WE MADE IT!!!

We flew out of Washington D.C. to Beijing and it was a great flight.

The plane was at about 25% capacity so we were able to spread out and relax a little. The crew was friendly and the food pretty good.

We arrived and met our guide, Mary, who is also our facilitators sister-in-law. She is very nice. She didn't waist any time getting started on sightseeing. We went directly from the airport to "The Summer Place" What a beautiful and well preserved landmark. The architecture, sculpture and paintings are finely detailed and brilliantly colored. Many locals found Dan to be quite interesting again. As in Changsha and Guangzhou on our last trip, They wanted their pictures taken with "the lucky red head" :) He gets a lot of looks from the people. They are all really friendly and curious.

After "The Summer Place" we went to our hotel and I took a shower and we then went out to eat. Mary took us to a very nice restaurant and the food was delicious. We ate fried noodles, which were kindof spicy, a beef dish in a gravy, sweet dumplings and broccolli.

Here are a few pictures from our travels so far.