Back on the road again in search of the ultimate "cloud/app based" agri tool(s) with my Nuffield research...this time I will be travelling to China, Europe, Ireland and Canada, sometimes I feel its like looking for a needle in  hay stack and then whamo...I find a whole swag of great information in the least expected places...so the journey continues....this time with my beautiful daughter Jess keeping me company...

First stop China...

Despite my best attempts to find some technology contacts in Beijing (which is where I had elected to have the Asian stop over in our round the world ticket) I just could not find any real contacts worth chasing, so I decided that we would just have a few days in China and see if I could enquire with locals etc where I could find the techno hub in China....

Well...this is our story of Beijing...

We arrived at around 12.30am, to be picked up by a very trendy young Chinese man, who spoke no English but had a really cool app on his phone that converted Chinese to English, how cool, I am thinking about developing an app that converts teenage texting slang to a workable version I understand!!  In his very cool car we hopped in and proceeded to our accom that I had checked out on trip advisor...the Royal Orchid Hotel...

Jess eating in Mr Shie Dumplings restaurant in the Hutongs.....

I started to worry when we turned down the dark alley, proceeded through the poorest parts of Beijing and when he stopped the car, with no perceivable hotel in sight, I was calculating little chinese man height and weight and thought if this is a set up to rob us, Jess and I could take him down!!  "Where is the hotel" I demanded, "I show" he said in his limited English, anyway down this little grotty alley way we went, through a door and into an oasis called the Royal Orchid hotel in amongst the hutongs of Beijing...we had arrived in the real part of Beijing...and we loved it...the hutongs are about 700 years old, its the real heart and soul of China, it never sleeps, full of little twisty alleyways, where little industrial workshops co-exist next to food eateries and little shanty houses...the people were so welcoming and kind and I will be honest language is a challenge for tourist like us, with no mandarin in our vocab... I became very adept at charades and pointing and facial expressions, eventually we communicated, the Chinese were very patient with me....we ate in the Hutongs and for those who know me and know I cant eat my own food if I find one of my own head hair in my food, to eat in a little shanty like Mr Shie Dumplings is very brave, but put aside the somewhat "grotty" kitchens...the food was magnificent, and cheap!!

The Great Wall of China....

I booked a hike on line with Great Wall hiking, we were picked up at the hotel for our 2 day hike, he idea was a hike with a small group, on a remote part of the wall, sleep on the wall in a watch tower, eat with a local farmers family and then on the way back visit the Ming tomb.  Jess and I ended being the only ones on the hike, so had our own private guide for 2 days....well there was a miscommunication in our translation from English to Mandarin, in my email I had asked for a moderate to easy hike....they thought we were experienced hikers and put us on their second hardest hike...this I only found out 5kms into the 10km hike.....no wonder we were the only ones doing it!!!

Physically its the hardest thing I have ever done, at times I was crawling up the wall it was so steep and at times I had to use my bottom as a brake going down, because it was so steep...but it was also truly one of the most amazing things I have ever done, the wall is magnificent, amazing and almost spiritual in its presence...it is over 8800kms long, thats the 10 hours flight we took from Beijing to Amsterdam, took 100 years to build and is estimated to have been built around 2300 years ago...truly phenomenal...

This was one of the mountains we climbed down and then up again, we did this about 7 times.....

Typical "up" view...I was sucking in the big breathes at points like this.....not too proud to crawl either...

So proud of Jess in doing this, she had been in bed sick for a week prior and galloped it home, me....I stumbled to the end......

Our local guide Peter was a well educated man and over the 2 days we learnt a lot about Chinese history, politics and religion, men, women, loves and lives...an amazing personal insight into the chinese world....thankyou Beijing, next stop Amsterdam to meet with the Vice President of RABO International to discuss what tools they are currently developing....

At the top of the first climb up....only six up and down to go.....OMG.....we started down by the lake....