We had an awfully early start, waking up at 5:00 this morning (or was it yesterday morning?), to finish packing up our giant suitcases, and then we were off to the airport.
The flight itself was thankfully uneventful - we watched a bunch of bad movies and ate all the food they kept feeding us!
It's hard to get the sense of the city just yet, as we're wandering in a bit of a jetlag daze, and it all seems a little intimidating at first. The land around Beijing is rather flat, and faintly reminiscent of the Manitoba prairies. However, once we got through the airport gates, we knew we weren't in Kansas anymore! Throngs of people waiting to greet in-coming passengers, dozens of them holding up signs.
Snaking through the crowd, scanning the horizon for any sign of our names or the Children's Bridge logo, was our first real introduction to Beijing.
The traffic is not really decipherable, although we've managed to figure our that typically, cars have the right of way. For no other reason that we can decipher, other than that they are bigger. There are bicycles everywhere, and I was even able to set off a bike alarm while wandering down the street.
The hotel is actually quite nice. It's right in the heart of Beijing, not too far from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.
It also has a Mcdonald's across the street!
We went for a brief walk around the city after we settled in a bit, with our new friends Linda and Octavio who is in our adoption group and was on our flight from Toronto. During our walk we saw Peking duck for the first time...
...and also a Chinese recycling truck:
Kohji, in typical fashion, has had an ice cream and found rice crackers, so is more or less content. I, however, am currently suffering from severe tiredness. It's almost 6 a.m. Ottawa time, and we've been awake since 5 a.m. yesterday! All I really want to do right now is sleep, but am trying hard to make it to a reasonable hour to get my body on Beijing time.
Not much more to go into right now, as my fatigue-addled brain in coming up dry. Will post more soon.
2 comments:
Glad you made it. Great pics!
Sweet dreams.
Mark Piper
Little known fact...the pre-industrialised way of getting the air between the layer of skin and meat in a Peking duck was with bicycle pumps. I heard it takes a lot of muscle to acheive. Tell Koj to give it a try.
Scorpions on a stick! Ugh.
Colette
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