Week July 15 - July 21

Dear Bloggy,

July 15, 2007

Karen, Morden and I decided to go to visit the Great Wall, "13 graves", and some well which I don't remember its name. We hired a taxi for the whole day, negotiated a price of $400 and he was supposed to bring us to those places. We started off at 8am in front of Google and off we go. But then somehow being a taxi driver the guy have no idea how to get to those places, which was surprising to me! Given the fact that we have told him where we want to go upfront, and being a professional taxi driver, shouldn't it be his responsibility to check out the map and at least form a general impression on how to get there? Anyhow, that's fine. I called up Jay and have him to tell the driver how to get there. Knowing now where he was supposed to go, all of a sudden he demanded an increase in price to $500. We told him to go home.

I am not saying that the driver is a dishonest person. In fact I think it is true that he may not make much out of this $400 business. (As Jay told me that $400 is too good a deal) The issue is professionalism. I don't think you will find a HK taxi driver who has no idea where he is going. :p

We ended up going to "Wong Fu Cheng", "Tin Tang" and a restaurant famous for its Beijing BBQ duck. yummy.. :D "Wong Fu Cheng" is a shopping area which is very much like Causeway Bay in Hong Kong. There is a shop that specialize in making hats and has been making them for the Chinese government official since many years ago. I need to get one before leaving BJ. ;)


July 20, 2007

Google treats us intern students for a fencing activity. Here is the photo from Shen Kai. ;)

http://picasaweb.google.com/claymore213/Fencing