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Eureka, California to Beijing China....

Beijing Travel Blog › entry 1 of 18 › view all entries

David & I traveled to China in May 2007: We spent the first 7 days with a Friendly Planet Tour & last 2 weeks on our own. This is quick telling of our travels. We loved the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Ming Tombs, jade stores, tea farms, Beijing, Harley Davidson (Beijing), Guilin, Li River, Yangshou, Suzhou, Shanghai, Xi'an, Terra Cotta Soldiers...the food, street scenes,tourist traps, scenery, museums, gardens & most of all the people!China is a Hoot! We LOVED it: anyone can do it on their own!

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Eureka, California to Beijing China....

May 1, 2007

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Our first day in Beijing:with Chinese music

What a ride! David and I caught the 1 PM plane out of Eureka. The flight served beer so we had one.... free beer I might add! We flew to Los Angeles and arrived at 3:30 and found out the Air China staff didn't come in until 8:30: One of the airport guys suggested we go over to the Hilton and look around. So we had dinner at the Don Shula restaurant.... (he is a sports guy) then we hung around some more and had Texas margaritas and then we finally went over to the airport again. We stood in line for an hour then Air China showed up. We were the first in line so we got the bulk head seats.... it was great. David is 6'6 so his legs don't really fit a regular seat.

ha ha.... McDonalds: amazing how many languages ronald mcdonald can speak. loved their menu: they had taro pies.... i kept the box.

The flight was really funny. no individual movies. We boarded at 2 AM and the first thing they did was serve us a meal. Yikes. It was really good but we had been fighting to stay awake for the last 3 hours.... waiting to take off to sleep... So we ate and died...... then woke up we saw a strange sad movie that was Chinese and the lady died at the end. .....but beautifully. Then they showed an American movie: but there was no sound... we did have the Chinese characters at the bottom of the screen to refer to (not very informative to us...LOL) .... each section of the plane had a screen in the front. The families at the front of the plane did shadows on the screen to amuse their kids.

These strange things had a thick peel like an orange (only purple) then inside was a little like a lechee fruit. It has a great tropical taste... i had no idea what they were called: a fellow travbuddy identified it as mangoesteen. Thanks, Jojo!

... during the movie. (!) It is funny to think of it but all of the kids here are "only" children. (We will check this out later.....) very old plane. but very, very clean. It was amazing to us how dedicated they were to cleaning. Everytime someone went to the restroom an attendent went in and cleaned!!! Very impressive!

May 2, 2007 We got into Beijing an hour early: 5 AM. The Friendly Planet tour guide , Vivian, met us (she had actually stayed the night at the airport to make sure she didn't miss us...) and we boarded a bus. she gave us a long and thorough lecture about the city of Beijing, and told us about the history of China. a really long history. and the city is the oldest city in the world and the center of the world (she really said that.... I thought it was Eureka, CA)... and told us about the Peking man so it is is also the cradle of civilization. She stood in the center of the bus and recited this... It took over an hour to get to our hotel.....

19 comments

29 smiles

redcatxia says:

No individual movies?!?! Oh Dear, poor you! I was able to slecect the newest movies for free and they aired in chinese or english depending on what language they showed in last.

Posted on: Sep 26, 2009

acowboy says:

Good stuff, i might have to refer to this later - i am thinking about heading to China at the end of the year. And I can relate to David.. he gots a few inches on me, but still those seats can be very uncomfortable.

Posted on: May 27, 2009