China: Day 1

On our way!

Beijing, here we come!

Making our way to the bus.

Little Miss Attitude!

Charlie, our tour guide! He called himself a big bellied buddha man. I think he is right ;)

Beijing through the windows of our bus.

This is where we ate dinner. It was a peking duck, which was rather tasty!  We rolled it in a pancake, which is like a very, very thin spring roll wrapper, tossed in some scallions, duck sauce with duck meat and rolled it up. Yum.

Our hotel from afar. Beijing has a major air pollution problem. There is a constant haze in the air, which is thicker in the fall/winter months due to the coal that is burned to heat homes.

A government building. All government buildings have this emblem on them.

The Bird's Nest. Home of the 2008 Summer Olympics and now the symbol of China.

Our trip to Beijing was underway when we arrived at the airport to join our tour group. There were over 70 of us partaking on this adventure together. We checked in, received our information, visa and away we went. The trip to Beijing was uneventful. When we arrived in the airport, we shuffled through the beautiful terminal (just built for the Olympics in 2008, which will be a recurring theme throughout this journey) to find our tour guide. After a bit of confusion and uncertainty of where to go, we made it through customs. Charlie, our tour guide, greeted us and the adventure began. Our first stop was the Kungfu show. We aren't certain, but it seemed as though the production was government sponsored. It was similiar to a show you'd see in Vegas complete with tumbling, tossing, and balancing. The last act was 4 motorcycles that drove around on the inside of a large caged sphere. It was pretty impressive! We exited the show, found our bus and ventured to dinner. It was an authentic Chinese meal with peking duck. The food was great, yet similar to what we'd experienced in Korea where you are served 10 family style dishes. The table is set up with a lazy susan to rotate the dishes around to each person. Nearly every meal on this trip was included in the tour price, which was great. After dinner we checked into the hotel. We stayed at the 5 star Marriot Beijing City Wall. It was beautiful. One highlight of the hotel were the floors. The entire lobby was covered in black granite. They shined. Mya thought they were like a black hole where she could fall into a bottomless pit, so she was extremely hesitant to walk on them. It was quite a funny sight.  We shared an adjoining room to my Mom, so we were all together, but each had separate spaces too. It was perfect.