I’ve never had any desire to visit China. But after the Beijing Olympics in 2008, I thought I’d take a trip there to see how it had developed. To begin with though, can I just say that the Chinese embassy in NYC is staffed by incredibly unfriendly people? It definitely didn’t help matters that I was Taiwanese, but damn were they rude.
Anyhow, I was flying solo to China, but I wouldn’t consider this a solo trip as I was with friends pretty much every day of the trip. I would do touristing during the day, and we would meet up in the evening to continue the partying. I took a one-day trip down to Shanghai too to see another friend, and tried to squeeze as much as I could into one day.