Beijing takes the prize!

I've been in some dirty places before. London, Los Angeles, New York City, Jakarta, Cairo. FILTHY places. However, I hereby declare Beijing as the winner of the all-time most polluted, littered, downright GRAY city on the planet. A funky yellow, gray haze just floats over everything. Yesterday morning I thought it was a fog. Ha. Fog. No, indeed. That'd be a cloud of carcinogens smothering every healthy pair of lungs it can find. Last night after being out in the funk for right at 12 hours, I took a shower. Danny heard my scream and came running in to discover me pointing at the bathtub floor. It was covered, swirling in gray/brown. I made mud, people. And you know how clean I am, how I sanitize everything. I washed and scrubbed and scrubbed and washed Beijing off of me and today we're gonna go back and out and collect more of it. I should save it and put it in little boxes like they used to with Mt St. Helen's ash. I swear that's what it is.

We went to T. Square. I don't have the energy to Google it to figure out how to spell it but you know the place and I think Matt is uploading a link to our Flickr account so you can see pictures. Our guide specifically asked us not to talk to her about tanks and students and to please, for the love, not take pictures of the uniformed soldiers. If they catch you, they take away your camera, film and/or memory card. And they insist on seeing your passport and quiz you about why you're in their country, etc. So naturally, my husband had to have pictures of this forbidden fruit. He whipped out his gigantic lens and started sneaking off shots while I prayed silently and asked Father to blind the soldiers to my husband's photographic challenges. I'll be lucky if he makes it out with me but I'm thinking if he gets arrested, I may be able to lay down on the flight home because I'll have his empty seat beside Ru and me. Always look on the positive side, I say. We also visited
the Forbidden City and The Summer Palace both of which one can't help but be impressed by. We were disappointed because lots of the structures are under maintenance tarps/scaffolding. Everyone here is focused on the Olympics next summer. In fact, later today (Sunday) we're going to visit the Olympic village and see The Bird's Nest stadium (we've driven by from a distance but this time we'll get up close and get some better pics to share).

I've never been so hot and humid in my life. That says a lot considering I'm from eastern Kansas and I've played basketball on the equator in June in Indonesia. This place is oppressive hot. The heat rose off the sidewalk and swished around us. I could feel it as though it were tangible. It's hard to explain. Also, we felt a breeze probably three or four times in 12 hours of touring. For a Kansan, this is torture in the highest form. When I found wind, I just stood still and let it whip around me for all of 30 seconds and then moved on, always on the hunt for the next wisp of air movement.

At lunch we were reassured that the ice was clean, safe for our "sensitive stomachs" and we should enjoy it. So we did. For the entire meal. Then one of our group discovered an unfortunate (and unfortunately large) beetle who suffered a rather chilly death, nestled in the center of our "safe" ice pitcher. I stopped drinking immediately, obviously, but Danny decided the damage was done and kept on downing ice, cold Coke like we drink bug ice every day. Mostly I'm eating rice, as usual. However, last night I busted out and ate duck which of course tastes like chicken. We have one girl in our group who'll eat anything and we make her taste test stuff like Mikey with Life cereal. So far she's still alive and we follow her lead. Fortunately, she's here with her sister who's also adopting from Hunan so we'll have her tasting skills with us the entire trip.

I should probably stop talking about our adventures thus far. In conclusion, Beijing is hot and dirty and don't drink the ice no matter what your guide says. I'll write on another topic momentarily. Danny says I'm being too negative toward Beijing. I don't really mean to be. I'm always up for a new adventure, a new place. I think being here in the spring or fall would be quite pleasant. The history/architecture are truly amazing. I'm just so hot and dirty and they still haven't given me my baby. Sigh. So I may be a bit on the negative side. Talk to me again in 24 hours.