Touring Beijing

It seems like a month ago that we posted to this site, but I think just a day or so has passed. The first night "sleep" was just about the same for everyone in our group. We all hit the pillow at about 8:00 p.m. local time absolutely convinced we'd sleep 12 hours and be right in sync the next morning. If only.... Most of us woke up around midnight ready to start the day. The kids did some homework, I read some magazines, we watched some activity outside the hotel room window. We were all exhausted when we met for breakfast downstairs. But what a wonderful buffet. Now we know why everyone loads up for the day at this meal. There's a ton of famliar food to eat and it's included in the price of the room. As we've seen everywhere in Beijing, the service is incredible and so different from the U.S. Swift, professional and totally aiming to please. It's refreshing. Not sure if I mentioned this, but we scheduled our trip to arrive in Beijing a day earlier than most of the other families. We read online about how doing so provides a chance to settle in and deal with jet lag before beginning the touring in earnest. We did want to see something, so we opted to take a guided tour on pedicab through old Beijing -- a place called the Hutong. This is a series of homes and alley-ways situated near the Forbidden city. Homes for the "commoners." Think row-homes on one level, tiny and very modest and much older -- 700 years older! These homes at first blush look like they are for the poor, but we actually got to visit the home of an archeaologist. The homes have been in the family for generations. We also visited a small museum near the Shishahi Lake dedicated to the wife of Sun Yat Sen. Later, it was off to the Drum Tower and then to climb the very steep staircase of the Bell Tower. From there, you could see the tops of the Hutong homes. After all of that, we went to a tea tasting ceremony. The Jasmine was very nice and very welcome as touring outside for a couple hours gets cold! The weather overall in Beijing is beautiful and our guide Sherry calls it "warm." Let's see, that was Friday. Saturday we met up with all of the other agency families (we now number 23) and began the daylong tour to Tian'an men Square, the Forbidden City, lunch downtown, a government-run pearl store, Summer Palace, a silk museum and shop and then off to an authentic Beijing duck dinner. Didn't get back until around 8:00 p.m.! If I'm to post photos and get on with today's touring, I'll have to let you all interntet search the above sites b/c the history surrounding them all is extensive and I couldn't possibly go into it all here. I can tell you that it's all awe-inspiring, makes you feel very small and reminds us all once again what a very, very young country the U.S. is. We were told not to photograph the guards and not to have any political conversations while in Tian'an men Square. We've become experts at saying "no thank you" in Chinese as tourists are bombarded with offers for postcards, flags, booklets, etc. Many of the older generation honor Chairman Mao as a god and travel great distances from other provinces and line up for hours to view his body in a glass coffin. Many in the younger generation have found Christianity. On a humorous note, because these families are coming from the provinces to tour Beijing just like we are, many have never seen Western people. So... there's lots of staring... and some people who want their pictures taken with the kids. Jessi (who looks like Barbie to begin with) gets the most requests as she has long blond hair. We, of course, tease her mercilessly and ask if we may have her autograph... The pearl store was great. Got a few items there... nothing very expensive. The silk musuem was fun, too. Learned a lot about how the silk is processed and picked up little silk pajamas for Tenley, some pillowcases for the kids and a comforter made of silk for Tenley's crib. Duck dinner? No... I didn't eat the duck. (But I did try it a long time ago.) Jessi and Hans ate it and said it was good! On a side note... for those of you with kids.... watch very carefully the sign-on process as we've been told that other blogs on this site may have inappropriate material. We are unable to view our own site, by the way, as "blogs" have restricted access. So we're posting but have no idea what our site looks like. If you'd like to send any comments, please do so at hans@exhibitamerica.com.