Beijing - Day # 2

August 18, 2006. We’re really glad we decided to arrive in China a few days early if for no other reason than to give us some additional time to get used to the time adjustment (12 hour difference from EST). We woke up at 3:00 a.m. this morning wide awake. Actually Deana woke up and decided that since she was awake, Jim should be too! So…we took the opportunity to better organize our things in the hotel room, read a little bit, and then headed down to the Rose Café for breakfast. The restaurant had a really nice combination Asian and Western breakfast buffet. Their selections ranged from pancakes and omelets to spring rolls and congee (congee is a traditional Asian dish basically consisting of mushy, watered down rice and is sometimes flavored with pork and other stuff). We sampled a variety of options (passed on the congee) and were very happy with all we chose. The restaurant was so crowded the waitresses were asking guests if it would be okay to share a table with other couples. We ended up eating breakfast with a couple ladies from Europe (we didn’t recognize the language and they didn’t speak English).

After breakfast, we decided we’d venture out and check out the area around the hotel. We found a large shopping mall not far from the hotel that had a small grocery store on one of the levels so we decided to take the opportunity to stock up on bottled water (the water in the hotels is not safe to drink). We bought several bottles and took them right back to the hotel and continued our journey. We walked for a few hours. Beijing is enormous with lots of people and activity. There are about 14 million people in the city. It seemed like a pretty normal metropolitan atmosphere. The people were friendly for the most part, but like most major cities, were concentrating on getting from one place to the next without paying much interest in what was going on around them. We did get some strange looks as we snapped photos and stared in amazement at the thousands of people around us. Darn tourists!! After a while, we grabbed a bite to eat with a few other couples in our group at a nice restaurant and then went back to the hotel for a nap.

At 6:00 p.m. we met up with the rest of our group in the hotel lobby to get ready to load on a bus and head to the theater to see an acrobatic show. The show was really amazing and lasted a about an hour and a half. The Chinese acrobats were extremely talented and quite entertaining. After the show, there was a bit of commotion outside of the theater. People had gathered to see someone surrounded by bodyguards whisked into a limousine and driven from the area. Our guide explained it was rumored that it was one of President Bush’s daughters who had attended the show. We never saw her, but it was exciting and amazing to think how strange it is to be half way around the world and happen to be in the same theater as the daughter of the President of the United States.

After the show, we went back to the hotel and called it a night. We want to be well rested as tomorrow will be a busy day!