Long Day

It is 4:00 a.m. Friday February 15th here. Thursday 3:00 p.m. Feb 14th back home. We both woke up early so we are going to update some things and get to breakfast early. We meet our group of 12 other parents this morning then we go to the Great Wall and some other touristy things. Two other sets of parents are not doing the touring thing and we will meet up with them later.

We left Traverse City at 7:00 a.m. Wednesday the 13th and arrived in Beijing at 9:30 p.m. on Thursday evening. The total travel time was 26 hours. We really didn't sleep much on the plane except for the last flight from Tokyo to Beijing but I personally feel pretty rested. I think the beds are left overs from "The Flinstones", shale is softer. Chris reminded me I had to use bottle water to brush my teeth this morning. I reminded her I don't brush my teeth. I did a great job at refraining from smart in flight comments. After we checked in and were touring the hotel I got a bloody nose from something, of course I was thinking of several comments I could have used in a group setting of my wife abusing me but no one was around. She was tired and wouldn't have appreciated it much. The landing in Detroit was rough. Both the take off and landings to Tokyo were rough, the last flight was on a new A300 model which was very smooth. We had a long lay over in Detroit so I was able to watch a good amount of the Roger Clemens testimony. I was hoping one of those two men would man up and admit someone was lying. Anyway. On the flight to Tokyo we had a couple in front of us with two smaller children, Japanese or Chinese, I don't know. The little girl kept peeking back at me between the seats or would stand up and look at both of us. I kept catching Chris looking down the end of our aisle to another Asian little girl who was coloring. I know she is pretty excited. Once we landed in Tokyo we had to go through a security check before our last flight and through customs before we left the airport in Beijing. Both were very simple inspections. Wouldn't want to be there during the olympics. It was dark when we arrived and the cab drive was 30 minutes so we couldn't see much outside other then alot of dust/pollutionn maybe built up on cars. The city has a sulpher smell to it, maybe from coal. Lot's and lot's of people on the streets last night. I have been practicing my Mandarin using a web site. If Mayleah can't understand me, at least she'll get a laugh. We will keep you posted. We are able to log onto WCSG from Grand Rapids so we will have a great radio station to listen to. Ken