Finally the day arrived. Time was passing by in the pace of light. Our flight to Bangkok was on 2 A.M. from Netaji Subhas International Airport.That was a Saturday.
We were scheduled to break at Bangkok airport where we had our breakfast with green tea; sweet flavour of juhi was paving thorough our nostrils,soothing our nerves.
Bangkok Airport offers travellers the facility for temporary visa or visitors' visa to roam around the city between their wait in the airport for the next fly.
Although we spent the whole 6 hours in the airport itself , it seemed too less for me to explore the whole stretch of it.It was a splendid architecture and a marvelous piece of engineering making us astonished and proud for this APAC uproar of developement. We brought two large packets of chocolates for our buddies cum clients cum hosts who would be challenging our technical excellence , our business expertise in next few days of our stay in the great CHINA.
Few Snaps of Bangkok Airport..................
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When we reached Beijing airport , it was already dark.
"Beijing Capital International Airport is currently the 2nd busiest airport in the world in terms of passenger throughput.It had become the busiest airport in Asia in terms of passenger traffic and total traffic movements by 2009. "
Beijing Airport............
When we came outside , we were shivering in extereme cold.Soon we got into a taxi ; We handed over the Hotel Address Card to the cab driver; a decent , well mannered guy who is highly conscious about his country pride .All the way from airport to the hotel he was trying to elaborate the roadside places to visit.Apart from the gestures,hardly any of the words we understood.
"Hotel Kuntai", a four starred hotel in the heart of city Beijing , was our destination for the next few days.This place could be very well compared with our very known Dalhousi area(office para) in its all time busy aspect. There were skyrise office buildings, hotels , market places, restaurants and all other means of luxuries scattered in the both side of the main road. As the capital of China, Beijing is well connected to every part of China via road links.An elaborated five ring roads which appears more likely to rectangular shape rather than ring-shaped has been developed within Beijing throughout the history.The calculation of ring roads is begun with 2nd ring road which is located within Beijing’s inner city center since the first ring road is not officially defined.
Hotel Kuntai and our office both were located in the central Beijing , on the 2nd ring road.
Like any other cities it was full of lively people wearing colorful dresses ignoring the chilling gust of wind. Boys and girls with bright shiny skin tone and drooping eyelids were chirping everywhere enjoying their youth. They were the host of Olympic game. The whole world enjoyed what hospitality they offered . The pride was visible in the polish of the city where everything was worth noticable; technology,architecture, civil structure and most of all :the obedience of the people towards their work.
The first week at office went out in preparing the environments, searching for coffee mugs, board pins and network cords; like small tiny but necessary office commodities.
At China having food was a very dreadful job for us. Yes, even if when seven rats were pouncing in our stomach, we were reluctant to have our meal.The person who is a great enthusisatic and a proper critic of food would have find it a matter of relish .But for us (commonly known as bheto bangali) , in entire city of beijing, there was only 3 shelters where we can stop for food:
1. The Road Side KFC: just opposite to our hotel kuntai
2. The McDonalds, 2 minutes walking distance from the previous
3. And offcourse the hotel Kuntai royal restaurant- where we liked the breakfast with double omlet, chocolate muffin,thin strips of ham and pyramid shaped watermelon;and at last greean tea. At dinner they served several dishes. We stick to two or three dishes which seemed to be digestable to our weak stomach and with not much pain to our taste buds :-(. Any our attempt to experiment with the chinese dish ended with great wastage of food and lingering effect of its smell in our belching.
But jokes apart, food taste and cooking style might vary largely from country to country and continent to continent; I admit some of the food habits were really good for health and some cuisines we even liked for its simple-easy to cook nature and for the nourishment and energy it provided to the body.
Fisrt weekend. We all targeted for Forbidden city and Tienmen square. We took a cab from our hotel. We got our destination written in Mandarin( the local language) and showed it to the cab driver. Except for some multinational companies and few of this star rated hotels where people keep visitng from around the world, you could hardly see people communicating in English.
A lady guide accompanied us in the forbidden city .She managed to gist the history of this ancient palace with her limited stock of english vocabulary.We also helped her by being understood :-) .
"The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty.For almost five hundred years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government.The Forbidden City is the world's largest surviving palace.Traditionally, the Forbidden City is divided into two parts. The Outer Court or Front Court .It was used for ceremonial purposes. The Inner Court or Back Palace includes the northern sections, and was the residence of the Emperor and his family, and was used for day-to-day affairs of state."
The hugeness of the palace, the lifestyle of king and their queens and the workers who worked for them , the imperial collection at palace museum, the religious symbols.. all dragged me to those days of 15th century. As if i could visualise them right in front of my eyes.
I was taken aback from my trance as one of my friend managed a visitor to click a group photo for us.
Photographer View....................
We slowly followed the crowd towards the end gate. One thing i forgot to mention. We entered the main gate of the Forbidden city through a lane lined by willows. Beside the lane was a lake. The top layer was frozen and beneath it we could see cluster of colorful fishes playing around; reminiding my class X of physics.
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We took a four seated rikshaw. The "Tiananmen Square" was just a few minute walk from where we left the rikshaw. We took the underground way to reach the footpath of that side. When we finally reached the ground we were shievering.It was almost next to impossible to stand there.
"Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing.It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history. Tiananmen Square has been the site of a number of political events and student protests.The protests of 1989 resulted in the massacre of Chinese protesters in the streets to the west of the square and adjacent areas. There are reports where soldiers opened fire on protesters, killing 400–800, and perhaps many more.This square is used as a massive meeting place since its creation, its flatness is contrasted by the 38-meter (125 ft) high Monument to the People's Heroes, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong.The square lies between two ancient, massive gates: the Tian'anmen to the north and the Zhengyangmen, better known as Qianmen to the south. Along the west side of the Square is the Great Hall of the People. Along the east side is the National Museum of China (dedicated to Chinese history predating 1919)."
Few Clicks..................................
Strong wind was blowing ,cutting sharp through my face.We moved for lunch at 4 P.M.
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The whole week passed with hectic schedule. 7:30 sharp we were all set for office, sometimes we skipped our breakfast , sometimes we managed it early and made it walking to the office. We all covered in jackets , gloves and wollen caps,leaving no stones unturned to fight the cold. Still a current flowed in our blood each time we inhaled the air. Then the whole day , we worked, we talked , we argued , we communicated; we remained busy always with calls, meetings, issues and with their most cost-effort effective solutions. Our Chinese Client Tech-Team was efficient , intelligent and above all they knew their business very well. It was influencing working with them. In between, we atteneded some of the lunch with our hosts. At the lunch I liked only the sweet, reddish turkey part. There were various other cuisine which we dared to taste just once ..not more. There were always a tik-tok with the chopsticks; we every time failing to manage and in front of us our chinese counter part effortlessly eating each grain of rice with those two thin bamboo sticks !! They said its good for your hand muscle.
At 5 pm the whole office started to get empty, we generally stayed late ,till 9 to wrap up our work , to assemble the next day schedules, to synch up with our offshore team members.
The very next week end we planned for China Wall: the great wall of China. In my school I read that 'it is the only mad made creation on earth that was visible from moon ':-O.
Two days before our Acceptance testing, and the day before our trip to China Wall, while we were just wrapping up and cheking the systems and making everything just perfect for the final day, suddenly we found some discrepancies in our application.The ill behaviour was scrutinised and an unexpected 'Bug' in the code came up which was somehow missed or got overlooked in the past few months of unit testing and system testing. It resulted in considerable amount of change in code; which meant again rigorous testing and raised a big question mark on our next day trip.Would we come back without having the glimpse of its greatest treasure: one of the seven wonders of the world ?
We cursed ourselves and it took next day 1 am night to rearrange everything to its place and finally we came to the hotel; weary and sleepy.
That day morning 7 am, the alarm cracked the mid way sleep. I jumped out of bed. Already seven missed call from the team-mates to warn me that I was again going to be late.
We took a train to Badaling. From there it was 5 mins walking distance, where we boarded a ropeway to climb one of the numerous tomb of Great Wall. Its passage on the wall top was broad; could accomodate 10-15 persons sitting side by side. It was deadly steep and on the both side there was railing to help the visitors walk through wall. The climate was sunny and cold was tolerable. As we saw , the spiral structure streched all over the mountain range, sometimes down and again up.The crowd was thick and gave us a feel of enthusiastic wave of people in any of the narrow street in north kolkata during Durga pujas.
"The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in northern China, built originally to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire against intrusions by various nomadic groups. Several walls have been built since the 5th century BC that are referred to collectively as the Great Wall, which has been rebuilt and maintained from the 5th century BC through the 16th century. One of the most famous is the wall built between 220–206 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Little of that wall remains; the majority of the existing wall was built during the Ming Dynasty. The Chinese were already familiar with the techniques of wall-building by the time of the Spring and Autumn Period, which began around the 8th century BC.During the Warring States Period from the 5th century BC to 221 BC, the states of Qin, Wei, Zhao, Qi, Yan and Zhongshan ,all constructed extensive fortifications to defend their own borders. Built to withstand the attack of small arms such as swords and spears, these walls were made mostly by stamping earth and gravel between board frames. Qin Shi Huang conquered all opposing states and unified China in 221 BC, establishing the Qin Dynasty. Intending to impose centralized rule and prevent the resurgence of feudal lords, he ordered the destruction of the wall sections that divided his empire along the former state borders. To protect the empire against intrusions by the Xiongnu people from the north, he ordered the building of a new wall to connect the remaining fortifications along the empire's new northern frontier. Transporting the large quantity of materials required for construction was difficult, so builders always tried to use local resources. Stones from the mountains were used over mountain ranges, while rammed earth was used for construction in the plains. There are no surviving historical records indicating the exact length and course of the Qin Dynasty walls. Most of the ancient walls have eroded away over the centuries, and very few sections remain today. Later, the Han, Sui, Northern and Jin dynasties all repaired, rebuilt, or expanded sections of the Great Wall at great cost to defend themselves against northern invaders. It is estimated that over 1 million workers died building the wall.
The Great Wall concept was revived again during the Ming Dynasty, following the Ming army's defeat by the Oirats in the Battle of Tumu in 1449. The Ming had failed to gain a clear upper hand over the Manchurian and Mongolian tribes after successive battles, and the long-drawn conflict was taking a toll on the empire. The Ming adopted a new strategy to keep the nomadic tribes out by constructing walls along the northern border of China. Acknowledging the Mongol control established in the Ordos Desert, the wall followed the desert's southern edge instead of incorporating the bend of the Huang He."
The Greate Wall visit was memorable and the moments were cherished ;every time i looked back into our trip, every time I went through the snaps taken there.
On the way back from the trip we visited the office, where we again reassured ourselves that everything was fine to start on next day morning ; retesting the application functinality, recheking the network connectivity, revisiting the board room set up!
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The next two weeks went on as per planning. Everything went right except for few technical and functional healthy arguements which eventually paved the way to better understanding and committment from both side.
Last 2 days.....
Siushiu market was nearby to our kuntai hotel. The rest of the time of our stay we liked to explore that market place which was a small tiny package of chinese foods, clothing, ornaments, painitings, electronic goods, household goods etc. I collected some token of love for my friends and families. It was not a fixed rate market. So, I enjoyed my span of shopping thoroughly ;-).
My team mates were curious about Wangfujing shopping street. It was one of the most famous shopping street. The street was flooded with people, car and road side stores.At the Wangfujing Night Market we observerved a selection of exotic Street food on the Snack Street. Deep fried insects, scorpions, and sea creatures was there, along with other animals and animal parts.And of course as we all knew, the snake meat was being sold openly.
Our last supper in Beijing was at 'Face'; the multicuisine restaurant at the heart of the city.
~~As the moment of departure was creeping in, a rush in acts ; packing, marketing, gathering all my day-to-day things into the bag; I felt a bit of shame inside thinking of the day when I was relucatant to visit the city for petty issues. The knowledge, the culture , the discipline , the struggle of people for excellence ..I saw there, was a treasure for lifetime . On returning back, it was like a fresh air giving enthusiasm for more work, more challenge, more hardship and more flavour of life~~
