Beijing

Greetings from Beijing! After a 12 hour flight (Molly was awake for 3), we were greeted at the airport by a friend of our Mongolian host. We were chauffered to our hotel/apartment which is complete with kitchen, laundry room and balcony. We took a quick nap and were met by another driver who took us to the Forbidden City. This is one of Beijing's amazing cultural landmarks. Built in the 1400s, it encompasses 900 buildings, most of which have been renovated. The place was packed with thousands of tourists, mostly Chinese. The weather here is hot and humid. Beijing is a city of 15 milion people. The city is under construction for the 2008 Olympics. For those of you familiar with driving a car in Rome, Beijing is a thousand times more challenging! Imagine huge buses and cyclists jockeying for position at 60 miles per hour.

We lunched on the traditional Peking duck (Beijing was formerly called Peking), sliced tableside. Luckily, our waitress spoke English, but so far we have met very few people who do. Including both of our drivers, which meant for interesting travels! We're getting good at sign language.

Today we rose quite early - but not early enough - to witness the Tiananmen Square flag raising and singing of the national anthem. The square was filled with thousands of Chinese who had just finished the flag raising and national anthem. We'll catch it next time. We were definitely a tourist attraction ourselves, as the only caucasians there. We were asked to pose for pictures.

Later today we will visit the Temple of Heaven and the Lama Temple and go ice skating indoors at Beihai Park. We are healthy and happy and truly enjoying this adventure. Next posting will be from Mongolia!