A Most Auspicious Journey

I should be sleeping. Deborah is sleeping. I am exhausted, but my mind is spinning and I’ve yet to post much about being here. So, this sounded like a good idea. You’re going to get the highly summarized version of the past few days, however, and the rest will have to come in more detail later on.

If you haven’t already learned from Deb’s blog, We arrived last night in Beijing, safe and sound. The flights went well (mostly), and we met up fine and have actually really enjoyed seeing people’s reactions when we tell them we just met for the first time at the Atlanta airport. We arrived at our hotel last night just before 11, and were up bright and early today for a full day of sightseeing. Part of the point of this is to get us adjusted to the time zone more quickly... but they really crammed in a full schedule. I thought it would be the same as last time, and in some ways it has been, but in others, even the sightseeing has been very different.

The first difference was at the airport last night when we were greeted not by George, our CCAI guide from December, but by Cindy. The paper work said it would be George. She was not George. That threw me. As you can see from the above picture, however, George did join us this morning.

Our first stop was Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

I will explain the dog on my head later, but I will tell you that if you want to avoid the crowds, you should go there in December when it's bitterly cold and windy. That place was packed! I took tons of pictures of random people like this guy:

Because after all, who doesn't want a LOOIS VOlIION shirt all the way from Paris?!

Next was lunch at a not-so-impressive Chinese buffet at which we did not have the "pleasure" of dining last time we were here. Here is a direct quote from Cindy (our guide) when inquiring about how we enjoyed our meal: "So, I would like to know how you enjoyed this restaurant. Because some people say it's so-so, and some think it's not very good, and others don't really like it very much... and that is why we take you here... because it is the tourist restaurant"

Next up: the silk factory, also not the same one we visited last time. Also not as nice as the one we visited last time, but that didn't stop us from taking goofy pictures and amusing ourselves.

Here's Deb outside the silk factory:

We'd never seen a lion/dragon thing with antlers before.

Next up was the same rickshaw tour through the Hutong that we took last time, only way more nail-biting-inducing due to increased traffic (pedestrian, cycle, and automotive) as a result of us not being on the tour at 9:30 a.m. on a cold, windy December morning. We saw the same family house again, and it was neat to see how the garden was different than it was in the winter.

Here I am, ready to give Stanley the Dog a pedicab ride.

(Yes, I realize I still have yet to explain the dog. He will get his own post later.)

We ended our day on a really cool note. Show Hope has had a student team on a mission trip to Maria's Big House for the past week or so, and they are visiting Beijing on their way out of China while we are visiting on our way in. So, after all the sightseeing, Deb and I braved the taxis of Beijing (which, by the way, were not anywhere near as life-threatening as the ones that are soon to come in Zhengzhou), and met our friends Mikey, Cathy, and Katie, along with the rest of the team, for dinner. It was such a treat to see Nashville friends in Beijing, and Mikey took us to an amazing restaurant, which more than made up for the awful lunch! Probably the best Chinese food I've ever had. I enjoyed the company and the chance to catch up with these wonderful friends so very much.

I still have so much more to say and so many more details to provide, but they will have to wait for another time. My eyes are closing and my alarm goes off in too few hours. Tomorrow we brave the crazy Great Wall, and then the acrobatics show, probably with a Jade factory and the Olympic Park thrown in there somewhere, I suspect. All in all, I keep having the urge to grab Deborah's hand and jump up and down enthusiastically, screaming "We're actually in China together!" I haven't actually done that yet... but I'm sure I will eventually.