Day 3 in China -- The luncheon and Bear Grylls

All of us left the tea house and headed to the Summit wing hotel for a lunch hosted by the executives' spouses. It was a lot of courses, and very interesting. Here are some of my photos of the meal.



These were just the flowers on the table; I thought they were pretty.

Here is the menu





These were the "cold" items-- salted pork gelatin, mushroom / spinach thingy, a shrimp thing, and a duck thing. I tried them all -- didn't love any of them, but they were palatable.




This was mushrooms, baked chicken (mostly skin), and a mushroom pepper garnish which was delicious.

These were morels, mushrooms, lily bulbs, lotus roots, and a bunch more things I didn't know.


This was mango juice, with vanilla icecream, with mint and tapioca.

After lunch I changed clothes and met Trent in the conference foyer where they had chefs preparing these dumplings. Fortunately I still had some room in my tummy because these dumplings were delicious!





Then we all went in to listen to the day's keynote address. Today it was Bear Grylls from Discovery channels Man vs. Wild. He spoke about summiting Mt. Everest. It made me reconfirm that climbing Mt. Everest is not nor ever will be on my to do list.

Day 3 in China -- the morning Tea House

We are starting to get a little tired I think or it is that we have finally adjusted to Beijing time. For the first few days it seems that we are waking up between 3 and 4 in the morning and then just lightly sleeping until the alarm goes off, but not today. Today I slept right until the alarm at 6:30 and then I turned it off. I was dragging myself out of bed at 7:30 and then rushing down to breakfast. Trent had to be in his first meetings at 8:30 so he just grabbed a muffin and headed in. I had a trip to a tea house and the busses didn't leave until 9:00 am so I had a little time to quickly grab a bite to eat before heading to catch the bus.

I should mention that we are no small group. With 550 new global partners each bringing a guest, these spouse/guest activities are very large groups. With 40 or so people on each bus we are usually an entourage of 10-15 large tour busses. Each bus has 2 tour guides on it. Today I was in the back half of the bus with a tour guide named Allison. The front half of the bus was Japanese speaking.



On the way, I noticed this hospital and sign. It made me NOT want to go to that hospital.



This was the entrance to the tea house we were going to. The building did not look very remarkable and there was not a sign anywhere in English denoting a tea house.



But as soon as we were up the stairs you could see all kinds of teas and herbs.





There was a chinese lantern hung underneath every single light fixture.



We were seated at a table with about 20 of us surrounding it and then there were 4 tables all in one group with a woman using a microphone describing in English what the lady at each table was doing.

These were the little teacups we were served in. They were tiny and we were told we should be able to consume the tea in three sips.



Our first tea was a jasmine seed tea. The lady placed about a teaspoon of the seeds in a small glass vase like thing and then poured hot water in it. She did not even wait 2 seconds before she was pouring it through a sieve and then into the tall cup next to the little teacup.





Then she placed the little teacup upside down on top of the tall tea cup and handed them out to us. We had to flip the tea over and then smell the tall cup-- it was very fragrant almost like a perfume. I was surprised just how fragrant given that she had only had the seeds and the water together for like 5 seconds.





Here you can see her serving everyone. Yes, it kind of looks like pee. But it wasn't. It was tea.



I thought it tasted like perfume water. I wanted to add sugar to all of them. I guess it exposes my penchant for sweet things. Then there was a ginseng tea. Then it was the jasmine flower tea. This one blooms when the water is poured on it. It was pretty.







I don't know how it tasted because our server caught her elbow on the jasmine flower one and the whole thing spilled on the lap of the lady 2 over from me. It was hot. She was trying so hard to pull the material in her capri's off her legs to keep them from burning. Fortunately the water had been resting in the cup for a couple of minutes so it wasn't scalding hot, but she was still really uncomfortable.

Next was puritea?? It was gross. Supposedly all the herbs were super good for your health, especially women's health, but I gotta tell you I did not like it at all. I couldn't even make it through three sips. I don't even have a picture of it because I was trying to figure out where to dump it the whole time. The next one was a dessert tea. It was mostly dried apricots and if it had had a little sugar it would have been warm kool-aid.



Then it was rose tea. This one smelled and tasted just like the rose water that you have to buy at Greek shops to bake baklava. I guess this is how you make it.



Naturally they were showcasing all kinds of fancy tea cups while doing this. Some changed colors, some were hand crafted, some tea pots were earthy, and some were porcelein. And of course we could buy them if we wanted.









Having been to the pearl market 2 days earlier and seeing so many teacups and teas I wasn't tempted at all to purchase anything there. Not that I wanted any of them so to speak, but I knew that the prices were really high compared to the market. All in all this was a fun event, it was fun to try them all and see how they make them. I still am surprised at how little "steeping" they let the teas do. There was no time at all. The put in the herbs, poured the water, immediately strained it and served it. I'm gonna have to try that method, it will save me a lot of time. Of course it may just cause me to burn my mouth as the water will not have cooled very much.

Day 2 in China --

Here was the agenda for the day --

7:00 - 8:30 am -- Breakfast -- This was serve at the Hotel's restaurant.  As we came toward the restaurant it became apparent that sending 1200 people to breakfast at the same time was overwhelming the restaurant.  It was pretty busy.  We had to be in business casual dress.  The breakfasts were pretty fun -- I showed some of the pictures from the buffet on a previous post.  Here was a photo of my breakfast today. 



Then from 8:30 - 10:15 there was an opening plenary session where we heard from the CEO-elect and the COO.  It was interesting and about the firm. 

At 10:30 the partner's headed to get a group photo and the spouses / guests went and changed clothes so we could go on a tour to Tianamen square and the Forbidden City. 

11:00  the busses left and we all had in our hands the largest packed lunch box I had ever seen.  It included -- a full turkey sandwich, potato salad, green salad, apple, banana, water bottle, freshly squeezed orange juice, a yogurt, a hazelnute cookie, and a moon cake. 

So while Trent sat through 5 or so hours of meetings I got to go see the sites (some of which we saw the day before as well).  Here are some photos from my iphone from today (since I didn't bring the big camera this time)


















Here is the standard toilets here in China. This one was at the Forbidden City and had a sign rating it a 4 star toilet.

  

Once we got back from our tour then it was up to the hotel room to change clothes (again) and rejoin our spouses for the keynote address by Sjell Nordstrom -- he is an economist (think "freakonomics"). His address was really amazing. Some of the highlights . . .
-- women out educating men in drastic numbers
-- the ability to "print" products in your own home
-- that innovation will continue to come from the United States as it is an idea, not a nationality.  He asked how long would one have to live in France to become French??  or can a person live in Japan and become Japanese?  NEVER  was his response, but to come to America and embrace the ideals and become American enables people to dream and innovate in ways that other countries are not even able to
-- the gap between the collective knowledge in the world and the knowledge one person can gain meaning that collaboration must grow because one cannot know or do it all anymore.  He pointed to the Nobel prizes to point out how they now go to teams of people because the level of information that must be processed to accomplish things now requires many people. 
-- the rise of the machines and that humans will only be needed for ethics (meaning a car maybe able to automatically swerve to avoid hitting the car in front -- but a human must decide if that is a favorable option than swerving and hitting the child to the right or the school to the left)

After the keynote address Trent and I walked around outside.  It was a beautiful day  (and thankfully not smoggy like the day before).  It was nice to just be outside and see this amazing city. 

Then we headed up to our hotel room to change (this is now my 4th outfit for the day) into our back tie clothing for the evening banquet and party at the Summit world hotel. 















This really was a spectacular evening. Sit down dinner for 1300 people and fun dancing (and yes Trent danced a lot).

Our First Day in China -- the evening -- Registration and Welcome Reception

I just don't have a wide enough lens to capture how amazingly the whole conference center had been converted to Ernst & Young partner stuff. The columns and pillars are all decorated with the partner's names. The entry and exit points all say "Welcome and Congratulations"

When we got back to the hotel from our 4 excursions, we registered for the week long event and headed back to the hotel room to get dressed.





It was a fun evening. They had lots of food and drinks. There were Chinese artisans demonstrating paper cutting and inside the bottle painting. There were calligraphers writing your names in Chinese on scrolls and there was quite the crowd. There are 550 new partners globally and their spouses / guests / partners. It was fun!