Beijing!!!!!

Good Morning....China!!!!

Well the first morning was wonderful!!! We got up after having slept great and went down and had a wonderful breakfast!!! It was beautiful in the hotel! We sat looking to see, trying to figure out who all was in our group that we would recognize!!! That would be fun considering we had only emailed and shared a few pictures. So Lina had told us the night before that we were to meet in the Lobby.

Once we all started gathering in the lobby...the friendships through emails were turned into friendships that would last a lifetime!!!! We finally got with our friends from Kansas City!!! We were excited about it. We were all looking forward to our sightseeing!!!

Out the door we headed!! Now to say it was warm was putting it lightly!!! We lived near the ocean for 6 years and that feeling of when you walk outside and you start to sweat and you want to go take another shower!!! But off we went!! Glad I wore my walking shoes!!! Off we went to the Forbidden City and Tianimen Square! Judy must be training for Olympic Speed walking!!! We saw a lot of things!!! Simply beautiful!!! It was a good thing that I had gotten LOTS of film!!!!

After we did the jog through Forbidden City and Tianimen Square, we went to lunch! It was wonderful!!! It was Peking Duck and lots of other things to eat. We laughed because we all loved the table!!! It had a huge lazy susan and you could keep spinning until you found something you liked!!! Kind of like the big wheel on the Price is Right!! LOL... WE didn't know what some of it was, but most of it we did, so we had one guy in our group keep asking Fred what it was. Fred will tell him "dim sum". Every time it would always be dim sum! Poor Dave finally asked Fred, is everything on this table dim sum??? Fred looked at him and said...everything that you have asked about...is dim sum!! It was fun!!! We have such a wonderful group of people!!!

After lunch we went to CHI's Beijing office and had a little orientation, watched a video went to a western bathroom!!! Then it was off to the great wall!!!!!

Fred, Matt, Lisa, and Dave made it to the top!!! It was funny though. I asked them why the kept going. They all said well...when a man smoking passed us up, we kept going, but we really decided to finish when a lady in high heel shoes passed us up!!! WE HAD TO KEEP GOING!! They did great!!!

The Great Wall is an amazing thing to see!!! You can see pictures, but until you see the actual wall and climb on it...it will make you speechless!!!!!

After the great wall...we were all tired!!! So it was back to the hotel for a rest!!! After our rest, we met up with Matt and Lisa and went to Pizza Hut!!!! It was very good!!!!! We enjoyed walking around the streets a little bit! Needless to say, we slept well that night too!!!!!