This is Mark again, and I'm going to go ahead and give a run down of our day and only post a couple of pictures from my iPhone. Later, we'll come back and add pictures once Deb is awake. Merry Christmas by the way, as it Christmas morning here! We started the day real early to visit Mao's Mausoleum before the line got long. The subway was quite an adventure at 7:30am in rush hour. Each train was packed and we ended up waiting three trains until all six of us could squeeze in together. We ended up waiting only perhaps 5 minutes in line to see what might be Mao's preserved body. We had heard previously that the body in the mausoleum is often times a wax replica as they limit how much Mao's body ... read more

Today we had a great, very long day exploring Beijing. We ventured into the subway, as we have done in many other cities but found that the crowds were nothing like we anticipated. As the train approached, the meaning of crowded took on a whole new significance. We pushed our way through the crowd and found our way to The Temple of Heaven. We had fun walking through the maze of people trying to reach the entrance. There were so many people there engaged in a variety of activities from playing cards to singing to doing ballroom dancing. We took the boys to the Pearl Market so they could experience the fine art of bargaining first hand. Will purchased a “Bat Man Belt” and the boys all bought T Shirts, while Diana and I purchased some ... read more

We are in Beijing!! Had a great flight, a little turbulence here and there but the 12 hours went by pretty fast with several movies and reading travel books. We hired a driver to pick us up at the airport and he was waiting for us with sign that said “Green Wood,” kids thought that was funny. We are very happy with our hotel, JW Marriott, we are on a club floor with access to the club lounge with drinks available all day, happy hour every night and a full breakfast in the morning…..Helpful with our family of 6 and boys that can eat non stop. Steve was so excited with our “luxury” bath that he had to take one while watching the TV above it  Right across the street from our hotel is a ... read more

We flew from Malaga to London and are spending the night at the Marriott Hotel at Heathrow. We gave ourselves a day in London since our flight from Malaga (British Airways) and flight home (Air New Zealand) were on unconnected airlines and a delay from Malaga could leave us stuck in London. It was a pretty quiet day as we had dinner in the pub at the hotel and then watched some more episodes of Lost before going to bed. Everyone is ready to come home!... read more

We woke early to get picked up at 7:05 for our tour of Tangier, Morocco. It was nice to be part of a tour as they bypassed some of the entry and control checkpoints boarding the ferry that everyone has to go through. The 40 minute ferry ride (catamaran fast ferry) was a bit up and down as the seas were a little rough. However, we arrived in Tangier with no one getting seasick. Whew! We started with a bus tour of the different sections of Tangier. Tangier was an internationally controlled city for much of the 20th century so that definite sections were historically populated by French, Spanish, English and Americans. We were surprised to learn that several celebrities have second residences in Tangier. There certainly are some large large villas in the nicer parts ... read more