On to have an adventure in Beijing, China.

We got a wake up call at 5:30 this morning, we leave this morning at 7:30 for the airport for our flight to Beijing.  The plane leaves at 10 am.  Ann and her driver Jung were there early to pick us up.  So many cars on the roads to the freeway it was a little hairy.  The airport was built 20 years ago, between the city of Beijing and the airport we see alot of nice farms and rural towns.   Ann and Jung told us goodbye.  Ann had tears in her eyes and really seem sad to say goodbye.   Rita had Derek take our picture with her above.   We were about the first ones to get to gate 7, it was all nice and quiet until the Chinese came and it gets really noisily, most talking so loud on their cell phones, the louder they talk the more important they feel.  Our plane was delayed for half hour, than it stretched in to more than an hour.  It was a huge plane and after we got seated we sat there for another 45 minutes before they took off.  It was interesting though, as we took off the movie screen showed the take off, and the ground below what we would see if we were looking out the window of the plane.  We were served a really nice lunch, after all our waiting...   After getting our bags after landing, mine was showing it didn't get treated very well, being the first on, it was the last bags to come out of the plane.  At least all my little gifts were still there.  Our new Guide was a young man named "Jessie" a name he adopted because his Chinese name was to hard to pronounce.  His driver was named "George", they made quite a pair.  Jessie was really an enthusiastic young man.  Right away he told us that he was a Professor at the University and this was his summer job.  He reminded me of the nutty Professor that Jerry Lewis played in one of his movies.  We were to be met and taken to our hotel and the rest of the day be on our own, but Jessie, said our time was too short for all the things he wanted to have us see.  So after getting us booked into our hotel he took us to the "Olympic Village"  we saw some of as we went to our hotel.  We weren't to visit that until Monday.



Jessie and Derek getting us checked in at the hotel, next picture is what we see out the window of our room.  The Dragon out in front of the Hotel.  This is June 24 a Friday morning.




Above is the inside of the hotel, it was very nice.  Below are some pictures I took as we approached the Olympic Village.




John standing there waiting for us to catch up to him.  As you can see it's a very tourist place, it attracts lots of visitors.   The first area was the Water Cube Aquatic center. The National Swimming Center.  It is the first steel structured building with the "bubble theory" in the world.  It was during the 2008 Olympic Games swimming sportsmen created new records one after another, making it a "water magic cube" this glittering and translucent construction is of clever design, complicated structure, simple and clear of appearance and advanced science technology, has become a landmark of century long history of Olympic construction, as well as the world construction.   Then to the Bird Nest Stadium.  We got our picture taken by it and, took a lot pictures through there.