Wed - January 3, 2007

First Meal


Well, we made it to Beijing - no trouble at all.

It's a vacation - let's eat!

Posted at 03:46 PM     Read More  

Thu - January 4, 2007

A Lesson in Scale


15 Years in Texas taught us that things are indeed bigger there... but, here there be dragons.

We visited a large square, a large palace grounds, a large park, a large store, and had a few other lessons in scale.

Posted at 03:59 PM     Read More  

Fri - January 5, 2007

Seeing the Summer Palace (in winter)


The Great Wall visit has been delayed - too many stairs on Thursday! We'll see that on Saturday...

Today, Friday, we went to the summer palace (complete with lunch - can you say squirrel?), saw Alex's apartment, met with more Chinese engineers, ate Shichuan (szechuan) and I had the rumored one-hour massage for $10 (hey, it was another day of steps!)

Posted at 04:57 PM     Read More  

Sat - January 6, 2007

The GREAT Wall!


Today we visited one of the two man-made objects that can be seen from space - the great wall, extending 6000 miles... can you name the other one?

It was cold!

We also did a huge buffet for dinner, and I visited a western bar... long day.

Posted at 04:33 PM     Read More  

Mon - January 8, 2007

Do all americans eat left-handed?


Today we saw the (also cold) Temple of Heaven and the infamous Pearl Market.

It was a day with our new friend, Jian Hua.

Posted at 08:56 PM     Read More  

Buying stuff in a college town.


Today is a trip to Tianjin, shopping, adding characters to the vocabulary (I add one per day - this going to take a few years... there are up to 56,000, depending how you count.), and an 'interesting' dinner.

Tracy is not feeling well, so the trip to Tianjin is just me, Alex, and Humphrey.

Posted at 08:58 PM     Read More  

Wed - January 10, 2007

Green Tea, or not?


We were planning on going to Xi'an today, but decided that tomorrow would be better as we are all quite tired. We're not feeling well, so no trip to Xi'an today, this is our day of rest - even though it's day six. The soldiers will have to stand guard some more... :-(

Resting means coffee house, rest, going to lunch, then the Lao She Tea house, and finally, dinner - and finally finally, visiting Jian Hua's house. Oh, and I then had a massage.

Did I mention that we are resting?

Posted at 03:53 PM     Read More  

Beijing Cleanup


The dollar is falling and Beijing is rising, come visit.

Posted at 04:01 PM     Read More  

Greedy People Have Nice Houses...


Okay, at least one did. Today, we visited the former home of a merchant who was killed by the emperor for being too rich... or so they say.

But first, Tracy had a massage too! She might be hooked... darnit.

Posted at 04:28 PM     Read More  

Thu - January 11, 2007

Returning Eve.


We return tomorrow morning... man does time fly; and soon, so will we.

Today was filled with, you guessed it, massages for all of us... the works... sort of.

And then lunch (of course), shopping for a couple souvenirs, dinner with our many new friends, and a final night on the town for me.

Posted at 01:50 AM     Read More  

©