5:30 am, July 3 (PDT) - We'll be leaving for the airport in about a half an hour. Then we're off on the start of our journey! Our next update will be when we've arrived in China!
5:00 am, July 5 (China time) - We have arrived in Beijing! What a long trip. We didn't post earlier because we were so tired and went to bed early last night. It's actually July 5th here in Beijing. Sorry, we don't have any pictures to post. We haven't really seen anything of interest yet anyway. About the only excitement we've had is almost leaving one of our carry-on bags at security in San Francisco.
We arrived in Beijing about 5 pm China time. We went through customs without a hitch and met up with our travel group. We were then transported in a bus with broken A/C to our hotel, the Sino-Swiss Hotel (http://www.sino-swisshotel.com/). It's pretty nice. The rooms leave a little to be desired, but they're comfortable. After check-in we exchanged some of our travelers checks for the local yuan and checked out the local market. We felt like we were in one of the big Chinese markets up near where Alana's parents live (San Jose), but there was no English translation! We bought a lot of bottled water for our trip to the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. Yes, it is VERY hot and sticky here. The temperature is about 93 degrees and the humidilty is about the same. We are LOVING it. So don't be surprised when you see the pictures and we look miserable.
We tried out one of the restaurants here in the hotel for dinner. It was a Mongolian restaurant where you sit in an authentic looking tent (I think they call it a "yurt?"). We were the only customers in there. Kind of intimidating, but the food was good. A little priceier than we were expecting, but worth the experience. There was live music and they were dressed up in traditional Mongolian garb. To be honest we were so tired it didn't rate very high on our memories of China list.
Hopefully today will be a little more eventful. And hopefully we'll have pictures for you. We'll be seeing you!