Beijing: First impressions

As you may have read from Chris's most recent posting on our family blog I am in Beijing this week to look at a couple of job opportunities at Microsoft in Beijing.

I arrived last night after a 17.5 hour trip from Seattle, through Seoul, Korea. It should have been about 90 minutes shorter but the flight from Seoul to Beijing was delayed. The major leg of the trip (seattle-seoul) was on Asiana Airlines. I had never heard of them before this trip, but did some research on the Internet and most of the feedback was positive. I had a great trip and would encourage any one travelling to Asia to consider them.

I spent the day with a real estate agent looking around Beijing. We spent the morning at the Forbidden City, which is where the Chinese Emperor's used to live. Now is is pretty much just a museum. I have a ton of pictures that I will post when I return. The Forbidden City is huge. Hard to believe that it was just the home to the Emperor. Although when you factor in the whole retinue of the emporer it was probably a small city.

I did a fair amount of research on Beijing before coming, so I had a fairly good idea of what to expect. My main reaction is that most people tend to exaggerate both the good and the bad. The traffic is bad, but not nearly as bad as people make it seem. The pollution is bad, but not nearly as bad as I read about, granted today was a fairly mild day in terms of pollution. It turns out the government can dial the pollution level to some degree, in exchange for production, and since the spring festival is coming they have dialed it down a bit.

I think the biggest challenge with living here would be the pollution. Although I said is wasn't as bad as people said, it is still pretty bad. The good news is that part of the 2008 olypmic bid was commitments around reducing pollution, so at least leading up to 2008 it should improve a lot. I haven't been to the suburbs yet so I don't know how much of it is just in the city core.

It's much flatter and bigger then I am used to. Growing up in Vancouver you get used to a very confined city, with majestic views. Beijing is neither confined, nor clear enough for majestic views. I would be intersted in seeing the city on a clear day, but I don't know if that is likely on this trip.

I'm staying at the Tian Hong Plaza Hotel, which is on the west side of the city, in the University district, about 10 minutes walk from the Microsoft building. I walked there from my hotel today to meet with Harry Shum and have dinner.

Harry is the director of the research lab Microsoft has in Beijing, one of the jobs I am looking at would be in his group working on search products for MSN Search.