Very Full First Day in Beijing

It's been a very long and busy day, so I hope I make sense and include all the highlights. The good news is that I have very little jet lag. I napped a few hours after arriving Monday evening, and then decided just to go to sleep instead of having dinner because there was so much food on the plane. So despite having only slept 10 minutes on the 13.5 hour flight to Beijing, I feel good today.

I met the rest of the Bank of America group at 9 a.m. this a.m. in our lobby of the Chongquing Hotel. We had to take two cabs to get the four of us to the Beijing Zoo for a few hours. Some cab drivers are very particular about the number of passengers. The zoo was a bit disappointing. There were only two Giant Pandas on exhibit, but we took many good photos of them. Most impressive was the attached aquarium, which had many amazing exhibits, including sharks and giant fish. We watched a sea lion and dolphin show. We could only stay a short time, as we were to meet a rep from Children's Hope International (CHI) at our hotel at noon.

We walked over to a restaurant across the street from the CHI office and were treated to the famous Peking Duck, which is supposed to be very tender. The chef slices it at your table, and you dunk it into a sauce, then add it and sliced scallions and cucumber to a very thin tortilla-like food. As the group's vegetarian, I was able to enjoy very delicious sautéed broccoli, rice and eggplant.

We next visited the CHI offices, and met the director and several staff members. The office is two levels in a combination residential/office building. We saw some heart-breaking photos of children with cleft lip and palate, who they are trying to place. Many of those children will receive their surgeries before being placed into their new homes. CHI adopted about 160 children to US families last year. We also found out that the director was going to the Luoyang orphanage this evening, and she was able to take our three suitcases full of donations for the children at that orphanage. My suitcase of CHI donations collected in Chicago weighed about 45 lbs., and we still have more supplies that we are trying to ship into China. The Chinese government threw up some roadblocks initially, when we were going to have Fed Ex ship it for free.

We then had quite the adventure taking three subway trains to the Wang Fun Jing Street market. Thankfully, we had an English-speaking guide with us, or we would have gotten lost trying to figure out which direction to take. Each train was progressively more crowded, and the guard at the last stop literally shoved a few of us onto the train, which was wall-to-wall people. The market has both malls and street shops. We spent at least an hour shopping in the official 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics store. Hats, t-shirts, pens, pins and more were to be found, and prices seemed reasonable. The system is a little different. You collect paper slips from the clerks with item numbers written on them, and they package the items for you. But you have to pay first, then bring the paid slips back to the merchandise location to collect your packages.

We tried some of the food from the street filled with food vendors. I had a wrap with bean sprouts, carrots, other vegetables and lots of red pepper - very spicy. Chung tried the lamb and scorpion on a stick. He enjoyed both, but felt a little weird a while after eating them. The malls were very modern, with many American stores and restaurants: Starbucks, Benetton's, McDonalds, KFC, Canon, etc. Traffic in the taxi ride back to the hotel was very jammed.

Today's weather was remarkable for two reasons - the heavy smog (resembling fog) of yesterday was completely gone, maybe due to the extremely fierce wind that came in. Wind is supposed to be rare here. The day was very sunny, but also
very cold. I don't think it was warmer than 50 degrees, and this evening it was brutally windy and cold. Winter coats would be appropriate.

Thursday will be a very full day, with Tian An Men Square, lunch with a local family and volunteering at the CHI Hope Center in the afternoon. This is where the children recover from surgery. We will also see an acrobat show at night. So, it's not even 8:30 p.m. here, but I will go to sleep soon.

Hope all is well in Chicago! Take care.