Arrived in Beijing in One Piece!

Good Wednesday AM from Beijing!


We got to our hotel safe and sound last night at about 10:30pm. After over a day of travel, we were pretty tired, so falling asleep on China's normal night schedule was no problem (staying asleep is another story). It is 4am and I have been wide awake for a few hours now.


Getting here was uneventful, if not mildly pleasant. We just can't say enough about Northwest Airlines. Shawn is a Silver Elite member, so we were able to board with First/Business Class, and we were automatically put in Coach Plus, which gives us a little more leg room and PC power at our seat.


On our flight from Seattle to Tokyo, we were served 2 full meals, which were both really good (and large portions), and several small snacks. Unlike our flight to Italy (on a different Airline), the flight attendants were really nice, and acted like they enjoyed their jobs.


Two movies, 18 Sudoku puzzles, and a dry MP3 player battery later, we arrived in Tokyo with less than an hour for our connecting flight to Beijing. I was nervous, but my world traveler husband confirmed that an hour is plenty of time to make a connection in Tokyo. He was right this time. Our flight wasn't even boarding yet, and the security checkpoint was far more organized than Sea-Tac.


Another 3 hours later, we arrived in Beijing and were met by our guide, Anna. She ushered us into the garage where we were met by our driver, Mr. Wu...who very obviously does not speak any English and isn't about to begin taking lessons.


Anna quickly explained the 5 traffic rings in Beijing, which if I understand her correctly, is their way of navigating traffic around the City Center while lessening the effects of traffic. Today, as we head out for our first full day here, we'll see exactly what traffic really is... a weekday in China's capital.


We are staying at the Central Holiday Inn and what we have seen so far is very nice. The room is clean and average in size, and Shawn is loving all the "kits" in the bathroom...those who don't know him also don't know that our guest bathroom is filled with little trinkets from hotel bathrooms around the world.


We meet Anna in the lobby at 9:30 to start our first day of sightseeing. On today's menu:


Forbidden City
Tienamen Square
Temple of Heaven
Peking Duck dinner
Acrobatics Show


Hopefully, we can fit some shopping in there somewhere. We would like to look at jade and pearls here.


I also forgot to mention that after carefully packing and repacking, both of our bags are beyond the in-China limit, meaning we will have to do some creative repacking before our bags will qualify for the flight to Hangzhou on Saturday. Shawn's bag weighed 52 pounds and mine weighed 55. Since 44 pounds is the limit per person, you can see that we have a problem! Most everything we packed is needed for our 2nd leg of the trip...oh yeah, a little boy that meets us in less than a week!! We have a duffel packed, so we'll use it to cart 19 pound as additional carry-on.


I think I'll try to get a bit more sleep before heading to breakfast. Hope all is well back home!


I'll have some pictures in my next post. There hasn't been much to take pictures of so far.