China – Day 1: June 2019

Sunday, June 16, 2019

Hello from Beijing! We had a pretty good first day(ish) in our trip to China. Mimi flew in to St Louis on Thursday night. Friday morning we left the house and began our ~20hour trip. Our flight to Chicago was uneventful, and a tight connection got us to our China flight just on time. The flight was pretty easy; the kids cooperated until about the last 45 minutes or so.

We landed at around 4pm China time on Saturday (3am St. Louis time), so everyone was ready to get to the hotel, and the hot/humid airport wasn’t helping too much. We met up with our tour group, made it to the hotel, and enjoyed the buffet at the restaurant in the lobby. After a quick trip to the pool, everyone was ready for bed. Of course, with the time change, Brynn work up around 2am on Sunday morning, and then somehow work the other kids up. Leslie was up for a bit with them and then went back to sleep, and then Jeff ended up getting up with them around 4am to keep them from waking the rest of the hotel up.

Sunday started with a buffet breakfast and then a bus ride to Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City. After another short bus ride, we walked through some hutongs — narrow alleyways that make up the fabric of local neighborhoods. We took a pedicab tour and then went to a local family’s house for lunch. The adults loved the food; the kids ate rice and enjoyed seeing the pet turtle.

When we got back to the hotel, after a quick dip in the pool, Jeff and Brynn napped while everyone else went to see the acrobatics show. By 7pm or so, everyone was exhausted so we hit up the dinner buffet and then headed to bed to rest up for tomorrow!

You can always go to the SmugMug gallery to view or download all of the pictures and video or order prints directly from SmugMug.