February 29, 2012

China - again

The past week I was travelling in China for business. I'm there occasionally, maybe once a year, for work - but this trip seemed a little different, but very good.

On the work side, it was good because this was actually the first time that I wasn't accompanying some high level manager or director, but I was going to do my own things and bringing my own messages to discuss with my colleagues. Good stuff.

It was also a little different because I ended up with a bit of spare time (partly because of the above) so that gave me an opportunity to explore new parts of Beijing and Shanghai.

Good to do, not just the spare time but also because it made me realize that I have quite an outdated image of Shanghai especially. An image from all of 6 years ago when I had been there as a tourist for two days. The visit this time was also only two days but getting a better idea of how people work and live in this city has been very interesting. Especially because I've always been saying how I think it's a great city and wouldn't mind living/working there for a while. To be honest, I'm not so convinced about that anymore. Or rather, I see many more of the drawbacks of it now as well.

Which is good, because I'm slowly gearing up my job search so I'm happy to have had the opportunity to get a better look at what I think I want.