My expectations before I touched down in China were of a country that is huge on so many different levels; its geographical size, the obvious population but also in terms of how dirty and polluting it would be.

After travelling through Africa and finding a totally different scenario to that which the world’s press portrayed I should have thought twice before judging this very intricate and interesting land.

China is a country developing at an immense rate; the value of the currency continues to rise, the growth of its industries put the rest of the world to shame and there is no muttering of the letters GFC anywhere. Everything appears to be on the up.

Beijing the capital

You can well believe it from the moment you set foot on Chinese soil too. The enormous terminal building at Beijing Airport is an indication of what to expect from the rest of the country. The supersized structure towers overhead with a vast number of arrivals gates. The authorities even had the foresight to build not just one but three terminal buildings, one of which isn’t even used yet. They’re saving that one for the future…and they’ll need it.

Our drive into Beijing takes us down wide four lane roads that operate efficiently, without fuss and we arrive at the Westin Hotel in the centre of the city. It’s to be my location for the next few days and as I present to the media and industry from this part of the world.

My first job is to help launch a partnership between Tourism Queensland and Byecity.com, the online department of a highly successful travel company here in China. Billy the CEO is a fantastic gentleman who realises the adventures that can be had out in Queensland and tells me that more and more Chinese are heading away from their motherland on adventures by themselves across the planet rather than in the standard 20+ tour groups of the past.

Queensland is a great place for foreign visitors but we need to try and do more to make it even more tempting for non-English speaking travellers to come and experience the state. Signage, translators and guides all help the overseas experience to be that much easier.

The Chinese market currently brings lots of visitors into Queensland and over the next 5 years this number is expected to rise to around 10-12% thereby potentially making it the single largest supplier of inbound travellers to Queensland’s tourism industry.

Make no mistake; this is a vastly important stage of relationships between China and Queensland. We need to make a good impression right now to ensure that we can welcome holiday-makers, backpackers and businesses alike over the coming decades.

When in Rome do as the Romans do. That’s the age-old adage and something I’ve never shied away from on travels around the planet so here is no different. We head out to a few different local restaurants over the three days in Beijing and sample lots of dim sum, seaweeds and fiery hot chilli sauces too.

A trip to the capital can’t be complete without taking in a few of the famous attractions so one evening I head down to the Olympic Village to see the awesome Birds Nest stadium and Water Park. The site is vast and gives me an idea of quite what a project it is to run something as huge at the Olympics! Good luck London in getting everything ready for 2012!

Spring is just starting to show its face here in the north of the country but decided to stay away the day I visited the Forbidden City with rain and a horribly cold temperature but it didn’t dampen my enthusiasm to try and cover the 720,000m2 site in the short time we had there.

It’s a pretty impressive centre to the city and easily visible from the air using Google Maps as Tiananmen Square is forms the southern boundary of the site. As you approach the main gate you do so with thousands of other Chinese from all parts of the country, all here to find out their country.

Building for the city started in 1406 and still today is one of the most impressive and enormous tourist attractions I have ever been to. The halls, of which there are 980 ranging from small individual rooms to the monumentally massive Hall of Supreme Harmony that rises 30 metres from the level of the surrounding square.

Today the vast majority of the site is open for tourism but certain sections are only opened for ceremonial purposes that involve Emperor Hu. In 1987 it was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO as the “Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties”.

Great Barrier Reef meets Great Wall of China

The interest in Queensland and The Best Job is huge here, the press conference that Charley organised was packed to the rafters and we managed to squeeze in 10 different media interviews too adding to the coverage the tour is getting. The national newspapers are featuring lots of stories about us!

No visit to China is complete without a trip to the Great Wall. A wonder of engineering even now as the incredibly long 8,800km wall winds its way across the undulating Chinese countryside originally designed to stop invasions by the Mongols from the north.

Together with 20 journalists we all head out to a popular section of the wall, Badaling. The sun is out and it seems everyone from the city has had the same idea with coach loads of tourists piling up the steps to marvel at the view. We drive in the opposite direction and find a less populated part and spend an hour wandering along it. It really is incredible that this was built between 1350 and 1600. Awesome.

World Expo in Shanghai

Next stop was Shanghai, a very different but very special Chinese city. It’s the site of the World Expo that runs from May through to October. The event was originally held in 1851 at Crystal Palace in London, more recently in Brisbane in 1988 and is now here in China.

I didn’t really have that much of a clue about what an Expo involved until now but having done my research realise that they are massively important events across to world to help nations showcase trade, tourism and open themselves up to other people, cultures and countries.

The Expo here is set to be absolutely massive with expected daily attendance figures of around 400,000. Total visitor numbers are expected to reach 70,000,000 by the end of the show – WOW.

I’m here to visit the Australian Pavilion that alone is expecting 40,000 per day. I was starting to get an idea of the significance of the event. We managed to get hold of some very special tickets to preview the pavilion and went down to see how preparations were going.

Rumours floating around the city are that the opening date of May 1^st is far too early for some of the exhibitors with workmen frantically attempting to get everything complete ready for the grand opening. No such dramas at the Aussie Pavilion though…everything is bang on track!

There will be around 200 people working in the Australian Pavilion when it opens and a certain Brisbanite by the name of Emma is to be our guide for the tour, as with all of the staff she as been to loads of lessons all about the tours they’ll be giving everyday for the next six months – and she knows her stuff!

The staff here are made up from Australians and local Chinese people who speak both English and Mandarin and later that night I head out for dinner with a few of them – Amber, Joanne and Bernadette. All very hospitable girls and we have great fun exploring Shanghai’s nightlife together!

Walking through the exhibition halls takes you on a journey of discovery and the final act brings you back to the entrance hall where seven cocoons hang from the cathedral-high ceiling from which wire-acrobats and dancers will perform.

I WANT TO COME BACK WHEN IT’S ALL UP AND RUNNING!

The final part of the tour involves meeting the Commissioner General for the Australian Pavilion, Lyndall Sachs. She is a very knowledgeable, lovely lady who shows us the VIP area of the building and then escorts us back to our hotel where the assembled Chinese press are waiting for us. The huge Asian media interest continues with nearly 50 journalists attending and I give another ten interviews over the course of the afternoon and next morning.

The subject of the Sheng Neng comes up on a couple of occasions. It was bound to. A Chinese ship runs aground on the GBR with the Island Caretaker away from his job! I have good news for the journos though as earlier that morning the ship had been re-floated with little or no pollution. The longer-term scar however is the 2km long scar the hull of the vessel has left on the sensitive coral reef.

Some of the food out here is pretty special you know…pretty damn hot too. Have a look at all of the chillis in this Sichuan dish. The restaurants also like to serve fresh fish…and I mean fresh fish. I recognise a few of the unlucky inhabitants of these tanks after diving with them out on the reef. They do look so much better when they’re swimming free in the ocean!

As part of the Expo the Chinese government ran a competition to find ten families from around China who would represent the country as they flew out to previous cities that have hosted the event. Brisbane being one of these welcomed Jeff, Lisa and their son Andrew back in July 2009 and I had the chance to go and meet them at their home.

What a great morning! The media followed us once more as we exchanged gifts and learnt just a little about each other’s lives. The family are really good English speakers and have travelled to the corners of the planet before and some of the photos they have on the wall are very motivating…lots of places still to visit Ben!

Together we wander down to the more famous areas of Shanghai like Ju Garden. A collection of old traditional buildings with a market place, zig-zag bridge, fish ponds and delicious eatery where Dim Sum is served and the queue tells us its bound to be good.

The market stalls feature all manner of things going on – check out this guy who cuts stencils from paper in record quick time. This is the dolphin he cut out in just under a minute. The obligatory photo then followed, as he knew all about the Best Job.

On my final evening in Shanghai I wander down to the Bund, a cosmopolitan mix of the old and the new with architecture from the early part of the century mixed with the ultra-modern Pearl Tower and other huge skyscrapers. The river is like an artery for the city and country with constant barges piled high with goods moving inland.

This is a country that is growing very, very fast and I am excited by it as bringing the new richer average person from here to Queensland seems very achievable. I want to learn Mandarin in preparation too!

China has surprised me on so many levels with massive media interest in the Best Job generating front-page newspaper articles, TV coverage and a record number of interviews. After sitting down with Wu Ni, an environmental journalist, I found out that the country really is making an effort to reduce its carbon foot-print as new green technologies seem to appear here everyday…we just don’t seem to hear about them in the newspapers of the UK and Australia.

BEIJING PHOTOS

SHANGHAI PHOTOS