Tag Archives: china

The Legend of Kung Fu: cheesy, cliché yet awesome. Like all best scenes from all kung fu movies condensed into 1.5 hours awesomeness

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It is 1.5 hour of sheer awesomeness if you love this kind of stuff. To say the least, these folks have a lot of years of training and practice under their belt.

AND, the narration (there is a storyline) is done in ENGLISH. Yes, English, with Chinese captions. At first, the abrupt switch to English gave me pause about the tourist-trap nature of the show, but the excellent combination of acrobatics, ballet, and various styles of Chinese kung fu (really) and martial arts won me over. Although they could have done without the red lanterns in the theatre, I am definitely a fan.

If you are in Beijing, and you don’t mind some Las Vegas show biz, esp. if you are traveling with boys (and men who are boys at heart), then you have to check this show out. The Red Theatre where this show is on every day of the week is in the same area of the Temple of Heaven, so plan your day accordingly.

This picture was taken during curtain call.

since we were rule-abiding people and did not take pictures when the show was on.

Westin In Beijing

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The Westin in Beijing (on Financial Street between Changan Avenue West & Wudinghou Street) looks just like any other Westin in big cities, completely with a upper scale shopping mall right across the street (the kind with a super market and a food court in the basement even!) The only thing that reminded us that we are no longer in Kansas is the fact that a Quart tub of Ben & Jerry costs over $10!!

Note to self: Eat a lot of ice cream once we get home!

I am a sucker for great bathrooms so I am very happy with this Westin. I believe the bathroom is as big as an average-sized dorm room, at least the one I had in grad school…


This shows how much a country bumpkin we are: we thought the blinds for the glass between the bathroom and the room are broken, and I was quite puzzled by this single neglect by this great hotel. Turns out, it is motorized! The kids had too much fun with it before I yelled at them.
Now we need to go out and find our first McDonald’s in Beijing. Sigh.
Maybe we will wind our way to Tian An Men Square & the Forbidden City which is only 2 or 3 stops away from this Westin.

I am intrigued. Wouldn’t you? How one employee single-handedly MAKE the hotel…

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This has just come to my attention that the number 1 rated hotel in Beijing is… Drum roll please…

A frigging Holiday Inn!

Yes, they do have true 5 star hotels in Beijing.

Granted Holiday Inns do get a worse rep in the U.S. than in many other places around the world. Don’t think it is because we are more pampered here: it is true that Holiday Inns outside of the U.S. seem to be a bit more than meeting your daily bare necessities. But, Number 1 out of 1,168 hotels reviewed on TripAdvisor??!!

Apparently, it is also the Winner of Traveler’s Choice for Best Bargain/Best In Top 25 Cities.

Morevoer, the spread of the ratings are quite convincing: of 165 reviews, 127 rated the hotel as a 5 overall, 28 – 4, 5 – 3, and 5 – 2. Not too shabby. So there does not seem to be any major argument against this hotel’s #1 standing.

But still, a Holiday Inn? So naturally, I am intrigued. Wouldn’t you? Especially since many, and I mean MANY, of the reviews specifically mentioned the one employee, Storm, in their titles. This Storm is the most famous in Beijing next to Sand Storm, as far as Western tourists are concerned, it seems. And he is much much much beloved. Some choice examples of the review titles: “Loved Storm”, “One word: Storm”, “Storm makes it great”, “Wonderful Hotel, Wonderful Storm”… You get the idea. Even some travel blogs gave Storm honorable mentions. This one employee basically single-handedly made the Holiday Inn Central Plaza in Beijing a gem, stand out amongst all the other similar surrounding hotels. (Sort of like how HoJo Annheim has become a legend and best-kept secret amongst all the Disneyland aficionados…) Storm has taken on almost a legendary status judging by the reviews I had time to go through. It is amazing what this guy would go through in the name of Customer Service.

Unfortunately, I cannot find a picture of him online. Is he even real? Maybe this is one of the biggest Internet hoaxes: that Storm is actually a fictional character? Maybe Holiday Inn Beijing has employed many Customer Service “handlers of white people” and they all call themselves Storm? Somebody needs to profile this man named Storm! I need to know that he has been recognized and appreciated for all those extra steps (literally in many stories) that he took for the guests staying at the hotel. Somebody needs to call InterContinental Hotels Group and confirm that they do take notice of the employee who was cited as THE best feature of the hotel.

Barring the not-yet-written profile/interview, I wonder whether I need to travel to Beijing so I can confirm that Storm is not a high-tech robot designed to carry out the most mind-boggling, highest standard, Customer Service, ever experienced by Western tourists.

The Economist Daily Chart: World Internet Users now over ONE Billion!

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I only recently discovered that The Economist online includes a “Daily Chart” section in which a snapshot of an intriguing world phenomenon or a trivial yet fascinating trend is presented daily.

Three things make this moment deserve our special attention:

1. The number of Internet users surpassed one billion for the first time.

2. There are more people online in China than in the USA. This should not be surprising considering the sheer size of the Chinese population (1.3 billion vs. 300 million). However, it is mind-boggling still because of the pronounced gap between economic classes, incomes, regions, education, access to modern technologies, etc. amongst the 1.3 billion Chinese living in Mainland China.

3. The Internet penetration may have reached saturation point in the United States, whereas in China, and other countries that are playing a very impressive game of catchup, there is a lot of room for growth, and grow it will.

(Glad to see that the data used include only unique users above the age of 15 and excludes access in Internet cafes and via mobile devices. Nice – makes this more meaningful even after one takes it with a grain of salt…)