Day 8: Monday March 6th.

I met Patrick and Brooke for a run around 7:30. Supposedly our hotel is a 4
star hotel. It does have many facilities, but seems a little run down and
dingy. Yaqin said maybe it is a 4 start by China��s standards, not by the
US��. It really needs a good cleaning��ie the walls and carpets. We got in
last night around 11:00. Our luggage didn��t show up until about 12.

Patrick went out for dinner at 12 and didn��t get back until 2ish. So he was
still a sleep when Brooke and I called him to see if he was going to go
running with us. He got his butt out of bed and went. We ran very slowly. We
headed towards the Temple of Heaven. I even go to ask directions in Chinese.
The crossing guard just pointed. Evidently we didn��t quite make it to the
Temple of Heaven. We ran around the outside of what we thought was Tiantan
(Temple of Heaven). Turns out it was really Longtan park and lake. It took
us about 50 minutes total (very slow run for Brooke��s sake). We saw Tai
Chi and old women ballroom dancing. China is definitely different then
Japan. It smells like a construction site, which can be explained by all of
the construction going on for the upcoming Olympics in 2008. Hutongs (old
traditional neighborhoods) and other buildings are being torn down to be
replaced by brand new buildings every where you turn. The traffic is
constant. I have also never seen so many bikes.

I heard from someone that although the exchange rate between the US dollar
and the Chinese RMB is approximately 8RMB to 1US, the buying power of 1RMB
is the same as that of 1US. I guess I kind of believe this. Although so far
I have really only purchased food.

Breakfast in the hotel was ok, nothing super special. We toured Lenovo and
listened to a manger from there. He was very passionate about Lenovo, China
and the potential of both. He had an interesting background which included
work as a diplomat and employee of Motorola and the Chinese government.
Lenovo recently purchased the PC brand of IBM. Their manufacturing
facilities here in Beijing included a lot of manual labor. A single line
manufactures all desktops that customers order varying by components.

For dinner John Lee set up a reservation at A Fun Ti. A middle eastern
inspired restaurant that has become something of a tradition for the MIM
program. The food was very good. We were entertained by belly dancing, a
snake and a little bit of martial arts. After much alcohol all of the
restaurant guests end up dancing on the stage and on the tables. Yes, we all
did it. Even Sully and Jeff. I have some priceless photos!

At about 10pm the lights came on and we all left the restaurant. Many
students were going to go on to Ho Hi (a local bar district). I decided to
head back to the hotel and get some much needed sleep. I was out by 11: 15.