Day 4 - Double Happiness - Oct 23

Double Happiness is an apt descriptor. We are happy to have finally arrived in Beijing. The name of our hotel is Double Happiness, and we both like it very much.

View outside our door.

Our room is behind the blue curtain at the very end of this courtyard.

Traditional swank!

Snug as a bug in a red rug.

Nighttime view of the courtyard. Anybody see the movie the Raise the Red Lantern? Tonight is our lucky night!

Day 5, Beijing - with the Vikings - Oct 24

Our stay in the Double Happiness hotel was delightful (even though the power was off when we arrived and the temperature was a brisk 46° in the room).  Thankfully, the power was back on within a couple of hours and we were able to be comfortable again.

Yesterday, we ate at a Buddhist restaurant and had a great vegan meal. Best pumpkin soup ever! Afterwards, we had time to wander around the hutong hotel is located within - very residential location. Really enjoyed that.

Today, we moved to the Kerry Hotel to join up with Bob and Brenda on the Viking River cruise tour.  This hotel is certainly geared toward Westerners. We both preferred the quirky, yet comfortable, Chinese Traditional hotel we first stayed in.

We had a great time at the Panjiayuan Flea Market today.  It's a lot like the Tucson Gem and Mineral show – except that it runs every single weekend. Large and amazing!

Tomorrow we will tour the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.

The air pollution has been pretty bad.

Day 2, still in San Francisco - Oct 20

Day Two got off to a terrifically… bad start.

 More airline snafus.  We have yet to depart for Beijing.  And our checked baggage has been lost by the airlines. Neither United Airlines nor Air China can tell us where our bags are.  Their best guess is that the bags went to Beijing even though we had been reassured many times that they had been removed from yesterday's flight.

 We spent all day reprovisioning on the likely chance that our bags will not be reunited with us.

Huge angel points to Alyce and Mike.  They have been incredibly awesome in helping us navigate this stressful situation with relative ease and good will.

Hopefully,  tomorrow will be kinder to our travel plans.

Day 1: an inauspicious start - Oct 19

As the subject line states, we are off to an inauspicious start.   Our flight from Tucson to San Francisco was delayed,  so we weren't able to make our connection to Beijing.

 The good-natured staff of United Airlines automatically opted to transfer us to Air China so that we could still fly out today.   However, Air China wasn't able to provide me a seat that would protect me from being accidentally bumped by the flight crew and other passengers.   Staring down 13 hours of non-stop terror proved to be too much for me to contemplate.   The odds of a bone fracture were high and decidedly not in my favor.

After several hours of delay and negotiation, we have been rescheduled to depart tomorrow morning. A much better situation for me (and ultimately, for Catherine).

 There is a silver lining to all of this.  Mike and Alyce have graciously offered to put us up tonight, with the special bonus of getting to spend some quality time with them and partake of Alyce's fantastic cooking.  They've turned our frowns upside down!

Hopefully, all of the snafus we will encounter over the duration of our trip of were taken care of today.   So glad we got that out of the way! ;-)

2 Weeks To Departure...

Two years in the making and it is hard to believe that we are two weeks from departure to China for our five week visit.