Hotel: Shangri-La, Beijing
Rating: 5 star
Note: Excellent joint rooms with a fantastic Chinese garden setting surrounding the back of the hotel.
After a 2 hour delay in Dublin and a 2 hour delay on the runway at terminal 5 in Heathrow I was finally off and on my 9 hour flight to Peking. The reason I’m here is business. Microsoft is having a HR summit in China where it brings a large number of its HR and Recruitment Managers to China for an Immersion tour to learn about China’s culture and business environment and to also absorb as much information as possible about Microsoft’s operations in Peking, Shanghai and Shenzhen on the Hong Kong boarder.
Once landing in China I was met by one of the Shangri-la’s concierge staff who brought me to get my bag and then showed me to my driver who in a quick 40 minutes got me to my hotel. With the delays on route it was 12.40 by the time I had signed in. After a quick shower I then tried to call Patrick Sullivan the Recruitment Director in China, to see where the 35 other MS people were in Beijing. Before I called I looked up the detailed itinerary we had which told me they’d be on a boat ride on the way to the summer gardens. Tired from only getting a couple of hours sleep on route and ready for the bed I tried to find a network on my iPhone to dial for coordinates but to my annoyance the phone while picking up China Mobile wouldn’t allow me dial out. I checked my credit online and I had plenty to make calls for the week but still no dial tone. I tried texting home to say I had arrived safe and sound but “failed transmission” is all I got. So, the wily traveller that I am (or thought I was), and the doubting Thomas I've learnt to be when concerning iPhones I tried by trusty old Nokia and again no luck. Next stop was reception. Not even the super helpful army of receptionists could get through but at least they could call my iPhone so I at least had incoming call ability. I then tried Patrick and home on Skype and that didn’t work either. Weird... Eventually, I decided enough was enough and hit the bed and decided to give the Summer gardens a miss. Thankfully, I had seen them the last time I was here so no sweat.
I wasn’t going to miss Da Dong’s world famous duck restaurant and I knew from my brilliantly detailed agenda that everyone would be in reception at 7pm and low and behold there they all were. After a few hugs and kisses I was on track again and we were all whisked away to one of the most famous restaurants in the capital. I had recently been to Thorthons on the Green in Dublin and saw how the other half lived and this again was another one of those experiences with a huge variety of care and technique mixed it with consummate professional staff and amazingly fresh ingredients. There was no set menu simply 15 people around a round table with a spinning white glass in the centre which was laden with oriental riches. To start we had some duck liver enclosed in brown jelly, some asparagus with chilli dips on a bed of crushed ice, chopped bamboo with soya and ginger, gelatine truffles with mango toppings and then some duck tongue with black raisin looking olive type things which I don’t have the faintest idea what they were. Washed down with plenty of local beer I moved onto some of the main course meals which was assortment of fish delicately cooked with a surrounding of peppers, unrecognisable vegetable and some colourful condiments. Then, the army of slicer and dicer duck carving expert cooks came out and in front of us all weaved their steel and blade magic and placed succulent plates of tender pink duck flesh with it fantastic caramelised skin on our spinning glass. I was instructed to dip some in sugar which I did happily and closed my eyes and the lovely taste hit my palette and I remembered eating sugar paper back home in Waterford in the early 80s. We all then, just like fajitas in Mexico were given wraps to put some of the duck meat into and we mixed it with a variety of new condiments ranging from heavy black rich soya sauce to garlic paste, leak and cucumber. Top notch fodder very much appreciated. Finally then came an assortment of fruit and before you could say the “Birds Nest” we were off again on the bus and back in the luxurious Shangri-la. Looking forward to better mobile phone coverage tomorrow and a trip to the local subsidiary to learn about some of the HR and Recruitment challenges Microsoft China has which should be very interesting.
