Apparently there are a number of things I missed out on when I was in Beijing 8 years ago; albeit my visit was under the guise of an "educational" trip as I was supposed to learn about emerging leadership styles in China, Korea, and Japan.  Now, the tourists that are currently swarming Beijing reveal much of my lack of tourist experience.  So in honor of the Beijing Olympics here are 5 things I didn’t do when I was in China:

1.  I did NOT eat animal penis.  You heard me.  Apparently there are restaurants that solely serve animal penii.  And to think I missed that restaurant.  

2.  I did NOT eat dog.  Although I did eat scorpion and a variety of other animals in the hopes of bridging cultural divides I did NOT eat dog that was the one animal that was too close to eating the family pet for my taste.

3.  I did not swim the Imperial Palace moat.  Actually, I didn’t see the Imperial Palace at all, but I hear it is a must see.  I don’t think I could have made it over the 35-foot wall on the other side of the moat even if I tried to swim it…

4.  I did not make any sudden moves in Tiananmen Square.  I hear they frown on that and I didn’t want the guys with machine guns running after me… I did want to make it home in one piece after all.  

5.  I did not make it all the way up the Great Wall.  I only made it about 3/4 of the way up.  But my excuse is that I’m from Texas where everything is flat.  And when you put altitude and pollution together it makes for a nasty combination.

So, there you go, 5 things I didn’t do on my trip to Beijing, I’m sure there are many more things that I missed the first time around but I’ll have to save those for my next trip to Asia.