A Recap of My Beijing Adventure

Me with my BlackBerry Running AT&T Navigator, Global Edition

As some of you may recall from my last blog post, I recently took a trip to Asia to visit a friend and experience the rich culture. Well, I’m back from my Asian adventure and must say that I had a blast!

I’ll start off by saying that Beijing is such a beautiful city, steeped in ancient history. It is incredible to see buildings that were literally built centuries before the first minutes of history were ever recorded here in North America. It’s an awe-inspiring feeling to see, touch and walk in places that are older than anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s also hard to express in words how enormous everything is. In all my travels, I have never walked so many steps to look at each site, whether it was a palace or ancient temple. I think I climbed more stairs in one week than I’ve climbed in my entire life! If I wasn’t physically fit before my trip to Beijing, I certainly was by the time I finished it.  

The entire experience was one that I’ll certainly treasure for a lifetime. From hiking on the Great Wall of China, to wandering through the Temple of Heaven, to eating some of the best food of my life in a nearby local village, each day was filled with a great spirit and sense of adventure.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I was looking forward to using AT&T Navigator, Global Edition (powered by TeleNav) on my trip. I’m happy to say that it actually saved the day at one point during my vacation. My dad and I had been able to quickly learn the amazingly efficient Beijing subway system while visiting the city. One evening on our way back to our hotel, we emerged from the subway to find that it had started raining while we were on the train. Rain is actually an understatement; downpour is more like it. We were getting drenched fast and there was simply no winning in the competition to find a taxi outside of the crowded subway station. So, I pulled out my AT&T Navigator and used the pedestrian mode to guide us through the wet streets from the subway station to our hotel. If only my BlackBerry had a pop-out umbrella feature!

My Dad and I After Being Caught in the Rain

If you are thinking about planning a trip to Asia, I highly recommend making a stop in Beijing while you’re there. It is a great place to spend some time. Also, I would highly recommend taking AT&T Navigator, Global Edition along with you if you can. I quickly found that the rumors I heard were true - taxi drivers really don’t speak much English. But, that doesn’t have to stop you from finding your way if you have an easy tool to help guide you.

We’d love to hear if anyone else has interesting stories of how AT&T Navigator or any other TeleNav powered products such as Sprint Navigation or TeleNav GPS Navigator saved you while traveling.