The Reason for the Journey

Yesterday and today were travel days, so not many exciting pictures to take, but after 32 hours of travel, we finally arrived at our hotel in Beijing, All in all, the trip went rather smoothly, no real delays, we had a couple of long layovers (we needed them) to make it through the international check-in process. We had a couple of carry-on bags searched and a few pieces of my underwear managed to flop their way onto the countertop (my lesson is to have nice looking undies and pack those delicate items in a zip lock bag) Apparently, they were looking at the gifts I had brought for the officials and our microphone for the video camera. All of things were stuffed quickly back into the bag and we were on our way.
The personal space in China is non-exsistent, so if you let an inch of room, a dozen people will shove their way in. We learned to stay very close together.
We got our temperature scanned at the airport and filled out a health questionnaire, but passed the H1N1 screening with flying colors.
When we arrived in Beijing, our tour guide, Vincent, was there to pick us up with a sign saying Janice. There is snow on the ground here and it is very cold. Both Vincent and the driver were touching Mike's fleece jacket and talking. Mike thought they were admiring his jacket when they both pronounced "not enough" meaning his jacket wasn't warm enough, but no worries, we have warmies packed.
The traffic in Beijing is crazy to say the least, I am glad we didn't try to do this tour on our own. While we were driving to the hotel, we went over the tour I had designed. Vincent said he be dead at the end of the four days. Apparently, I know how to jam pack a tour! We are feeling better about everything. The internet is working fine, but Mike is already missing Fox news. Well, we have only had about 4 hours of sleep in the past two days, so we are heading for bed and a full day tomorrow. I will post pictures after tomorrow's tour.
Oh, forgot to mention Obama is here too, so that adds to the traffic and security issues here in Beijing