We Are Here!

It's almost 3 am in Beijing but I'm wide awake! We are going on a tour of the Forbidden City, Tiannamen Square and some other stuff at 83o am. I should be sleeping but I can't.


We had great flights. I slept a little here and there. "Dinner" mysteriously arrived at around 3pm on our first flight to Tokyo. It was surprisingly tasty. I ate 2 small but yummy shrimp cocktails with lemon juice, some BBQ chicken breast and cheesy grits served with green tea. I saved my brownie and roll for later. Jim had the spicy beef with veggies. Around true dinner time, we got a snack of pepper jack cheese sandwiches, grapes, and Milano cookies. I fell asleep from 8-10:30 pm. After that I couldn't get back to sleep, too many people milling around and another meal service "breakfast". I had the cheese omelet, roasted potatoes and sausages with fruit and juice. Jim opted for vegetable fried rice. I'll have to ask him about that choice later...hmmm.

We had a nice smooth landing around 2am Toledo time. We said farewell to our friends of 13 hours. I sat next to a very well-traveled couple. The husband trains drug addiction counselors all over the world. They are heading for work and vacation in Vietnam and gave us some great sight seeing advice for our trip. They also offered me the window seat (bless them!) and this helped me get comfy enough to sleep. Jim sat a row behind me in between two men, one headed for Bangkok, the other the Philippines. The guy from the Philippines came to America either 14 or 40 years ago and is retired and spends his winters in the Philippines. The other guy seemed hard to understand but he seemed to be about my age and was looking forward to having someone else taking care of him instead of having to take care of himself for the next 2 months. Hmmm....where can I sign up?

The airport in Tokyo was clean and not crowded and felt very safe. I stretched out on a few seats and napped for about an hour as Jim walked around and read the paper. We bought a water and some McDonald's (tastes the same) with some US$ before the flight and got some Japanese coins in change-cool. Our flight to Beijing was less than 1/2 full. I was able to snag a few seats together and laid down for another nap. Then I got up and watched a movie and we landed. Then time moved slow in the "foreigners" lines. We waited in 3 spots (health screening, immigration and customs), got our bags and found our guide with no issues.

We arrived at our hotel at 1am local time. It is very nice and looks like a nice hotel in America except for a few things. You have to put your room key in the wall for lights and power and the toilet has two buttons side by side but not labeled. Flushing is guesswork at this point BUT it is a toilet, not a hole. Oh yeah, and there is a sign that says the water is not drinkable and we have bottled water in the bathroom to use.

That's all for now! Brittany