Friday, August 31, 2007

Beijing Book Fair and Sightseeing



A provocative banner outside the Beijing Book Fair

We began today by making an appearance at the Beijing International Book Fair. No sooner had we arrived than we ran into Neil Gaiman, who accompanied us to the Canadian Publishing booth, where Fitzhenry & Whiteside, and my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint, were very well represented.



Robert J. Sawyer Books titles at the Beijing Book Fair

After that Carolyn and I joined Neil and his handler from HarperCollins, a very nice economics student named Cygnus, for a wonderful lunch at a restaurant where the sinks had to be seen to be believed.



After, we all went to Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City, where a local guide gave us a terrific tour.



Neil Gaiman, Carolyn Clink, Robert J. Sawyer, Mao Zedong



The Forbidden City



Neil Gaiman, Robert J. Sawyer

Then Carolyn and I headed out for a great rooftop reception for foreign authors at the Book Worm, a wonderful English-language bookstore.

That was followed by one of the highlights of our trip: a fine fellow named Wenfeng, who is one of my friends on MySpace, treated us to the world famous Beijing acrobats and then took us for a fabulous dinner of authentic Peking Duck at a restaurant frequented by the locals.



The amazing Beijing acrobats -- incredible!



Rob's MySpace friend Wenfeng at dinner

All in all, it was an absolutely wonderful day.


The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site


9 Comments:

At August 31, 2007 11:51 AM , Blogger J0hnnyB said...

That sink! I... I don't even know what to say.

 
At August 31, 2007 2:22 PM , Blogger Ivan said...

I was fortunate enough to have your brilliant wife as a classmate for one summer at York, we sat next to each other for "The Literature of Ireland".

She's one of the few classmates from that class that I've not been able to keep in touch with (I'm horribly nostalgic) and was lucky enough to come across these photos of you and her whilst stalking Neil Gaiman... er, reading his blog. If you could pass on my well wishes to her I would be most appreciative ;)

Ivan Mulkeen (etrigan_ca@hotmail.com)

 
At August 31, 2007 6:43 PM , Blogger Yoga Gal said...

Great photos! Thank you for sharing!

 
At August 31, 2007 9:33 PM , Blogger Laura Keating said...

The sink ...
...All that can be said.
Love the opening photo, one of those things that makes you smile a frown and nod.
Thanks very much for sharing, from one Canuck to another!

 
At August 31, 2007 11:33 PM , Blogger Somnambulist Seeker said...

Since you and Neil Gaiman are the only two authors whose blogs are linked from my own, I thought I was hallucinating when I started comparing the two and realized you'd been hanging out in... China.

Whoa. Neural Systems check.

 
At September 01, 2007 11:22 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

It was nice meeting you at Bookworm.

I've been to Beijing Foreign Language Bookstore today hoping to find HOMINIDS but to no avail.

Alain

 
At September 01, 2007 11:53 AM , Blogger Dwight Williams said...

Nice first photo there.

 
At September 02, 2007 3:17 AM , Anonymous Hannah said...

getting clean has never been so dirty...

 
At September 18, 2007 7:52 PM , Blogger Rick Novy said...

isn't it illegal to photograph Neil Gaiman without a leather jacket?

 

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