One day in Beijing

We got to the hotel just in time to meet Eric at 3:00.  Really fun to see him after almost 3 months.  We stayed in the downtown area of Beijing not too far from Tianneman Square.  We went down a block to the "walking street" (all blocked off to traffic).  There was a beautiful 6 story mall there - much nicer than any I was in last time.  We walked further down to the night market where you buy almost anything on a stick you want to eat - barbecued  pork, silk worms, sea urchins, snake, scorpion, candied fruit,  lizards, all in all quite the gourmet offering!  We had a much tamer dinner at one of the local restaurants earlier so were just too full to eat anything else however tempting  :-)

We also went to the Official Olympic store.  It has tons of 'stuff' - I'm sure we'll go back when we return to Beijing in two weeks.  It's cool to be here while the Paralympics are starting.  We saw people checking in at the airport and the hotel.   Eric says all the banners and signs in the city changed overnight from the Olympics to the Paralympics.  We watched the opening ceremony on TV but were able to see some of the fireworks from our hotel window!  I have to admit we fell asleep during some of the athletes marching in, but we saw most of the rest - much of which were hundreds of deaf 'sign dancers'.  they used their hands to mimic flying birds as well as portraying the music.

We woke up around 4 am to a huge thunder and lightening storm.  Bob and Anna never went back to sleep - they stayed up and watched TV til daylight.