We've arrived!

Ni hao!  We have arrived and are settled in chilly China.  Luckily it looks like the chill will last only one more day and then we will have nice weather.

Our flight was uneventful, but long.  Some smart travelers in our party upgraded to economy plus.  Others of us were back in regular old coach. 

This post will be short and sweet, because I am having trouble accessing Blogger.com (a google site)diretly from within China.  To write this, I had to VPN into my office computer and then access Blogger.  Alas, it is very slow this way.  I can not access Blogger, Google, or Facebook directly from within China here.  I will keep trying....

Upon our arrival, we were met by Frank Wang our guide here in Beijing.  On the bus ride to the hotel - in a LOT of traffic - Frank shared some interesting facts.  Beijing's population is at about 19 million.  Shanghai has about 22 million residents, and the largest city in China - Chongching - has 33 million residents.  It's amazing to put that in the perspective of the population of Chicago at 3 million...

According to Frank, China is facing three major problems at this time.  1) polution, 2) unemployement, and 3) an increasing gap between rich and poor.

After checking in, some of the group went out for a walk on Wangfujing street - a pedestrian shopping street.  We had dinner and then explored the very interesting items for sale at the night market.  The night market is a several block long stretch of street food vendors.  And such interesting food it was!  We saw sarfish, seahorses, lamb kidneys, and snake - and more. 

Since we are all exhausted from the long flight and lack of sleep, we came back to get a good night sleep in preparation for our visits tomorrow to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and the Jade Market.