Stormy in Beijing

It’s night in Beijing after an extremely long day. We arrived very early this morning to a hot and sultry city. After checking in and discovering I can access the internet from my hotel room, we went for a late breakfast at the office aka the Jackpot Cafe and then went to meet the British Council.  As ever, it was a very interesting and productive meeting, which threw up a lot of ideas about how 100 Words might contribute to the Cultural Olympiad linking Beijing 2008 to London 2012.  We spent the afternoon checking out a couple of very different spaces that could be used to host a site specific/interactive event linking London and Beijing next April – Beijing Planetarium, which was unfortunately closed although we had a good look around outside, and ‘the altar’ at Ditan Park.  By this time, the rain was falling steadily again, something I’ve rarely seen in Beijing. We got pretty wet trying to locate The Bookworm off Sanlitun Lu - finally got there to share a drink and dinner, and to hear an American author talk about a recently published book about China. A very busy day tomorrow, with seven meetings lined up.  More to follow soon…