Apr 1, 2005 - Day 269 in Beijing, China

Sarah writes: We had a hard landing in Beijing. The Chinese are a rather pushy sort and have no line etiquette so hailing a cab was just short of a nightmare. All three of us were super cranky and it did not help that all the hotels in Beijing were full. After over ten calls (and each call involves repeating the phrase ¡°do you have a room available?¡± three times) we found one that would take us. The hotel was fairly run down but livable. That afternoon Laura told us that she would not be able to come with us to the Great Wall of China tomorrow. I was upset because I knew that the Wall was really important to Charles. I told Laura that he was planning a picnic and that he had just said the day before how excited he was about seeing the Great Wall of China. Laura did not back down though and so I dropped it (or at least made an effort to hide it). At night we went to see a Chinese acrobatics show. It was really spectacular. It is unbelievable what these kids can do with their bodies; all sorts of balancing, tumbling and contorting went on and the costumes were great. At night we had a dinner at a real Chinese restaurant so I ordered the Peking Duck which was a plate so full of duck that the thought of how many birds filled my plate made me lose my appetite. Charles writes: We went to a hotel listed in the book, when they told us they were full, they let us use the lobby phone to call around to other hotels. While Sarah was calling around to find a hotel, she accidentally called the hotel we were standing in¡¦ the hotel staff answered the phone and said, ¡°hello?.. hello?¡± looking at us incredulously. The photos are from the Chinese acrobatics show.