Woke up early Saturday (January 24) morning to finish packing, grabbed a light breakfast, and joined a group of friends on the Airport Limousine (a bus that transports travelers to and from the airport in Busan). We met up with the Kangsan Travel people who would be responsible for getting us to Beijing and showing us a good time during our 3 day trip in China. Waited around the airport for a couple hours then boarded the plane and had a smooth, uneventful flight (about 2 hours) to Beijing. The Beijing airport was HUGE! I'm confident the entire town of Ellsworth could have fit inside the airport with room to spare. Then we met with the Chinese tour guides who worked in conjunction with the Kangsan travel folks from Korea. Our Chinese tour guide called himself "Jerry" How. He was born and raised in Beijing but spoke English quite well, except he had the funniest way of saying certain phrases. His accent definitely added a dose of humor to our trip.
After manuevering our way through the gigantic airport, we boarded our tour buses and headed straight for phase one of our sight-seeing adventure, a group of temples near downtown Beijing. As anticipated, it was cold but we were prepared (I even wore Korean man-tights under my jeans). We walked around the temple grounds for an hour or two then headed to our first authentic Chinese food restaurant where we ate Peking duck (a very tender sliced duck meal served with soy-sauce, rice, vegatables, and some other dishes which were unidentifiable). We quickly learned that every Chinese meal also comes with a 1-liter coke, 16-ounce bottle of water, kettle of hot tea, and two 20-ounce beers.
With our bellies full, we then headed to our 5-star hotel (The Loong Palace Hotel and Resort). This place was amazing! It was a huge hotel with hundreds of statues, a big marble spiral staircase, dragon fountain, and decorated with Lunar New Year lanterns and lights. As we wandered around we found an olympic size swimming pool, shuffle-board tables, billiards room, bowling alley, buffet-style restaurant, and lounge bar. We felt like the Beverly Hillbillies.
Dropped our luggage off in our room and headed straight for the pool. They informed us that we needed swimming caps so of course I bought the ugliest one they had. Swam around for an hour or so, then joined a group of friends for some drinks and charades before hitting the sack.
