Departing from Shanghai

Left Shanghai Train Station at 1928 hours and headed towards the Capital of China – Beijing. My first time on the train in the Soft Bed Cabin. I was quite an exciting experience for me. The train was very nice and beautiful. The cabins for the soft bed slept 4 to a room and we divided ourselves almost evenly with an odd one out. So KC volunteered to stay at the the other carriage. People who went for the trip included: KC, Min Chuan, Yvonne, Chin Keong, Huixian, Cheewei, Shallene, Fionna, Huiling, Meiqing, Yixin and Janice and myself of course.

They even has a restaurant on the train and it was quite posh!

Arriving in Beijing

Arrived in Beijing at 0715 hours. It was bright and the sun was shining nice and brightly. It was cold! Piled on my outer jacket and it was just about right. The train station!

After some of the people decided to get train tickets back to Shanghai, we made our way to our Hotel. Finding cabs at the train station wasn’t as easy as it seems. Along the way, we encountered BLACK taxis which were out to cheat tourist and fortunately they did not want to fetch us. Ha! Ended up going to a nearby hotel to take the taxi and we made it to our nice and cosy hotel – Jin Jiang Hotel!

Chinabank Payment 网银在线

Next stop, we went to Chinabank Payment which was situated at 北京市海淀区长春桥路11号万柳亿城大厦A座8层. This company dealt in 3rd party software online e-payments for merchants. Fionna managed to introduce us to the company through her ex-colleague who was now the Vice President of Chinabank Payment. The company’s office was a very nice place. The CEO was a nice chap to. He very willingly shared his experience of starting up his company even though he was so young. It was a whole new experience learning about start up operations from a Chinese Perspective. They still encounter problems, possibly not as huge as Foreignors, but problems there will still be.

Thanks to Fionna for the link up.

Link to an article featuring our visit on Chinabank Payment’s website.

Lunch was near Chinabank Payment. Peking Duck, not the best but it was relatively good. Was looking forward to much better ducks but was sorely disappointed in the end.

Capitaland

Our afternoon visit was to Capitaland. Liu Jun kindly volunteered to drive a couple of us to our next destination while the rest took a taxi. Fionna, Min Chuan, Gabriel and myself took the ride. While the rest arrived safe and sound at Capitaland, we took a rather interesting trip around Beijing (or more precisely Jian Guo Men Lu 建国门路. We were caught in a major traffic and we could not get out of the car. We saw opposite the road a huge building that had the Capitaland logo which we thought was our destination. Attempting to find a U-turn, Liu Jun drove further and further into the heavy traffic. After almost 30 mins of bad traffic, we ended up quite far across even a bridge. We kindly thank him for his effort and time but insisted that we really had to find the quickest mode of transport to get to Capitaland. We got off and headed for the nearest Train Station. Took the train 2 stops down to Guo Mao 国贸 and then ran over to the Capitaland Building. We arrived there and saw that the building wasn’t really occupied yet! We asked the security and horrors of horrors that the Capitalands’ office was not here and that it was a few streets down the road. We rushed back to the main road and hopped onto the taxi. Upon telling the driver our destination, he pointed in the near distance the building we were headed for. We said: Just go for it!. We almost reached for the building and being all uptight by now, we quickly asked the driver to pull over and we all dashed into the building and into the elavator heading for the 25th floor. Gabriel commented: It would be really bad if we went to the wrong building. We arrived at 25 Floor. Samsung – APP – no Capitaland! I kindly asked the APP receptionist and horrors of horrors again, we were in the wrong building. We rushed over to the final ‘right’ building. This time ensuring that there were no more lobbies that the rest of the students could be waiting for us at. We finally met up with the rest of the students. It was definitely an “Exerience!”
And that is why I do not have any pictures of taken in Capitaland’s office.

We, subsequently, went to visit one of Capitaland’s newly built villas outside the city. Orchid Garden.

Visit to Mr. Nicholas’s Place

Visit to the place was delayed majorly by TRAFFIC CONDITIONS in Beijing. Yucks! I hate that word!

The place was called Jian Wai SOHO 建外 SOHO – the idea of a small office home office in an entire building. NEAT! Dinner was at an American Eatery. Burgers, Shakes, Pizzas, Apple Cake … Too much food! Way overload! Felt alittle sick with the food overload. Moreover, Nicholas had already invited us to his house for a mini snack of Iranian Snacks as well as wine.