BEIJING DAY 1 - TV, THE GUOAN AND THE DUCK

Great first day in China, working with our international sister agency Text100 on the Barclays Asia Trophy 2009. Today we held a fan's forum at the Worker's Stadium in Beijing, hosting players from the Beijing Guoan team for a Q&A with fans and media. The Guaon are massive here, and are playing Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and Hull FC in the Barclays Asia Trophy this week. We're managing Chinese media and photographers in exactly the same way as UK press, same job, different continent.

I called in to the Text100 offices to meet Candice and her team. Wayne Shi has been our main contact, and doing a fantastic job managing everything on the ground. We were out for dinner with the Barclays UK, China and Hong Kong teams last night, along with Text100, at a famous duck restaurant in the City. The Chinese have been fantastic so far, very hospitable, helpful, and pleased to see the Barclays Premier League in town. Beijing is also very interesting, really becoming western-ised, which according to everyone we speak to, is a very good thing.

This evening we've been to BTV 6 for a live TV appearance with the Barclays Asia Trophy. Check the snaps below - good branding or what? This is the main sports channel in China, think Sky Sports News but better, and we were on the main sports news show for the evening, so fantastic publicity for Barclays and the tournament. We were also on the 26th floor of an amazing building, with the fastest, scariest lift I've ever been on. Keith, our trophy security guy, was filmed bring the trophy into the building, which was hilarious, but quality TV. Like he said "it's a long way from Wellingborough kid". I couldn't have put it better myself.

You can check out a full gallery of pics, that I'll update daily, here. More from Beijing tomorrow...