Visit from the Chairman

This week the company is hosting a China Investor Conference in Beijing. There are over 1,600 participants from over 30 countries who are in attendance. The Chairman of was here to address the conference attendees. I was fortunate to attend two dinners with him while he was here. It's always nice to have the Chairman and other senior members of the management team spend some time with the people out in the field.

Cuandixia - Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Village

BF and I went with friends from the apartment complex to a old village called Cuandixia. It is 90km outside Beijing yet it took around 3 hours to cover the distance. Getting outside Beijing was one of the biggest challenges. The ring roads are great if you want to circle the city but when you want a straight line out, forget it. The dried mountain landscape was unusual with the flowering fruit trees. The mountains have not greened up yet so it was an interesting contrast.
We had great weather with sunny warm air and little pollution. Our friends offered their car and driver. It was quite a scenic and windy road. When we arrived there was a gate to get into the Ming dynasty village which required us to pay for everyone and for the car. It was a small fare. Most of the houses were open to visit and there was surprisingly little tourism and goods for sale. Most of the tourist were Chinese and very few westerners.

We wandered around the hilly stone village, often times into a private courtyard and residence. Many of the courtyard homes offered a food in a makeshift restaurant. BF did a great job working with our friend to figure out words enough to order noodles, eggplant, vegetables and beer. We were quite the sight.

We saw some interesting sights including a very rustic but working public toilet with appropriate stains, smells, etc. BF happened upon s skinned goat that was ready for cooking in a smoker, and some old millstones.

Visit from U.S. Co-worker

A co-worker from the U.S. took time out of his busy tourist schedule to have dinner with us. It was great to catch up and to share experiences.

Filing Taxes from China

Filing income taxes from China has been a fun experience (not over yet). We basically typed information into an online questionnaire from KPMG. Was similar to using TaxCut or TurboTax although at much slower Internet speed. KPMG then sent a completed form 4868 Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return to us via email. We then printed out the form and wrote a check. Nest we individually addressed envelopes to the IRS for snail mail delivery. Our snail mail includes using an employee traveling back to the U.S. as a mail delivery person to go to the post office to send each envelope via registered mail.

Familiar Name

Here is a familiar name "Kahunaville" for my coworkers and friends from Wilmington. I was not expecting to see one in China, however.

We found this while biking through an area which is called Lucky Street. This is a new western dining and shopping area (small) in Beijing.

It doesn't appear that this one will feature a big deck like the Wilmington business . . . . .