Beijing....what a city!

Our trip was very long, but just as enjoyable. Of course, none of us had ever traveled Internationally. So, this was almost as exciting as the thought of "meeting" our new granddaughter.

When we left home, the weather was in the mid-forties. When we arrived in Beijing, the temperature was in the high twenties and it was snowing lightly. We had been told what to expect, so we had plenty of warm clothing with us.

We were met at the airport by our guide for the next seven days. She worked for China Comfort Travel. CCT has worked with adoptive families in China for the past seven years. Therefore, they know what will make us comfortable and what most Europeans want to see while in China.

The trip to our hotel, The Marco Polo, was interesting. We had to travel about 45 minutes on one of the freeways. With snow on the road, we were a bit uneasy. However, we made it without incident.

The hotel was great. The Marco Polo is a Four-Star hotel. In fact, we only stayed in Four and Five-Star hotels on our entire trip. This certainly made the trip even that much more enjoyable.

Since we arrived a couple of days before the other families, our guide took us to see some places that we had requested to see. As I said earlier, my son-in-law and I were on the Internet for hours.

We went to a silk factory. There we got to see how they raise silk worms and how the cocoon is made into thread. While everything we did was interesting, one of the most interesting things that we did was to take a rickshaw tour of a "hutong" . A hutong is basically a small community within Beijing. Most of them are well over one hundred years old.

After the others arrived, we took a tour of the Forbidden City, Tienanmen Square, The Summer Palace and The Great Wall.

Of course, no trip to Beijing (Peking) would be complete without a dining on "Beijing (Peking) Duck". I wasn't fortunate enough to have this experience, but those who did said it was wonderful.