Ok, I guess enough time has passed and I'm feeling pretty normal again that I've started looking at 700+ pictures we took in China. So I thought I'd share...plus I'm planning the long-awaited scrapbook in the process!
This is one of our first glimpses of Beijing. We arrived after our own very stressful trip of "The Amazing Race" filled with flight delays and missed flights, 8 hours later than planned. But we were thankful to finally be there. It was hot and very humid at about 7am. Other than the air, everything seems very clean, there is no litter, the bushes and all trimmed perfectly and the flowers are abundant and well cared for (unlike mine right now...it helps when you actually remember to water them--they looked good when we came home but not so much now).
Since we had missed our first night in our hotel, our guide had suggested that we not eat breakfast in the hotel. She told us about a KFC down the street where we could get breakfast. So with our "yuan" in hand, we headed off. Obviously KFC is a big deal in China as we would figure out the longer we were there. Here, a row of KFC delivery bicycles waits. The breakfast we thought was ham was actually shrimp with eggs. :0
After breakfast, we had some time to wander, we found this little bakery. This would be the last time we would see desserts in two weeks! People in China don't eat a lot of sweets, so I'm assuming that this is an influence from the West. We bought a few little treats for later which weren't bad, just different and not super sweet like we were craving.
Here we are walking to Tienanmen Square.
It's a very hot day and this is how people get around in Beijing. Never mind that you get poked by umbrellas and it's quite crowded and pushing seems to just be the way to get where you are going. This was a Saturday so there were a lot of people there. They come to pay their respects to Chairman Mao...he is revered as their greatest leader. They will spend hours in the hot sun just to walk by him...eerily similar to Russians visiting Lenin's tomb in Red Square seven years ago.
A light in Tienemen Square...note the cameras...they are everywhere. At this point, I'm very thankful to be an American and am feeling a little anxious to get home! :)
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