The trip got off to a dubious start, with our flight out of San Francisco delayed by two hours. Gordon, Aisling, Siegrid and I had lunch with Dara and Mike Sinatra. We ate the most American food we could find - Lori's Diner! Lots of pancakes, BLTs etc. We went to the gate, chatted to some of our fellow travelers and waited for the flight. The plane was a combo passenger/cargo plane, very strange. The flight took off two hours late, but was uneventful. We arrived in Beijing, landing at about 8. We got off the plane on a tarmac, and got a shuttle to the terminal, which gave us an opportunity to experience the heat and humidity in Beijing, which is comparable to what I experienced living 13 years in St. Louis. When we picked up our luggage, we cleared customs and immigration and went out to meet our Bus Captain, Angie Wang. Angie took us to a restaurant for dinner. On the way, we got a full taste of the frenetic pace of construction in Beijing. Even though it was after 9 or so at night, there were still crews working. We got our first view of the Beijing Olympic stadium, currently under construction, which is designed to look like a birds nest. Angie told us that the airport currently has two terminals but that they are adding a third for the Olympics, as they expect to have 60 million visitors next year. They'll depend heavily on the public transportation/subway system to move people around. We arrived at the restaurant, which was very attractive, and the food was very nice, although not that different to what we might experience at a Chinese restaurant in California. Drinks, however, were served in a very non-American style, we were allowed to have one glass of a soft drink. Soft drinks included sodas (no diet), beer and water. We chatted and began to get to know each other at dinner (through my blog I'll just mention people's names, rather than do introductions). Angie also made us laugh back on the bus when she told us it would be very hot tomorrow, so we should dress accordingly, suggesting that the men wear "wife beaters". We then went back to our hotel, the Loong Palace hotel, which Angie indicated is "out in the suburbs". Beijing has five "ring roads" with a sixth coming for the Olympics, and the Loong Place is on the fourth ring, meaning it's pretty far out there. The hotel was very nice, the rooms were beautiful. I fell asleep at midnight about 9 am California time, and while my sleep was a little broken up, I felt good about getting any sleep at all.
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