Safe Arrival in Beijing

After a 12 hour flight, I arrived safely in Beijing. The flight was uneventful, other than the youngster playing with his mothers tray table behind my seat while his parents and grandmother slept, Even with the occasional interruption, I was able to sleep fairly well.

We crossed the International Dateline over the Pacific and Beijing is 12 hours ahead of the Eastern Standard Time.

I cleared security and customs in Beijing very quickly and grabbed a cup of coffee before Jeremy and his aunt, Guo Hau, arrived We left the airport at 7 pm (Beijing time, 7 am Tuesday morning EST) and Jeremy's uncle and aunt took us to a "Hot Pot" restaurant for supper.

At the restaurant, you select different meats that are generally cut into slivers and you cook them a small pot of water that is in front of you. You comtrol the temperature of the pot and you mix spices together to add flavor to the meats and vegetables ( cabbage, spinach, mushrooms, etc) after you cook them. There was a variety of spices, some of which I recognized (garlic, chives, etc). I enjoyed all of it. It was very flavorful and you could make it as spicy as you wanted.

Using chop sticks was fun and a bit entertaining, especially after I dropped a meatball on my pants only to find out that they "spear" the meatballs with a chopstick rather than trying to pick them up.

After supper we drove to Jeremy's uncle's appartment and we arrived there at 10 pm

Tomorrow Nicole, Jeremy's wife ( Mingsi is her Chimese name) will be driving from their home (a 7 hours drive from the north of Beijing) to meet us. She was supposed to be here already but she had a minor car accident last week ( someone rear-ended her ) and she had to get the car fixed first.

Tomorrow ( Wednesday ) Jeremy and I will be visiting the ' Summer Palace).