Marco polo's Got Nothing On Me

So in case you didn't hear, I'm back from China. And I can tell you that YOU have to go.

Yes the flight there from San Francisco to Beijing was less than heavenly. Twelve hours. When you go, get an isle seat. I had one on the way back and and they DO make a difference.

There were 28 people in our group. And surprisingly, very few stinkers. A couple of people were a little annoying, but nothing so bad to even bring the subject up again.

We arrived at Beijing International at about 10 pm local time(I think). Let me tell you about Beijing. The town I live in now has less than 500 people, and is about five square miles on a good day. But I've lived in New York City and Los Angeles, so large towns are in my mental inventory. But B town? No, its frigging big.

Traffic was at first glance a nightmare, (and I've driven on the 405 in L.A.)But the people seemed to have an inner sense of cooperation that caused the flow to continue even at the worst of times. Cars are a new item in China, and so you see very few older ones. Beijing's people still mostly ride to and from work on bikes and subways or combinations of the two. Every subway stop had at least 200 or more bikes parked outside.

Pedestrians have no rights on the street, and don't seem to need them. They are as aggressive as any driver. Its not unusual to see some one cross at a corner, get stranded at the center line and walk down that center line until a space shows up between cars to get the rest of the way across. I saw people do this on the FREEWAY!

The English name of our first hotel was “Joy City” The hotel housed a large six story mall. Each level was dedicated to the style of clothing the shops on that level sold. The floors had names like “Elegant” “Sexy” and “Extreme” Don't get too excited, that last one was mostly sports stuff.

An American can walk around Beijing quite easily without knowing a bit of Chinese, as most of the stores signs are in both languages. Sometimes the wording on the signs is a bit awkward and sometimes downright funny. More on that later.

Beijing was cold. Very cold. As a result, some of it is a blur in my memory.

More will follow, I promise.