Day One: The Trip to China

The trip to Linda started with a fine trip to the airport. Bill Sr. and Ellen were the chauffeurs of the day. At the airport the lady at check-in was soooo polite. Somewhere in there we ended up showing her the picture of Linda. It turns out that it is the same as her mom’s name! Then I noticed the young lady’s name tag: Marci! Oh, well, an “I” for a “y” is ok with us. The next thing we know, she puts us on the standby list for the earlier flight from San Diego to LAX. Wow!

The flight over to Beijing was quite uneventful. Actually a very smooth flight. I actually slept a bit. Melissa slept on and off. The most she has ever slept on a plane before. The wacky part is eating at such odd hours; we had a dinner and a lunch! Where’s the breakfast? It was dark the whole trip. The only hint of daylight was when we were over Alaska where there was a slight glow on the horizon.

We arrived in Beijing this morning, Saturday, at 5:20am. Right on time. It is wacky being so tired and so excited at the same time. A 20 minute car ride from the airport to the hotel made for some interesting site seeing. We saw some old apartments and they are busy at work building new apartments. 13 million people live in Beijing!

At the hotel, the Peace Hotel located in the middle of downtown, is very nice. We are walking distance from the Forbidden City. There are tons of shops, too! Oh, that damned weight limit on domestic flights! Of course we spent a couple of hours walking around as our room was not ready. Yup, we walked on over to the Forbidden City. What a place. Unlike our western cities, there is so much history that you can see. At the same time you see them frantically working on the new, and with the ’08 Olympics just around the corner there is much cleanup.

Here’s the crazy part of today: It’s not even noon time yet! Oh, we will have so much to look at, and being so tired, who knows what more we will discover.

Later!