Photo Journey

Well, we've promised photos, so I'll post a bunch. I was planning to just go back and insert photos to previous posts, but that may confuse too many people, including myself... so here goes. These are from Beijing:Here are Mike and Christy in the new terminal at Beijing Airport. We just passed through Immigration and are heading down for the luggage. This terminal was huge and beautiful.

This was our first dinner in China at a local restaurant to the hotel. We met up with 3 of the 4 other families that night for dinner. Everything was served family-style on a large Lazy Susan. Pretty much the only drinks served at any of the restaurants in China were: tea (of course), bottled water, Sprite and Coke (sometimes), and Chinese beer. And in China, it's unusual to refill drinks. Sometimes one 8oz. glass was all you got, unless they were kind to us Westerners and gave enough for two glasses. A typical Chinese napkin is about the size and consistency of a Kleenex. Really... they must not be a messy folk.

Mike took this photo... thought it was funny to see a normal Budweiser sign in Beijing!

PapPap, Christy, and Mike in the middle of the Forbidden City. What beautiful architecture! If you want to learn more, grab the recent copy of National Geographic featuring CHINA. On the back of the map of China, there is a huge map of the Forbidden City with lots of neat information.

Relic protected. No scratch. Apparently in their long exhaustive restoration of the Forbidden City, people are still putting graffiti on the walls. How sad.

This is a 4 star rated toilet sign. Ha! I beg to differ. They were Squatty Potties! Learned real quick to avoid those... and to always bring along my travel Charmin pack. Our hotels were well stocked... but no restaurant or tourist place ever had toilet paper.

Christy and Mike in the Imperial Garden.

Just a look at a very common means of transportation... bikes.
We found this interesting. See the birdcage in the tree. Older men would come to the parks with their caged birds and hang them in the trees. The men would then play various games and talk. The parks were always loud with birds chattering. Sometimes the birds would even be allowed out of the cages to sit on the men's hands.

What I was so looking forward to seeing: The Bird's Nest (National Stadium for the Olympics). This is as close as we could get. All Olympic venues are still in the works and are heavily guarded by military. I'll just play Wii's Mario vs. Sonic at the Olympics to see what it probably looks like inside. :0) Sorry for the cloudy photo... it was taken from inside the bus.

Ah.... the Biggee! The one thing everyone must see when they visit China... the Great Wall. And Great it was! What you see here is not even the height to which Mike climbed... it continued on another several hundred steps.

Here are Mike and Christy at the bottom, after just entering. Little did we know what we were about to encounter. Unfortunately it was with this shot that our camera battery died!!! PapPap has the only shots from higher up... we'll have to get those loaded someday soon.

See this tiny little bottle and the tiny little cup. I almost died when I thought this was all the wine you were allowed. Ha! This is Chinese Rice Wine. 56% alcohol! One little swig and it cleared up everyone's sinuses. That was it for us!