Asteroids and scorpions

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I spent the better part of our first day of travel waiting for a plane, on a plane or not sleeping because I was worried about oversleeping to make the plane. We connected in Newark for our long flight (13 HOURS) to Beijing where the gods of airport travel smiled upon me by having one of only a couple of empty seats on the entire plane ending up next to mine. Freaking awesome. There was another passenger on the other aisle seat in my little row of three and we took full advantage of obnoxiously stretching out our stuff (and ourselves) over the extra seat (oh, extra space, you are so awesome, I love you). Even without the extra space, the seats were comfy and the seatback entertainment kept me easily occupied whenever I wasn’t napping. Besides the on demand movies and TV, they also had GAMES. Sweet!

At one point I was woken up from a blissful nap (playing Asteroids is exhausting) to a sea of people stuffed in the aisle and all oohing and ahing while looking out the windows. It better be something cool because otherwise getting woken up because some stranger’s ass just hit you in the forehead is unpleasant. And it was cool - we were passing over Greenland and the view was pretty spectacular (admittedly, we would have been easy to impress - anything that wasn’t just clouds and sky would have probably garnered the same reaction).

We landed safe and sound (and ahead of schedule, thank you GOAT). The airport in Beijing wasn’t anything like I expected - it was probably one of the easiest and quickest "get off the plane, through customs and baggage claim" experiences I’ve ever had. (The only hiccup being that two people in our group who shall remain nameless (but rhyme with Shmom and Shdad), got sent back into line because they had filled out the customs form in pencil instead of pen). It was beautiful weather - sunny, with just a touch of smog (and by touch I mean that you could actually see the sun when a strong wind would occasionally clear a patch of sky). Smog aside, I couldn’t believe how clean the city was. Seriously, I would have been hard pressed to find a piece of litter anywhere. It’s clean, like Canada clean….not quite Walt Disney World clean (but really, that’s a level of clean reserved for Disney theme parks and hospitals) but they’d give us Canucks a run for our city maintenance money.

The first full day of seeing stuff was only the next day when we checked out the Olympic buildings, the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City and Tian’an Men Square. The last Olympic site I visited was THE Olympic site - Olympia in Greece, home of the first Olympic games and here I find myself standing in front of the bird’s nest, home of the most recent games. Coolness abounds. They don’t let you run the track here just for fun, though, which, whatever, loses some cool points (grumble) but I’m over it. I got to do it at Olympia and I gleefully ran that sucker then (nya nya, so there Beijing).

And boy were folks right that there are lots of people in Beijing, but probably not the crushing number I expected. At the tourist sites it was different...every single one of these places were teeming with people, but with few other western tourists anywhere, we were easy to spot in a crowd so no risk of getting permanently separated. It was a long day with lots of walking, but T and me (and T’s mama) opted to skip supper since we’d had a huge lunch (mostly stuff we couldn’t identify, but all tasty) to walk to Wangfujing Street in search of the famous night market. The night market is famous for its “snacks” most of which are just any weird manner of critter deep fried, like starfish, seahorses and scorpions (which they swear taste like popcorn). We did happend across some tasty treats on snack street (a side alley off the otherwise fairly posh Wangfujing). The scorpions here were probably the safest thing to eat in any event since they were the only critter still alive (still wriggling while impaled on a stick) and are cooked fresh. We were there late, and by the time we toured the whole market the stalls were starting to close down, so we’ll have to go back to indulge in all that grossness another time. Mmmm mmm mmm scorpion.

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Photos

Games on a plane
gots to love it - kept me entertained!

Greenland
The view was awesome (ma tante L took this photo!)

Scorpions
They were still wriggling (bleah)

Route map
Where we were the the Greenland photo was taken

Concubine's residence
Detail of the roof of one of the concubine residences at the Forbidden City

Tian'an Men Square
Mao in the background

Comments

[Darren]

Very Important Reminder
Hey Lynne - Just remember to do everything for two hours!!!! Scorpions are so random...:) D

[Ren]

Miam, miam...
Bring me back some scorpions!

[Cindy]

WOW
Hi Lynn, Heather just forwarded your blog link to me. Although China was never a country on my list, I have to admit that your first entry and photos are very impressive. I can't believe the cleanliness. That is not what I expected. In any case, hope you have a great trip and I can't wait to attend your viewing when you return (because I'm sure there will be one).

[E-Dog]

Woohoo!!
It is really awesome that there were games on board the plane! How come i didnt get them going to Japan( game country central)???? Im so jealous! Hope you guys are having a blast and please make sure to bring to back some of those tasty Scorpion sticks... MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMm Anyways, me and Christine bought 6 new games this weekend so we'll keep them warmed up for your return. You'll really like them. We are reserving a day upon your return for games and stories from the trip.

[Cheryl]

yummy!
Wow Lynne What else do they sell on a stick??? ha! I think you need to bring some back they may taste good with enough wine...