Asialog.1

After our aircraft circled over Western Beijing for 45 minutes, the control tower finally cleared us to land. China.

The clearest days in Beijing are as dark as the haziest in cities outside the Orient. Officials are working tirelessly to clean up the capital before the 2008 Olympics. They're planting millions of acres of trees, building newer and taller buildings, and broadcasting media that rally against poor manners like cutting in line, spitting, and littering. But no matter how much vegetation is introduced or how many pleases and thank yous are uttered, the games will be played under the shadow of this overcast. Today, the sky is thicker than Maypo, which caused our delay, and makes it seem like evening at three in the afternoon. Asia.

My assignment is to travel to our facility in the Henan Province via the capital, Zhungzhou. There, I rendezvous with a potential financier, sweet talk him and oversee his tour of the operation. I'm covering close to 15,000 miles over five days for about two hours of work. The Far East.

Currently, I'm waiting in the airport holdover room. The connecting air leg has been delayed to an unspecified time. So far, three hours have lapsed and officials are distributing extra rations to keep untrained civilians from croaking of malnourishment. If Charlie had the aviation problems Paddie has, we may have won the war. People's Republic of China.