We're in China

I have had a horrible time getting on line and then getting the blog site to work. That still is not working but I was able to get onto the email as you can see.

We arrived, after the world's longest flight. We traveled straight north from Washington DC and ended up going almost directly over the north pole on our way. The total trip exceed 7000 miles. After arriving in Beijing, we found that they are taking the swine flu very seriously as they sent medical personnel onto the plane to scope our temperatures. Once we were released from that, we passed through at least two more temperature sensing zones going to our baggage.

Once through the airport challenges we meet our tour guides and were taken by coach bus to the hotel. Our rooms are great but everything is so unfamiliar that is has been challenging.

Beijing is hot, hot, hot! Today we toured the Forbidden City in the morning so we could take advantage of the cooler temperatures. After lunch, we dressed up and went to Hanban University, one of the sponsors of our trip. A few speeches were made and we toured the University. By the time we finished there, we drove (we could have walked faster) through the worst possible traffic jams to the Great Hall of the People where we were welcomed by government officials and student performers. The Great Hall accommodates 5000 for dinner so our 400 fit right in. By now we were all feeling the heat of the day (102 degrees F). The dinner was a very well prepared Chinese banquet served family style. Back to the hotel by 10:00 PM and the weather had cooled to the mid 80's.

Beijing is huge. 17 million people live in the city compared to the six million or so that live in all of Minnesota. It is hard to imagine how they will get a handle on their problem of traffic and spoilation of the environment. The government here is making a huge effort to establish Chinese language programs around the globe and they were very proud of the Confucius Institutes in each region of the globe. The Beijingers who have served as our hosts have been wonderful and very sincere. Kids here seem younger than their years compared to US kids. High schoolers seem like middle schoolers in their ways.

Tomorrow morning we tour Beijing University, another interested party in the movement and then we fly to Hangzhou (two hours by plane) for three days in that location before returning to Beijing. We are all well and are learning a lot about the culture.

Christian, if you could see what you could do to get part of this on the blog site, that would be great. I pressed the SPOT device several times over the last few days most recently in Tianamen Square. You know my email address and my password is Simon1397. Between Mark and myself, we have taken hundreds of picture so a slide show is in the offing.

We'll be in touch soon, again. -PG