| Sunday, May 6, 2007: Took a cab to JFK, little traffic. Got to airport and was surprised to be greeted by someone from ABC Tours. We met the Liptons and boarded on time and uneventfully. The flight was endless. Worse still we had an aisle (Hal) and a center (Jane) seat. We made a brief stop in Vancouver - lots got off the plane but more got on.... We continued on to Hong Kong and arrived on time, 20 very long hours later in a very full plane. |
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Tuesday, May 8, 2007: Had a 2 hour layover in Hong Kong. Waited in the Airport for the flight to Beijing. It took off on time but arrived 1/2 hour late. Total time from taking off at JFK to Beijing 25 very very long hours. |
| We were met at the Beijing Airport by our guide for the next two plus weeks, Sara Han. The first thing we saw after passing through customs - Starbucks!! |
Note the first vendors we come to in the Beijing Airport: KFC and Starbucks! Hello China. |
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| Sara Han, our wonderful tour guide met us at the airport and took charge of the group. The first stop on our tour was a restaurant for lunch! |
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The lunch consisted of a variety of food including a well balanced selection of French Fries, potato salad and rice. Actually there were egg and tomato, sauteed cabbage, chicken and peanuts, fresh fruit and beer. |
| The drive into the Beijing from the Airport was amazing. Completely unexpected. There was major traffic and highways and new apartments everywhere. Note that these photos were taken out of the window of a moving bus ... so they are not perfect. |
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The entire city has been rebuilt over the last 20 years. It is all new (except for a few hutang areas). The traffic also surprised us - there are 16 million people in Beijing and 4 million cars. That is just amazing. |
| We then drove to the Temple of Heaven - quite beautiful from the outside - you couldn't enter. Only the Emperor could enter - 3 times a year. Sara said maybe the Emperor only got ot go 2 times a year but she goes 30 times a year. |
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The park was just full of people, mostly retirees, enjoying themselves. In China, most people retire at 50! |
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They local citizenry were out in force and having a good deal of fun dancing, playing cards, mah jhong, and keeping a little bean bag in the air soccer style. |
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Judy and Ed trying to figure out how to make their camera work. |
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We finally checked into the Capital Hotel, a large modern top flight hotel. Jane's cousin Alice's daughter Sharon had left a message with her phone number - so we called her and arranged to have dinner. We relaxed for an hour and took very welcome and necessary showers and baths. There was a plumbing problem and we needed to move rooms. The new room was a big upgrade - larger room with a great view, huge bathroom and dressing room.
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Around 8pm Sharon arrived and along with the Liptons we headed in two taxis for dinner. The Liptons got into one taxi and Sharon, Jane and Hal into another taxi. Sharon gave clear instructions to the driver as to where to go. In front of a major hotel (at the Kerry Center). We arrived at the hotel - but alas no Liptons. Sharon ran around to the other side of the hotel. Still no Liptons After about 20 minutes we gave up. We told the doorman at the hotel where we were going to dinner and told him to look out for the Liptons We then walked the 1 1/2 short blocks to the restaurant. Sharon was feeling terrible that we lost the Liptons When we got to the restaurant a taxi drive was there making all sorts of gestures. Amazingly it was the Liptons!!
Dinner consisted of 2 different kinds of dumplings, chongquing chicken, cabbage, dried beans, shrimp with scallions, eggplant and beers all around. Fabulous. Our first dinner in Beijing was superb. The chicken was similar to the dish that we get at the Szechuan International Restaurant on 55th and Second. Only better. We took a taxi home and went online. We called Anna at home and everyone was just fine. Then finally some real sleep after being awake for about 50 or more hours.
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| First impressions of Beijing: The city is mostly brand new. There is construction everywhere and the newness of everything is just startling. The city is not a walking city. Most things are far apart and taxis are very very cheap. The traffic congestion is as bad as anything in the US. The roads here give nothing up to the Long Island Expressway. There are also no old cars. All of the cars seem very very new. Lots of VWs, Hondas, Toyotos and even Buicks and other GM cars. We were told that there were 4 million cars for a population of 16 million in Beijing. We believe it. We think we saw them all. And all of them are new. The market economy of China has grown from including about 25 million people ten years ago to over 300 million today. Of course that leaves 1 BILLION people still not participating in the market economy!! So the economy grew 12 fold in 10 years and still only about 1 in 4 Chinese participate. There is no where else to go but up. |
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