Our hotel lobby at the Grand Crowne Hotel in Beijing

Family selfie in Tiananmen Square with the entrance to the Forbidden City where the emperors lived in the background

Famous portrait of Chairman Mao over the entrance to the Forbidden City

Mae overlooking part of the Forbidden City

Image recreated from in front of the Tree of Happy Couples from our trip in 2009

A Country Rich in History

Apologies for not blogging last night.  We were exhausted after a long day at Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. 

Friday the 20th:  Our day started with a great breakfast buffet at our hotel.  As I type this this morning, I can't wait to go have breakfast again this morning. (and I didn't have time to finish this entry and post it before we went to breakfast and left for the day)  The coffee is the best we've ever had.  We all rated the coffee a 10/10. It is seriously better than Jamaican Blue Mountain that is served on most Caribbean cruises.  Anyway, enough about the coffee.  After breakfast, we met the rest of our tour group in the hotel lobby to meet our guide and load the bus for our tour.  There are currently 32 people in our group, and we are adding more today that didn't arrive until yesterday.  After about a 15 minute ride to Tiananmen Square, we had to stand in a long line or queue as our guide kept calling it.  It was like waiting in line for a popular attraction at a US theme park.  I say this not to complain but to help you understand how popular of tourist destinations these historical sites are.  During our tour, our guide was a wealth of information.  She told us about much of China's history.  After the tour, we loaded back on the bus to head to a lunch buffet and a jewelry store that specialized in Chinese pearls.  We headed back to the hotel after that and had dinner on our own at one of the restaurants in the hotel.  The food has been better than I thought it would be, but I am ready for something spicy.  Much of what they serve in this area of China is sweet.  After dinner we decided to go to bed.  

Group photo at The Great Wall

Maelin and Rylan conquering The Great Wall (no zoom)

They were beasts

It's tough climbing

 

Mailing and Rylan in the same location zoomed in

Picture taken from the same spot

Have I mentioned that it's hot here?

CCTV headquarters building

I thought it looked cool

The kids having lunch together

Saturday the 21st:  As you can see in the pictures, we went to and climbed The Great Wall today.  You really can't describe the feeling you get climbing it.  The history behind it, the age of it, the size of it...we were all just in awe.  Maelin made the most of it.  She and Rylan climbed further than I think anyone in our group did.  After The Great Wall, we went to a jade store where Maelin got a beautiful bangle.  Then we were served a family style lunch.  It was a great time to get to know some of the people in the group.  The group is really pretty great.  Everyone is so nice.  We had an afternoon acrobatic show for entertainment followed by a Peking Duck dinner.  

We have another busy day tomorrow.  I'm not sure if I'll write about it tomorrow night of the next day.  I apologize for the haphazard writing about these past two days.  I'm tired and it's bedtime.  Ha!  

 

Just in Time

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain

Our trip to China hasn’t gone as planned, and we’re not even to China yet. I’m writing this in the Tokyo airport. Were we originally scheduled on a connecting flight in Tokyo? No. Let me start from the beginning…

Tuesday morning we were in Lubbock. We slept in because we knew we had about 24 hours of straight travel that would start with our first flight out of Lubbock at 5:25 PM that afternoon. We piddled around after we ate lunch. Then we loaded up to head to the airport. My mom’s place is on the way to the airport so we stopped by to see her before heading to the airport. She gathered us up and prayed for us before we left. While she was praying, I got a text message from United Airlines. The info contained in that text would completely wreck all our plans for getting to China.  It was extremely stressful to the point I was ready to cancel the whole trip and reschedule it for a later date. The text said that our 5:25 PM flight from Lubbock to Denver was delayed and wouldn’t depart until 10:01 PM. 😬  This would make us miss our connection to LAX and ultimately to Beijing. We went to the airport to see what could be done. The ladies at the United counter were sweet, but they really offered no assistance. I went to the Southwest counter to see if they could get us to LAX in time to make our United connection.  Nothing. We went to the American counter.  Nothing.  We called our travel agent. She was out of the office. She did the best she could without her computer in front of her, but nothing.  At this point our best option was to just take the delayed flight to Denver and see what United could do for us when we got there. We had time to kill so we went back to the house. On the way to the house, I decided to call United customer service hoping they could help. After about an hour on the phone, the lady on the other end worked a miracle. She booked us on new connections. She got our rooms comped in Denver, and now we’re just a 4 hour flight away from being in China. We’re still going to get to Beijing on the 19th like originally planned just much later in the day. We’ll still get to join the tour on the first day. All is well!

You might be asking yourself at this point why I titled this entry “Just in Time.”  

We got the last 5 seats on the new connecting flights just in time.

We showed back up at the Lubbock airport for our delayed flight to check in as they were closing down the checkin desk. We got checked in just in time.

We got the last five seats on the transfer shuttle to our hotel, as opposed to having to wait 30 minutes for another one. Yes again, we got there just in time.

The fact that this all started during Meme’s prayer means this entry should really be titled “Just in HIS Time!”  I don’t know why this happened, but honestly, I’m glad it did. As Anthony said in the aforementioned quote, “Travel isn’t always pretty…But…It changes you.”  I find that to be true with every trip I take. We find that to be true with every trip we take. We haven’t even started yet, but I already feel so blessed.