OUR TRIP TO KOREA: China

Nihao! We are in China!

Sorry about the delayed post. Had to over come a few hurdles: expensive internet access in our hotel; no access to the blog website (must be blocked by the government?) and of course no time. We've been busy busy busy since arriving in China last Wednesday. Recently discovered there is access to free wireless in the lobby, so I am hoping that I can post by email from here. I'll attached photos so hopefully they'll show up at the end of the blog.

We arrived Wednesday morning after a 2 hour flight from Incheon Airport. It was an early morning for us. The flight was at 9am, but we had to be at the airport 2 hours ahead of time and it takes about an hour to get to the airport from downtown Seoul. A highlight of our flight here, if you can call it that, was the temperature checks. Passengers' temperatures were taken (by a hand-held sensor held to our foreheads) as we boarded the plane (by airline staff), and again before got off the plane (by Chinese officials), then as we went through the airport (by heat sensing cameras) and finally as we checked into the hotel. Whew! It was a bit nerve-racking. What if you had a small fever from some run-of-the-mill bug? Quarantine? Sent back home? Luckily we didn't have to worry about any of these.

Our hotel in Beijing, the Rennaissance, is very nice. It is located in the northeast part of the city, where many embassies, foreign businesses and a lot of new development is located. I've attached a shot of our room (2 big beds - nice!) and one showing the view from our room. The breakfast buffet is pretty good, not as good as the one at hotel in Guangzhou in 2005. And there is a Starbucks right next door if we really need a latte fix. We had lunch at a great little dumpling restaurant acroos the road from our hotel. Coincidentally there is a Korean neighbourhood in this part of Beijing so we shouldn't have been surprised to find a small store near our hotel full of Korean grocery items. They were sure surprised when we said "annyeong haseyo!".

We are leaving Beijing tonight (Wednesday), by overnight train to Xi'an. Since Sunday we've been touring Beijing with a great group of adoptive families from Canada. It has been great seeing the girls bond, at the back of the bus of course. Jin and Lili have new best friends!

On the tour we've seen the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, toured a hutong (trad neighbourhood) in a rickshaw, experienced a tea ceremony, saw the main Olympic games sites, ate lots of good food and shopped for souvenirs and deals. It has been very crowded everywhere we go as it is now summer holidays in China. Today we are off to the Summer Palace and then a roast duck dinner before boarding the train.

Before the tour from Canada arrived, our friends in Beijing showed us around to other sites in and around the city and fed us huge and very delicious meals. Lily and her daughter Jennifer showed us around her neighbourhood (including a kids playground!) NW of Beijing on the first day. Then next day Pan took us to the old (buillt in 1192) Luguo Bridge SW of Beijing and the museum in the nearby town of Wanping. The bridge is also called the Marco Polo Bridge because he mentioned it in the reports of his travels through China. This bridge was also where the first shots of the China-Japan war were fired in 1937, so the museum commemorates this. In the afternoon Pan took us to the Temple of Heaven. Built in 1490, the Ming and Qing emperors used this temple to pray for bountiful crops. The temples and ground are very beautiful! It was very hot there, with the sun reflecting off the marble and white granite stonework. Afterward we visited the Pearl market which is right next to the temple grounds. We went back to the pearl store we shopped at in 2005 and bought bracelets for the girls.

The next day Tiantian and Jihua took us to the Zoo to see the Panda Bears. A big highlight! One even climbed a tree. Jin got some good photos. We were also treated to the Beijing Aquarium (very big and cool!) and to an aquatic mammals show (a sea lion and dolphins). We have never been to one of these before so it was an extra special thrill. That evening we took in a show of Chinese acrobats. They were amazing! Incredible! The girls watched in awe.

Saturday morning Tiantian and Jihua took us to the Lama Temple, the largest Tibetan Buddhist temple in Beijing. The air was thick with incense as people worshipped at the many temples within the grounds. Jin and Lili even tried out incense burning and prayed for good fortune on our trip. The highlight here was the 18 m high solid wood carving of Buddha (apparently there are another 8 m below ground). It is huge! Hard to imagine a tree that big. It was brought all the way here from Tibet.

We were then treated to a sumptuous lunch which included traditional roast duck (Peking Duck) with our friends Tiantian, ShuSzi, WuJun and her daughter Qingqing (I'm sorry I may have got her name wrong). Great food, great friends! On Sunday evening ShuSzi picked us up for another dinner with friends Peter, Zhao and their families. There were many toasts.

Well, better sign off now. Got to run and check out. Will attach as many photos as I can. More later.....

Bye for now.

Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili

Arrival in Beijing Airport! First meal....dumplings!