Day Two

The hotel we stayed at in Beijing was quite luxurious and nice by western standards. The rooms were large and comfortable with all the amenities you'd find in better hotels in the U.S. It was an international hotel and I was relieved to see that all written materials were in both Chinese and English. However, it didn't take long to realize that nobody there really spoke much English. When I called down to the desk for a wake up call, they had to get a couple of different employees on the phone to figure out what I was asking for. One night I ordered room service and they had to send someone to my room so that I could point to what I wanted on the menu. I brought a little electronic translator with me to China and it proved to be a life saver in more than one situation.

We started out our first full day with the breakfast buffet. It was really weird. It seemed like more of a lunch spread with stir fry type dishes, salads, and noodles. They did have someone making fried eggs so I decided to go for those, along with several other "mystery" dishes. Have you ever tried to eat a fried egg with chopsticks? It's an interesting experience, let me tell you! On each of the dining room tables there was a sign that was translated into several languages. The English version said, "Boundless food supply Capital Dining Hall. The place wasting everywhere asking you to take a meal if a few many times bringing about is added collect 30 yuan of cost fee." Okay! Glad we got that straight!

After breakfast, we met up with Michael and our driver, Mr. Hua (pronounced Hoo - Ah with the accent on the first syllable) for a day of sight seeing. When driving through Beijing, one of the first things that strikes you is the vast number of huge apartment complexes. Some of them are just enormous, like small cities unto themselves. I have never seen so many apartment buildings in my entire life. There was block after block after block of them. This is the apartment capital of the world! With the population in excess of 17 million I'm sure they're needed. Beijing is a very modern city and everything seems to be on a grand scale. The main street, which leads to Tiananmen Square, is a wide street lined with luxury hotels, large government and business buildings, and upscale shopping. We spent the morning touring the Forbidden City, followed by lunch at an upscale Chinese restaurant. We were led to our own private dining room where Michael ordered us Peking duck and several other dishes.

After lunch we went to a large park to see a famous Taoist temple. This was one of the more interesting parts of the trip as the park is a gathering place for Chinese citizens, particularly seniors. We saw groups of people gathered about for various recreational activities including dancing and singing. There were large groups of people singing folk songs at the top of their lungs! There was also a huge row of ad hoc poker games. In our travel group there is another family with two boys ages seven and ten. Everyone was fascinated by these American kids. It seems that there were quite a few people who had not seen many Caucasian people before and some even wanted to have their picture taken with them.

We wrapped up the day with an acrobatic show. They were really entertaining but I don't think this was their "A" squad. One of the girls, who looked no more than nine or ten, fell off the top of a pyramid of acrobats and lost her headdress. There was another act where two male acrobats were on a contraption that looked like two hamster wheels, one balanced on each end of a long arm that spun around in a circle. As they ran in the hamster wheel, the whole contraption spun around like a ferris wheel. At one point, one of the acrobats got on the outside of the wheel and started running. He nearly fell off several times, leaving the audience gasping. I don't know if that was part of the show or if we had just witnessed a near-death experience. The show wrapped up with thirteen female acrobats riding on a single bike. Don't try that at home folks!