China Trip - December 18, 2004
Today was our first full day in Beijing, staying at the State Guest Hotel.
It is a very beautiful, modern hotel, conveniently located near shopping, groceries and the city center.
This is our room, which includes a small office with bay windows.
This is the breakfast area, which is a large, beautiful room with an adjacent pool area. The food is not as nice as the Chongqing Holiday Inn, but the setting is more spectacular.
Elisa, dressed warmly because today we're going on a tour in the cold Beijing air.
First stop on the tour was the Jade Factory. This is a government run factory and retail store. The workers work in unheated areas, so they are all bundled up. Most are young people.
This is the retail area. Very nicely presented and very commercialized for a government-run facility. The lady in the red jacket is Fay, our tour guide for the Beijing portion of our trip. Fay is from Beijing.
While we were at the Jade Factory, I carried Elisa in my arms. She likes to play games, like conversing in baby talk (she says "uh" or "yee-ah" or "ah" and you repeat it, and so on, for hours). She also likes to play the game where she squeezes your nose, or gets your lower lip in a strong grip and moves your head up and down. Today she tried a new game, which is the "stick your finger into Daddy's eye" game. She ended up scratching my eye, such that I could not open it for most of the rest of the day, and had to visit the local hospital for an eye exam and to get some prescription eye gel and eye drops. (On the way to the hospital, with our tour guide in a cab, I got blurry glimpses of Tienenman Square and the government buildings at night, and I got a private tour of the hospital for foreigners in the Beijing University Medical Center.)
Anyway, back on our tour, after the Jade Factory, we visited a Cloisonné store. Really labor intensive and beautiful work, but definitely not our style.
Our tour then proceeded to the Great Wall of China, which was the main attraction of the day. I loaded Elisa in the Snuggly Backpack and off we went. But we never made it up to the Wall because I could not see where I was going. So we stayed warm on the bus while everyone else froze their butts off on the windy, foggy Wall to get one great picture.