We made it!! We arrived in Beijing at 9:30pm on Friday night. We were met by our agency rep, Miranda, at the airport and taken to our hotel - The Hua Du Hotel.
The following morning, Saturday, we had breakfast - buffet style with American and Chinese food. Then we headed off for a day of touring with, Sim, our guide and Lee, our driver. Mom was freaked out by the driving, but it's not as crowded as Seoul and not as crazy as Indonesia, so it was fine for me.
We visited Tiananmen square first. It's quite large and crowded.
According to Sim, it wasn't as crowded as it could have been. We then trekked over to the Forbidden City. It really is something to see - very ornate. We certainly got in our hiking quota for the day. The City is 1 km long and 3/4 km wide. This is where the emperors used to live.
We then went off to have lunch at a Chinese restaurant. They only served Chinese food, so mom was forced to eat or starve. She chose eating & is still alive and kicking so it wasn't too bad. We had sweet & sour soup, sweet and sour pork, spicy peanut chicken and assorted vegis. The pork wasn't as sweet as we have here. The food wasn't too spicy overall. It was fine for me.
We then walked around the department store there. The salespeople are more high pressure than in the States. Mom didn't particularly care for that, but I ignored them. They have street vendors here too. They obviously noticed that mom was a sucker right away and swooped in every time. I gave her pointers on getting rid of them throughout the day. Sim finally had to help her out too. Eventually she improved and was able to fend them off on her own. They didn't bother me.
We stopped in at a Jade factory on the way to the Wall. It was more sales than tour. I bought Marissa a Jade pendant with, of course, a horse on it. They tried selling me one with a pig, monkey or rooster (they couldn't decide which zodiac sign Marissa was born under). Of course this year is the year of the pig. I'm not interested in pigs, monkeys or roosters though, so I went with the horse.
The weather was wonderful - not too hot or humid & just a little windy. We took off for the Great Wall & it lives up to its name. We chose to hike UP the less crowded and apparently less scenic side, & I do mean UP. We only went partway. (Dad, this one is a 4 or 5 on the hiking scale). For the rest of you - that's steep. You can see the wall behind us in one of the photos below. That's the side we didn't hike up.
When we returned to the hotel, we crashed and slept for about 12 hours straight. We're wide awake this morning after having a nice breakfast. Mom likes the chow mein. I'm sticking with the milder stuff right now. My stomach's been queasy for the last week (It's your fault of course, Libby. I got a touch of that tummy virus you had).
We leave for Guangzhou tomorrow morning (Monday). We get Marissa in the afternoon. I'll probably post again on Tuesday.
Kristy & Twyla
PS -- We can't view Marissa's website from here, so we can't see your posts.
Please keep posting though. I plan on printing it out for Marissa's life story book. You can email us directly though using the email link on the homepage.
