First time in beijing

We are here!!!! Where to begin. Well, first of all we are feeling real good now. We had only 2 hours sleep Tuesday night before the flight, didn't sleep on the plane, but picked 15 hours last night. Feeling pretty good. First story of the day.

Many know that we picked Yazi's name about a year and a half ago. We get on the plane, Spencer gets a fortune cookie that reads "A smile is your passport into the hearts of others." Now, for most of you, that sums Spencer up to a tee. He's a good little fella if I do say so myself. You turn the fortune cookie thing over and it has a learn Chinese: the American word is Duck, the Chinese word is Ya-zi. Now, I'm not one for the stars and planets lining up. But, get out of town. We asked some Chinese folks on the plane about the word Ya-zi. While it does mean duck, the word is actually used in China as a nickname for the youngest girl in the family. She would be called Little Duck, or Little Yazi. How about them apples?

We landed in Beijing around 3:00 pm Chinese time. You have to do several things. Go through the quarantine station, go through the entry station, grab your baggage, and then through customs. There were about five hundred students, we think Japanese, lining up to do the same. We hopped around, got through every thing very fast actually. When you walk thru customs, there is a set of doors you pass through that separates the secure area from the public area. This area is lined with a gate to keep the public back so the travelers can get out. There were hundreds and hundreds of public folk. You felt like a rock star. You can imagine this majestic music playing, you are high on the hog, all these folks looking at you, and then you see our guide who tells us to turn around and go through another door where there is no one waiting and the music dies and you realize you are not that important. So, we all pile into a bus near rush hour time. What an experience. Chinese are master of the near wreck. The horn is not used like in America where you do it if you are mad, they lovingly use it to tell folks they are coming over or go faster or move. Yet, nobody wrecked. No pedestrians hit. IMpressive.

Hit the hotel (remember can't drink the water) and everyone is thristy. Of course, Beijing is very dry climate and extremely smoggy, and that's just the hotel lobby. One of the guys in our group who has been here before asked, "you been to the smoking room? You probably have and didn't realize it." I said, "The lobby?" "yessir, you can smoke a pack and day and never buy a cigarette". Anyway, we put everything up and head to the pizza hut and KFC across the road. You order by pointing. The pizza was actually very good. We came back, showered, and crashed. Too tired to post.

Had breakfast buffet this morning. It was pretty good. Alot of American food with a Chinese flavor. We stock up on this cuz once you go out, it's harder to get food that folks like. So, we hit 'em hard. They'll regret the day that this Arkansas healthy eater came to town. Not much planned today except recover from yesterday. Tours start tomorrow.