Sherry here for Bill.

We made it to Beijing! After a 1 h 20 m flight to Hong Kong, a one-hour layover and a 2 h 35 m flight to Beijing... we arrived in the capital of China in one piece. The flights with Dragon Air were fairly easy, especially after our long haul over the Pacific flight from San Francisco to Tokyo. Unfortunately, Bill seems to have picked up a bit of a runny nose from all the travels, so he's not at his best. I must say, though, he a very good sport.

So, here I am, not the best in Chinese, doing an instantaneous interpretation from Chinese to English for Bill while the tour guide says things like "Beijing has phenomenal fung shui; all those who make it their capital reign for over 100 years, while those who chose other sites, like down south only reign for 50 years." All I usually manage to translate into English for Bill is something like this: Beijing, good fung shui, long reigning. He, not knowing any better shows his appreciation of my good work by nodding and smiling.

Our tour guide brought us to a hot pot restaurant where we ate lamb, beef, veggies and tofu, which was great. But after breakfast, TWO lunches from our two flights and just plain sitting on our butts all day, we were not hungry... just tired. The hotel we are staying in is a neat combination of apartment rental, condos and hotel rooms. It is an apartment style set up with a washing machine, gas stove and microwave! Vendors are parked outside, selling fresh fruit and there is a huge supermarket in the complex. We're going to head out for a quick look see before going to bed. Then it's 7:00 am morning call, 7:30 am buffet breakfast and 8:00 am set off time.


If I can find a place where they do foot massages, I'm IN! Sherry out.