Jinan, China -- With the hotel front desk clerk busy checking me in, her co-worker picked up the ringing phone.
"Do we have any foreign journalists staying here?" she repeated the question being asked at the other end of the phone.
"No," she replied, before the clerk helping me threw her a look. "Oh yes, three just got here."
With the local authorities now presumably alerted to our presence, any hope we had of maintaining a low profile at the start of our reporting trip to cover the most anticipated trial in China in recent memory had ended.
We arrived in the eastern city of Jinan on Tuesday, two days before the local Intermediate People's Court was set to try disgraced Communist leader Bo Xilai, who was once tipped to be a future president but now faces charges of bribe-taking, embezzlement and abuse of power.Bo's spectacular downfall -- complete with tales of murder, corruption and betrayal -- triggered the greatest political crisis for the ruling Communist Party in decades. During his trial, the charismatic and controversial politician is expected to make his first public appearance since April 2012 when he was stripped of his top Party posts.Given the high drama and political stakes, it seems prudent for China's top leaders to pick one of the country's blandest cities for the spectacle. Jinan is far away -- more than 780 miles (1,200 kilometers) -- from Chongqing, Bo's former powerbase, or other places where he had held senior positions. The presiding judge is said to be a tested and reliable official in the eyes of Beijing.