Now, FOUR Years in China

Santa seemed to work his way down through Siberia, past Harbin and into Beijing to bring a nice load of gifts to Maddy. We had a very nice morning followed by dinner at a friends apartment last night. When we returned, we did a video iChat with Lisa’s brother’s family in Texas. Watching his kids rip through presents was almost like being there. It’s amazing and I recommend that everyone buys a MacBook (or Pro) to take advantage of crystal clear video chatting.

Hopefully Santa was wearing a gas mask because the past 3 days have been filled with thick smoky pollution that is burning our throats. We seem to get a high amount of smoke coming from the northwest corner of Beijing where many steel foundries are located. Due to the “blue sky” quotas imposed by the Olympic committee, they pump it out at night and causes a nasty smelling fog to roll into the neighborhood. It’s been so bad, that our 3 air cleaners don’t seem to be effective against the noxious smell. Your home is usually the one place you can usually retreat to when you don’t feel like dealing with China and this particular (or should I say particulate) encroachment makes you want to pack it up and head home.

I’m convinced that their version of the EPA measures the air at the least offensive time and place in the city. They are claiming 160 (slightly polluted)…yah right. I’ve experienced a couple of 500+(max) days last year and this feels worse. So much for a sun-shiney Christmas message. I’d rather be anywhere in the world but here….right now it sucks.

(From 35K feet again). We’re returning from our holiday in Bavaria. It was excellent!. Munich really knows how to embrace the Christmas spirit as a multi-sensory experience. Walking between Karlsplatz to Mariensplatz at night, you are treated to tasteful amounts of lights, stands selling gluwein (warm spiced wine), roasted nuts, chocolate dipped fruits and many handmade ornaments and christmas odds and ends. It’s quite spectacular.

Despite our intentions of chilling out, we filled our days with an exhausting tourist pace. It was a chance to show Maddy that Disney didn’t invent castles. Speaking of castles, we visted many including Neuschwanstein (that inspired Disney), Hohenschwangau, Nymphemburg, Munich Residenz, Hohensalzburg in Salzburg. I led poor Lisa and Maddy on 6 hour death-march through the Deutsches Museum which is probably one of the greatest museums in the world for industry and technology.

The food was great and the beer lived up to it’s reputation. We seemed to live on heavy Bavarian fares such as sausage, schnitzel, cheesy-onion spätzle, breads, pretzels, ham loaf, and more. By the end of the week though, I was nursing water and craving sushi.

I’m writing this from the cabin of Lufthansa flight 723 en route to Munich from Beijing. With the exception of our retun flight, I will probably not be posting from the skies much longer because Boeing is currently in the process of eliminating this service. As a small consolation, Boeing gave former customers free access until they pull the plug on Dec. 31.

I would really like to have been on the Being Connexion team (not really) to see how something with such an ambitious vision could be scrapped so quickly.

It’s very frustrating to be a customer that values this service and sees it dying off. Rather than let the idea grow through a gestation period, they killed it off because it (probably) didn’t grow fast enough. It’s a no-brainer that we will be online while flying. What gives? It makes me think that they priced it and made too complex for the average user with the intent of making it fail. Who knows for sure?