Beijing Part 1

We flew to Beijing yesterday morning on our first SAS field trip. We've been touring as a group of 4 so far but this time we had 146 others!

It was a 2 hour flight which got us to the capital city just after 2:00pm. We got on 1 of the 4 tour buses needed to accommodate our crew and were given some very bad news. One of the professors, while on a city tour of Shanghai, died of a massive heart attack. He and his wife team taught 2 courses on the ship. I had not met the couple but as small as our community is, I even felt the shock. He has a daughter who lives in Atlanta and it was decided to lay him to rest there.

Our first news of Beijing was about 5 days ago while we were still at sea. The forecasted temperature was in the 30's with no precipitation. On top of that, we heard that the air quality was very poor due to heavy pollution. Even our tour guide was surprised that we were welcomed with sun and blue skies. The day before, it had snowed, the 9th snowfall of the season. Also very rare for Beijing which has averaged 1 snowfall a year for the past 10 years.

Our first stop was to the Olympic Village. It's so strange that it has already been over 4 years since Beijing hosted the games. But seeing the very familiar "Birds Nest" which they used for the opening and closing ceremonies put it back into perspective. We learned that China bid for the 2000 games as hard as they could but did not get selected. You would think that they would try even harder for the 2004 games, but the Chinese are very superstitious. They like round even numbers. Not to mention that "2004" has their bad luck number "4" in it. So they held our for the 2008 games. Our guide said that it was a tremendously proud day for all of China when they were awarded the games. To make things extra lucky for themselves, they scheduled the opening ceremonies for:
Aug. 8, 2008 @ 8:08 pm
Somehow, they even take credit for Michael Phelps' 8 medals! ; )

We were warned on the bus of a few things very common in Beijing, pick pockets, con men and bad drivers. In China, the automobile has the right of way. If you are in front of them at a crosswalk, they will lunge at you with their car to get you out of the way. Well, one of our Lifelong Learners failed to get out of the way. 83 year old, Donna, who I told you completed the Appalachian trail was hit by a car. Fortunately, hitting a pedestrian at a crosswalk is still considered illegal here and our SAS leaders quickly called the police. Donna is such a trooper that with her ankle wrapped and taking the maximum dose of Motrin, she is still keeping up with the tour which requires a lot of walking!

Next stop on the tour was an acrobat show. I was not sure how the boys would feel about watching really flexible people but they really enjoyed it and were extremely impressed. The finale was right up there alley, though. A metal cage sphere with about a 30 foot radius...8 men...eight motorcycles! Unbelievable! All of them spinning around together in perfect unison! Scary but AWSOME!

At the end of the day, we sat down for dinner at a great restaurant. I'll have to admit, I like Chinese food more than Japanese food. I know they are different, but I just became aware of how different going from one cuisine so quickly into the next. We sat and enjoyed a great meal with Donna and Jim and 3 new friends who joined our table of ten. It is so nice to see our boys engaging in conversation with strangers and actually enjoy their company. Ben went around the table and introduced himself like he was running for office. By the end of dinner, I think he'd won their votes ; )

Arrived at our beautiful Holiday Inn around 9:30 and hit the hay for a 6:15 wake up call.