interested in the Silk Street Market - also known as "The Fakes Market". :)
So - imagine a lot of the same conversations with the vendors at the great wall- but this time it was with a bunch of cute girls that were somewhere between 14 and 24 years old. (It is really hard to tell when no one has any curves!!!!) Anyways- I bought a pearl necklace (real pearls) for Jessica- for about $14. I also got 2 coach wallets for a total of about $6. Yeah - $6. They look like real coach wallets.... even though they aren't. I also got some bamboo coasters, and a Polo sweater. Marc and I shopped for about 4 hours - it was SOOOOO MUCH FUN!!!! We were loving it! He got a couple of coach purses, some Juicy Couture jewelry, and some Chanel earrings. (All fake, and never paying more than $10). That night, we decided we were done with Chinese food, and we ate at McDonalds. It tasted exactly like it does in the US, and a Big Mac meal only cost us about $3.

So Friday the competition rolls around. Our team gets put into the toughest room for the first round: Us, Chicago School of Business (usually considered the top B-school in the country), Darden (University of Virginia - another top 20 school), and Cheung Kong, the host school. Schools in the other room: Tsinghua University, University of Singapore, University of Washington, and Carnegie Mellon (who was missing a member because he had to quit last minute, and all of whom were missing their luggage... poor them)
We were randomly chosen to present 2nd, and we did a pretty good job. One of the judges really tried to nail us (and every team) by firing a bunch of questions rapid-fire style. The exchange went something like this:

Judge: What is the current sales volume?
One of us: some answer
Judge (without pausing after our answer): And that is what in terms of dollars?
One of us: some answer
Judge (without pausing after our answer): And you're proposing to increase sales by how much?
One of us: some answer
Judge (without pausing after our answer): And thats what in terms of dollars?
One of us: some answer
Judge (without pausing after our answer): And thats an increase in what percent over 5 years?
One of us: some answer
Judge (without pausing after our answer): And the compound rate is what?

I mean- HOLY CRAP! There was some serious mental math going on at times. Luckily, we were prepared, and had several "pocket slides" with information like that. Pocket slides are powerpoint slides with information that you might need during Q&A, but that you don't need to use during the presentation itself. We had about 15 pocket slides that helped demonstrate various pieces of information.

Anyways - we got out pretty unscathed - other teams just got railed during the Q&A. And after the presentations were over and the dust had settled, the judges decided that we won our room and would move on to the finals on Saturday to compete against the University of Washington, the winner of the other room!

A little later in the evening, there was a dinner, where we had assigned seats - next to our new teammates for a 2nd part to the competition - a mixed team competition with a new case. So, at about 9:30pm, our new mixed team (me, a girl from Chicago, a guy from Tsinghua who barely speaks english, and a girl from Singapore who speaks fine english, but doesn't know squat about the American marketplace) begins analyzing the new case - we stay up until about 1am, decide to get some sleep, and then meet up again at 6am. We turn in our materials at 8am, and presentations begin at 9. We did pretty well, but ultimately, the 2 asian students were pretty worthless - they didn't know enough about the American market, and the one guy had some serious problems presenting in English. None of my teammates or myself won our rooms- and that was ok with us - we wanted to focus on the team finals later that day. Some time goes by, we eat lunch, and then the finals begin.

We were randomly chosen to go 2nd, and we had to step out of the room while Washington presented. Having no idea how well they did, we walk into the room after about 30 minutes, and immediately have to present. WE KICKED ASS. Flawless presentation, flawless questioning. I mean - perfect. So the judges go and deliberate.... and deliberate.... and deliberate. And then it turns out that they were deadlocked. 4-4. It came down to a tiebreak - a judge that saw our presentation in the first round (not our best), and Washington's in the finals. (For some reason, he had to leave before ours). We lost the tiebreak. Ultimately, they thought our presentation was better, our ideas were more inventive, but we weren't very conservative.

Sidenote.... (There is a reason that Tsingtao isn't doing well in the American marketplace - if they want to stay there, they should remain conservative. We gave them the right answer, but it wasn't what they wanted to hear.)

So, we took 2nd, and EVERYONE was coming up to us telling us that we should have won, that our presentation was better, etc. That didn't make us feel any better, and all 3 of the girls ended up in tears once we reached the elevator to go back up to our rooms.

We debriefed with our advisors, and decided to go out to dinner.

We ended up in a weird part of town, at a jazz club that had just opened for the evening. It was really good food (french), but what really lightened the mood was the music - they hadn't started any live music yet, we were the only customers in the joint, and they had a record player playing some elevator-sounding version of "The girl from ipanema"... but after about 15 minutes we were all cracking up - the record kept playing the exact same 30 seconds of the track. All the waitstaff were standing around talking - I don't think they understood the words of the song, so they had no idea, and the 6 of us were just cracking up in our seats.

After that, we met up with a friend of Professor Kewei's, and we decided to walk around (its about 30 degrees farenheit) looking for a bar. All over the place outside there were people inviting me/Marc to come inside to meet some ladies. Yeah... basically soliciting us for prostitution... great. We finally settled on a bar with 2 girls doing some poor Chinese/english singing. Kewei's friend buys a bottle of Absolut for the table (about $70 - but he can afford it - he has a driver/bodyguard. Why a bodyguard? I HAVE NO IDEA. Don't ask, don't tell.). We all start taking shots - Marc and I aren't really that thrilled -we would have preferred to go back and lounge in the hottub, as neither of us were really up for bar-hopping, and I was starting to feel sick - sore throat, stuffyness, etc.

Anyways, we leave that bar and then head to a "bed-bar" for a final get-together sponsored by the case competition. Ok.... this was shady. We were in a not-so-good part of town, and you know its bad when the driver locks the door while driving slowly down an alley, looking for the bar. Oh, yeah - the main entrance to this bed-bar - in an alley. Not really safe-feeling. So we all show up and make an appearance, even though none of us have any interest in "celebrating" with the judges and other contestants. We go back to the hotel and go to bed.

Sunday is checkout day. Morning: pool/sauna/etc. Ahhhhhhh. We checkout by noon, and Marc and I head to the airport early to try to get seats with some legroom, while the girls and Kewei go out for lunch. We got lucky- Marc and I got the last 2 emergency row seats, and man was it worth it. The flight left around 7pm, I was feeling pretty sick at that point, but we had soooooo much legroom. (I couldn't touch the seat in front of me with my legs) 13 hours later, we were in Washington DC (Dulles). We all made it ok.... except for Jamie's luggage. (She still doesn't have it). I was getting sicker by the hour, and at 10:30pm, we boarded a plane for Columbus. We arrived by midnight, I was really happy to see Jess, and I was back home by 1am. Class started at 8:30 the next morning. :)

As it turns out, I had the flu - and Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday I had a fever that reached 102.4 degrees. I felt that I had to go to class Mon/Tues - (I had already missed Thurs/Fri), but Wednesday I stayed home getting better. Its about a week and a half later, and I'm finally feeling ok.

Sorry I've been MIA for so long - it has been tough catching up with class, getting better, and playing husband. :)

Hopefully I'll be able to post a bit more in the upcoming days/weeks.