I just had to post this little gem. A friend who went on our China trip (it seems so long ago, but was only a few months!) sent me a “Brush for Baldies” (sans bristles!) This picture shows me using it. Right on the handle is imprinted, “Not Made in China – Made in Sun City, Arizona”.
Then, maybe to keep my head from freezing, they had gotten me a very appropriate hat. Always looking out for me, this crew!
While we were visiting China, we saw a lot of signage in English – a sign, itself, that China is open to visitors. Not all of the translation worked out, of course. And I hope no offense is taken – none is intended. Heck, I can’t imagine how we must butcher some of our English translations into other languages. So this is just for fun. Here are a few of my favorites.
How do you nicely tell folks to behave? Try this!
"Your health rests with your civilized behavior"
Put a little more positively:
"Civilized behavior of tourists is another bright scenery"
Don’t litter!
"As a beautiful environment is on all of us, please omnivorously put the waste in garbage can."
Omnivorously? But perfect punctuation!
Since we’re on a food kick (eating both plant and animal matter BEFORE you throw it away, maybe), how about this translation from a menu? Sorry for the lousy photo, but believe me that’s what it says – and there were even better ones I couldn’t capture!
"Carbon reddish yellow cowboy"
No idea what the dish was.
Here are some warning signs:
and no LOUD SPEAKING, either!
"No Climbing and No Scribbling" at the Ming Tombs
. . . and that means YOU, tagger!
"Speaking cellphone is strictly prohibited when thunderstorm"
But g’head – try it. Just let me get my vidcam ready before you do!
OK, back to a little more peaceful and serene setting . . . and sign.
"Take care of the environment, and the environment will take care of your mood"
in the beautiful Lingering Garden in Suzhou.
And who wouldn’t want to go to this place?
"Clouds Melted in Tea Fragrance"
and of course you get there, by going . . . up!
Best for last:
"Welcome the American Chambers Delegation."
Nothing funny or wrong about this sign – unless it’s the guy standing next to it. We certainly did feel welcome. And now just planning how to go back.
Left the hotel 7 a.m. for the airport – only to find that our flight had been canceled! The plane hadn’t arrived. Little panic scramble to get everyone on another flight that would still catch our connecting flight back to Seattle. We were afraid we might be Shanghai’d just like the sailors of old, but our tour guides were right on top of it and found another flight. We had to wait an extra three hours, but that gave me time to catch up on computer. I wasn’t able to blog the last two days, so will catch up tonite.
Once aboard, no problem. We had just enough time to make connections in Beijing, along with a basketball team from Seattle that had spent a week in China playing the Chinese Olympic team (lost both games). Eleven hour flight flight back was better than going over, mostly because it eventually got dark and I caught some shut-eye. Hainan Airlines (owned by Chinese gov’t) is not bad. Service was good. Food was . . . airline food.
Back in the good ole USA at 11:59 a.m. Monday morn, after leaving Beijing at 4:20 that afternoon. See, traveling backwards in time IS possible, thanks to the International Date Line. Back to Helena at 5:30 p.m., an hour after we left China. Home, sweet home.
Although we’re glad to be home (and broke), we’re a little sad to be leaving the Middle Kingdom. I never would have gotten the impact without being there. This has just whet my appetite. It’s not even hustle and bustle – it’s an outright frenzy to build, grow, trade, prosper. China is a formidable force. I was amazed at how many Chinese spoke some English. Someone quoted a statistic that there are more Chinese students studying English than there are American students studying English. Almost all the signs were also in English. Even street vendors took Yankee dollars (the exception was the Shanghai airport – what irony!) We need better relations with China. Not only as a market for our goods and services, but to bring them here to see the beauty of OUR country and the friendliness of OUR people.
Stay tuned.
At last! The chance to sleep in – even if it is just ’til 7 a.m. Not as heavy a schedule today for one thing and for another, we’ll be here tonight, so no need to add miles traveling to the next town. But, we awoke to a dense fog – so heavy we couldn’t see anything out our hotel room window. I even climbed up on the ledge to look down – nothing. Eerie. But by the time we descended to the 26th floor for breakfast, it was clearing a little – mostly because it had started raining. Not unusual in Shanghai, we hear. Glad we brought our umbrellas.
First up, the silk rug factory tour. The main factory has actually moved out of Shanghai, but they maintain a demo set-up and sales office there. Once again, incredible craftsmanship, and all by hand.
The key to quality is the number of knots per square inch, by which the silk is tied to the rug. The best of these have 6,000! That gives them greater detail and also takes much longer. So they can command in the thousands of dollars. Due to the quality of silk, rotating the rug changes the hues. Gotta see it to believe it.
Lunch was an ordeal. Not the quality of the food (Mongolian barbecue – yum!) but getting to it. The ordeal was trying to stay on your feet in the rainy mess. For a city that gets a lot of rain, they don’t have non-slip floors. In fact, in one place, they were actually using a squeegee to mop up. They often just throw cardboard down on the floor instead of carpets. Highlight of the meal was celebrating the birthday of one of our group. The tour guides made a very special presentation.
After lunch, a group of us took a ride on the wild side – the maglev train, that is. I mentioned construction on the Shanghai/Hangzhou line to be completed in three years. The line to Pudong Int’l Airport is done now. Roundtrip fare is $25 and I’ll bet they’re making more off tourists than they are airport passengers. They have to pay for it somehow. I won’t attempt to explain magnetic levitation; suffice to say, it enables incredible speed. During the short 7 1/2-minute ride each way, we easily hit tip speed of 431 Kilometers per hour (240 mph)! It really didn’t seem to be going that fast, ’til we passed the other train going the same speed the other way. Let’s just say several people shrieked at the sudden flash right outside their window. If you look over Kathy’s head, you can see the readout of 430 km/h.
To calm our nerves, our tour guides took us shopping! This was around the Yu Graden, at a place they call, of all things, “Chinatown”. That’s in part because it’s been built to resemble other Chinatown tourist traps. And this had it all – vendors on the street and in little shops. They were peddling everything. I gotta hand it to them; they’re persistent. They love to bargain. Although a bit annoying when we first got here, it’s a change from having to chase down a salesperson for help in some stores in America.
We made it an early dinner that night, so we could attend the ERA Show. The best way to describe it is a Chinese “Cirque de Soleil”. Acrobatics, theatrics, music, acting, motorcycle “cage of death” – absolutely amazing, to quote a friend. And what a way to end the trip. With an early rise in the morning, we called it quits.
OK, so I’ve about used up about all my China cliches. Part of our tour during the day was a boat ride on West Lake. With that, we have gone by plane, bus, train, rickshaw, and subway during our time in the Middle Kingdom. Where’s the horses?
Another interesting little transportation tidbit about Hanzhou. I recently saw an article that the city has the largest bike loan program in the world. That’s where a system of bikes are maintained throughout the city and anyone can use them for a short time for free or longer period for a small fee. I don’t remember the number, and our tour guides (both from Hangzhou) didn’t know, but it’s several thouseand, I believe. We saw lots of useage, but didn’t have time to try them out ourselves. Hungzhou is also a Sister City with Missoula.
Our first visit, after a nice breakfast at the hotel, that included everything from Western to Chinese to Japanese food (and lots of fruit), was to a tea plantation. This has been in the family for four generations. Again, the land is owned by the government and product is sold to them. I may not have understand the translation that well, but I believe their are over 500 people working this plantation.
As you’ve come to expect, there is a lot to the tea business. There are three kinds of tea – green (unfermented), black (fermented), and oolong (mixture). Hangzhou is known as the best green tea in the world. They cede the black tea title to Sri Lanka. Of the green, the first picking in the Spring (three a year, March to October) is known as the Emperor’s tea, picked exclusively for him, since it is the best (and only picked for two weeks). As only virgins were allowed to pick it, it’s sometimes known as Virgin tea.
Tea bushes have a fairly long life, bearing at three years for the next 30, then after a five-year rest, can produce another 20 years. Some live as long as 100 years. That gives rise to the birthday wish, “May you live as long as a tea bush!”
There’s a whole romance to tea, similar to wine. In fact, at our tasting, we were taught to swirl the glass, just like wine. They claim different years produce different “vintages”, and different parts of the plantation produce different quality tea, from the bottom lands to the steep hillsides. This plantation was all organic, altho the creek flowing through it certainly looked pretty trashy. There’s a whole lot more I could go through, since as a tea drinker myself, I’m pretty interested in it.
However, more to see, so on to the Linyin Temple. It’s a 1,600-year-old working Buddhist temple. Since this is a Saturday and one of the nicer days this Spring, there are lots of families out. Buddhism is huge in China. It’s been too long since my religious studies classes, so I’d forgotten a lot. Our guide explained the six harmonies: body; mind; speech; wealth; opinion; and abstinence from temptation. Buudhas everywhere – carved in the rocks, in the wood, and in the temples. This temple included a 26-foot Buddha made of camphor wood. Sorry, no pictures inside the temple.
After a lunch at a local restaurant, with a number of other tour groups around us, it was off to our slow boat. West Lake is a huge attraction in the area. It was originally part of the ocean, then with landfill, a lagoon, and now a freshwater lake. Again, tons of people out, enjoying the weather. We were treated to an outdoor concert, then we all piled into a small dingy for a half-hour jaunt around the lake. A special sight was a Buddhist pagoda on one shore and a series of structures in the water that are featured on Chinese money.
Our guides warned us to “rest” before the journey, as there are no facilities on the bus and one rest stop is of unknown scheduing, due to traffic. And it was heavy – probably the most we’ve experienced so far. We sat for 5-10 minutes at a time sometimes, but finally made it to the freeway. Plus, these bus coaches are not quite as plush as our first set, so we feel a little more of the road. After our late night business conference, early morning start, and tours throughout the day, the four-hour trip from Hangzhou to Shanghai seemed to take forever.
The Chinese are taking care of that. They’re building a maglev (magnetic levitation) line between the two cities, slated to be completed in a few years. The towers (up to 50′ overhead?) were in place and the line was being placed. We all noted that such a project would probably take decades in the U.S. It helps a lot for the government to already own the land and not have to go through permitting! Even with that, they just couldn’t get it done in time for us.
Traffic really picked up in Shanghai, again. As the second-largest city (18 million), it’s five times the area of Los Angeles. You’ve never seen freeways and ramps like there – sometimes I swear we were a hundred feet in the air. But the trip was all worth it. Coming in to Shanghai reminded me of coming into Vegas. They could call this the City of Lights – it’s so lit up. In fact, after we stopped for dinner (interestingly above an embroidery art gallery, with most pieces from Suzhou), we hopped back aboard the bus and went down to the Bund. That’s the waterfront park with old Shanghai (it’s actually only a couple-hundred-year-old city) on one side and the new (Wall Street of the East) on the other. And the light display, including the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, was awesome.
Finally, after all that, to the Renaissance Shanghai Zhongshan Park Hotel. But our work wasn’t done. After we unloaded our luggage, we had to elevator it up to the 25th floor to check in at the hotel lobby! All the lower floors are retail and office space. Then we catch another elevator to our rooms on the 39th floor. We’re still not to the top, since it goes up to 65 floors, I think. Nice rooms – similar to a couple others, in that the bathroom is glassed in. They have mini-blinds to close for privacy. Maybe it’s supposed to make the rooms look bigger.
Marco Polo named Suzhou that after seeing all the canals. I was wrong about Suzhou being flat. There are mountains here, including Tiger Hill. There is a leaning tower atop, built about 1,000 years ago. They couldn’t figure out why it was leaning, ’til they recently used sonar and found an ancient tomb beneath it. Basically, the hill was hollow. After the tomb was constructed, the workers who built it were all invited to a celebratory dinner, fed, and then killed to ensure the secret. One of the earliest occurrences of “Dead men tell no tales,” eh?
Suzhou is perhaps best known for its silk. Here the “farmers” grow the silkworms in their houses, harvesting mulberry leaves to feed them. The eggs hatch after two days of 70+ degree weather. Five weeks after hatching, they start spinning their cocoon. One week later, the farmer steams the cocoons to kill the pupa, or they will eat through the cocoon as a moth, destroying the silk. 1% are allowed to do that, in order to lay next year’s crop. One cocoon can produce a fiber 1.7 miles long. Suzhou’s silk is reportedly the finest, purest white and longest. The silk industry is controlled by the government, so farmers can work the government land to grow the mulberrys to feed the worms. But they must take the price the government gives them. Our guide was quick to point out that the U.S. charges a very high export fee.
We visited a factory where the silk is unwound from the cocoon. Again, moderate mechanization. It is so fine, the fibers are combined. One thread may contain 48 fibers.Occasionally, two worms will cocoon together. But unlike a double-yolker egg, the thread is now terribly intertwined and cannot be separated. However, the harvesters have now found a new use for these twin cocoons – comforters. The cocoon is simply dropped in hot water to loosen the glue, then turned inside out to rid the pupas, and stretched out to form the batting. One more use for these little guys – their poop becomes a filling for some of the pillows! The factory has all this and more for sale – and good prices, too!
Another great lunch – buffet style for “American Chambers” delegation. This was one of the first, I think, where we weren’t served eggplant. Altho I like it, everyone talks about how good it is, but it’s usually one of the few dishes with something still in it at the end of the meal!
There’s a beautiful garden in the heart of the city, called Lingering Garden. We spent quite a bit of time there, reflecting on the limestone sculptures from Lake Tai. That’s the big stone in the background of our group photo. They also have bonsai trees.
We also visited the embroidery institute. You wouldn’t probably think that someone could get excited about that. However, this was amazing. It’s done with the finest silk thread on the finest sheer silk fabric. The exquisite craftsmanship (there are four levels – student, teacher, technician, and master) produces pieces that rival paintings. They showed us one piece that had an image on one side and another on the other. It’s done by embroidering on top of a base layer of thread, without going into the fabric on the other side. Incredible.
Unfortunately, we had to depart the Venice of the East that afternoon on our way to Hangzhou. It’s about 1 1/2 hours to the south . . . unless you run into a traffic jam – as we did. That got us barely to the hotel in time (Holiday Inn Xiaqshan Hangzhou) to have dinner before departing for our business conference. We met with the Director of the local development corporation. I think it was more an opportunity for him to promote his development project, but we did see some opportunity for business connections in the future. This might include tourism to Montana, since China overall, and Hangzhou in particular, are seeing some rapid increase in per capita income. Incidentally, the Holiday Inn is nice, but nothing to write home about . . . oops, I just did!
Ugh! 6 a.m. on the bus this morning. Left Beijing on flight to Shanghai. Tough to leave the city and our tour guides and bus drivers – we feel they have become our friends. But on to new adventures.
After landing in Shanghai, we met our new friends, tour guides Jacky and JJ. They say it is common these days to adopt English names. And they are just as fun as our former guides. For example, after all the Chinese meals we’ve had lately, served on the little turntable in the middle of the table, Jacky was asked the name of the restaurant we would have dinner at tonite. “The Lazy Susan,” he said!
Actually, not true. To our surprise, after a two hour bus ride from Shanghai to Suzhou, we stopped at our lunch spot – a beer garden! There we had salad, chicken, and potatoes . . . and beer. The place is right next to the Suzhou exhibition center, supposedly the inspiration for the Olympic Birdsnest in Beijing.
LOTS of construction here. Huge multistory buildings up or going up everywhere. Our guide said Suzhou has one of the best industrial parks around, in part because it’s cheaper to build here than in nearby Shanghai. We saw a Caterpillar plant, among others. You can definitely feel the energy. Our guide said they used to wonder if they could ever be successful. They say, “now, nothing is impossible in China.”
This is flatland here. Water everywhere. That’s why it’s appropriate we took a tour of the Grand Canal. It’s the longest and oldest canal in the world, approximately 1,800 kilometers (1,000+ miles). It was started 2,500 years ago and took over 800 years to complete. That’s one of the amazing things about China – its history goes back millennia, not just a couple centuries.
Meanwhile, back on the Canal, we crowded onto boats to see how the water people live. The houses come right down to the water, with steps literally into the Canal. Some have boat landings right into their houses. We also landed and walked a market next to the Canal. The live eels in buckets were a little disconcerting.
We departed there amid the “mosquitos” (peddlers), back to our hotel. If we thot the Crowne Plaza Sun Palace (5 star) was nice, the New City Garden Hotel (4 star) could be even better. Of special interest to most of our crew is the bathroom, with its bidet. When asked, our guide said they are very common here in China, because of so many Japanese visitors, who expect them.
Some of us caught up on e-mail, etc. while others visited a local Chinese massage center. They all raved about it. Others visited the local downtown with more street vendors, including a man selling goldfish from a ten-gallon tank (small bowl part of the deal) from the back of his bicycle!
We all met for dinner at Linliyuan Restaurant. Before we enjoyed another delicious Chinese meal, we paused for a moment of silence to honor the memory of Private Nicholas Cook from Hungry Horse, first Montanan killed in Afghanistan March 7. He gave his life, so that the world could travel and trade with security. Rest in peace.
Finally, a warmer, sunny day! We started our day with a visit to a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinic and pharmacy. They rely heavily on herbs and holistic medicine here. They also have a strong inclination toward wellness and prevention. We even had a checkup from their “professors” of medicine – quite an event!
From there, we headed out to lunch, but we had to take a different form of transportation to get there. We went by rickshaw. Instead of the traditional runner, these were powered by bicycle. After a ten-minute ride (including a few races and bicycle vendors hawking their wares to us as we traveled!) we ended up at our destination – a private home. There, the family made us a traditional lunch and we got to talk about China. The very modest home (tiny by American standards) was over 100 years old and the owner was born and raised there 60 years ago. She likes America and has family there.
On the way to the next stop, we had quite a discussion about homeownership and banking, much to the delight of our banker on board. Our tour guide said the Chinese learned about loans for homes or cars from America. We also learned that about half the businesses in China are now owned privately, with the number growing. The government doesn’t allow private ownership of media, air/rail, or banks.
The Lama Buddhist Temple is the only one in Beijing. It was formerly a Prince’s Palace, now a working temple. We saw many worshippers there and the air was filled with incense. This is also the site of the world’s largest Buddha statue, carved from a single sandalwood tree. It stands 26 meters (around 80 feet) high. Our bus ride before and after this visit focused on religion. Lily said all religions are allowed, but not many exist. Only one, Falon Gong, is forbidden.
Another government-run enterprise was our next visit. This was the porcelain factory. Again, we learned all about the making of porcelain and the difference from pottery. Afterwards was the obligatory shopping experience. No problem, “Katrina” obliged!
Dinner was one of our quietest so far. I think everyone realizes we will leave Beijing tomorrow. That, along with the 5:15 a.m. wakeup call and 6 a.m. departure, left us all a little melancholy. The adventure continues, as we head to Shanghai and Suzhou tomorrow!
Tuesday dawned bright and beautiful . . . and brittle. Another cold one; -3 degrees Celsius, I believe. Fortunately, our hardy Montanans were better prepared for it today. And the strong sunshine made it seem warmer, at least, as long as we were in the sun.
Also helping was the fact that our first visit was indoors – at the Jade Factory. I now realize that part of the screaming deal we got on the package price for this trip was probably related to also visiting “government stores”. But the quality is good and they make a big point of stressing that these goods (pearls, jade, and cloissone) are certified by the government. Of course, imitations and knockoffs are a big issue with our international trade right now, so take that for what it’s worth.
Nevertheless, we learned a lot about the national stone of China, both soft and jadeite. And the worksmanship is amazing. One of their showpieces is the “Happy Family Ball”, a piece of jade cut into a round ball with 12 holes on the outside, representing the 12 months. THEN, the carver cuts another ball inside the first one, using those twelve holes. It is completely separated from the outer layer and can turn freely inside the outer. Depending on the size of the stone, there can be as many as five layers of balls, all free-floating, inside. Of course, all this is done by hand. In fact, that’s one of the things we’ve noticed here – mostly manual labor. And the equipment they do use is very outdated.
Plus safety is not their primary concern. I consider I saved a Chinese girl’s life today. She was working at a machine that was a bit too high for her, so she had her four-legged chair propped up on bricks. The back leg was dangerously close to slipping off one. I alerted the tour guide who “talked her down” from the situation. OK, OK, so maybe she was only in danger of breaking a fingernail, but I’m telling the story!
On to the Ming Tombs. There are a number of tombs in the foothills north of Beijing. Only one (as far as they know) has been opened. They explained that part of the reason was the first one they opened revelaed the beautiful vibrant colors of the silks buried inside. After only a few hours of exposure they had signifiantly deteriorated. So they will wait ’til they perfect the excavation process. On the way here, we passed the farmland, including cherry orchards. Made me miss Montana again. The roads are decent, altho traffic is becoming more of a problem as more and more cars are bought. We learned a lot more about the long and proud history of the Chinese.
And finally, the Great Wall. There are varying claims of its length, from 6 to 8,000 kilometers in total. Only a part of that is still intact and we chose Juyongguan. Amazing that they would build these on the absolute roughest part of the territory, snaking up the steep ridges, rather than ceding the bad ground to the Huns and Mongols and walling out on the flat land. We soon found how steep it truly was. All our party climbed some part of the wall, making us “heroes” in the eyes of Chairman Mao. You can see in the photo how steep and uneven the steps are – besides incredibly icy.
Besides the effort to build, it was hard to imagine the maintenance, much less the effort of patrolling this monumental defense. Altho I did mention to “Hank”, they probably had nothing better to do. “Kind of like Chamber work, I suspect,” he said . . . I get no respect, even halfway around the world.
Fortunately, President Obama should be proud of all of us – we’re repaying that American debt at a fantastic rate. In fact, one of our party, let’s call her . . . Katarina (the names have been changed to protect . . . me!), has earned a reputation of not passing up a souvenir stand along the way. Prices are considerably lower than U.S., altho not the ridculous claims we’ve heard in the past. Maybe China is starting to catch up.
An amusing story about shopping. One of our gang, we’ll call him Redward, found a cap he wanted at a souvenir stand. He checked the label and sure enough . . . made in the USA! Of course he had to buy it.
After dinner (they certainly seem to have picked great veues for meals – and no one complaining about too much Chinese food, yet!), some of us chose to attend the Peking Opera, while others made their way back to turn in early. This is definitely not opera in our sense, altho the opening “act” was a young lady with an impressive, if not comprehendible, voice. The very next act was more of an acrobatic, tumbling routine with about 18 guys all over the stage. We had front rows seats, again thanks to Citslinc, our tour organizer. This may be one of those “acquired tastes” they talk about.
One other little gem to remember if you visit here is the bathrooms. Cleanliness and convenience has not been there forte anywhere. In many, you have to bring your own toilet paper with you. Minor, but important, consideration in the big scheme of things.
We’re getting a little more used to the time here, altho “Julith” said she looked at her clock, thot she’d overslept, showered, put on the makeup . . . and discovered it was 1:30 in the morning! Again, GREAT people having a great time. Wish you were here.
It snowed in Beijing last night . . . and this morning! Not a huge amount, maybe an inch, but we certainly weren’t expecting it. So, naturally, we were not very prepared. We had a great breakfast at the hotel (everything you could ask for) and then headed out at 8 a.m. I didn’t bring the slip-ons for my cowboy boots, so that’s all I did throughout the day; slip-on . . . the snow and ice. A couple took some spills, altho thankfully, the only thing hurt was their pride. One of our party is just getting over a cold (incidentally, we all had our temperatures checked on the plane for swine flu), so she really suffered. Several of the gang bought gloves and caps from street vendors.
First stop, the Forbidden City itself. This is the old Emperor’s home, all 9,999 rooms. Yes, that’s right. We didn’t go into each one, but about walked our hooves off checking out as many as we could. Our tour guides gave us some wonderful history, as well as teaching us all a little rudimentary Chinese.
From there, we walked right on through to Tian An Men Square. Unfortunately, we couldn’t enter the Square itself, since Congress is in Session right now. We also discovered that because of that, we will not be able to do our Business Conference Tuesday night. So that will be postponed to Shanghai. With Congress, there were also lots of soldiers around in their green uniforms. Sure do look young.
No worries. By the time we got done with Tian An Men, we were all about froze to death. A little hot tea at our lunch stop thawed us out just enough to discover a raging appetite. Unfortunately again, the service turned out to be a little slow, so to make up for that, they poured another round of Chinese beer. Not a bad tradeoff! And the quality of the food made up for the wait, anyway.
Back out to brave the cold. The government-run Pearl Market is right next to the Summer Palace. It would have been better had we not stopped there, as we lightened the wallet considerably. That will teach me to skip Kathy’s birthday one year! We did learn a lot about pearls, tho. The Summer Palace may be beautiful in Summer, but chilly now. Interesting that it has been sacked and burned twice, but rebuilt. I do have to say that while impressive, the maintenance of the properties could be picked up a bit. And no modern conveniences to remove the snow – it was all being done by shovel and twig broom.
Next up – the Olympics. Nearly everyone remembers the “Birdsnest” from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics. Quite an impressive building, even if we couldn’t get that close. A seven-star hotel is being built right next to it, with Bill Gates reportedly buying the top floor.
Last stop was dinner. Half the fun is guessing what is in the dishes we are eating. There was no doubt on the fish – there was his toothy grin. They say they need to see the head and tail as part of the overall presentation. I always thot that Chinese food filled you up – for about an hour. Not so with this stuff. It sticks with you. We’re sampling all the different cuisines of China on this trip – all have been great so far.
The 15-hour time difference really makes communicating back home a challenge. We have been really impressed with the friendliness of the people. Sure hope the weather improves tomorrow. We’re attempting our assault on the Great Wall.
