6 August 2007 Beijing – don’t breath

6 August 2007 Beijing – don’t breath
Beijing China

An arrival at 0615 local time saw us all on our feet – more or less. We even found the tour people, the hotel was willing to let us check in early. I took no pictures of the approach, not worth doing. Keep going and you will see why

Showers are so nice after an overnight on a plane. A couple of hours later, we were on the road, mini bus and travel group together to see some must see tourist sites in Beijing.

I will slide right by the air quality which is way above smog and rapidly approaching pea soup. It is even worse than Seoul as we could not see the runway until we were practically over it. The ceiling seems to be well under 500 feet and visibility well less than a kilometer.

And this was supposed to be a good day.

There are 15 of us in this tour group – the five of us, one mother-adult daughter combination and four couples. My teens are the only ones under 30. No surprise.

While all of you have read about the impact of the single child family on China – there is some fall out that I would not have expected. Other than twins – children here have cousins or friends, but not siblings. Blond is not a normal colour. So there you have it – three blonds together, obviously siblings – the crew ran out of niceness when the x many stranger came up to them and wanted either a picture of the three of them, or a picture taken with them.

Sense of humour long gone, and tolerance absent, I think that they all understand now why I am really impressed by anyone who makes it in a less than 1% minority status. Also why I don’t like traveling to Jamaica (but here it also have to do with the distribution of wealth by those who live there.

But the Forbidden City, Imperial Palace etc were impressive. I took pictures, lots of pictures. Mostly of architectural details but still. It was extremely difficult to get pictures that were not stuffed full of strangers. Thousands of people and probably hundreds of tour groups were engaged in the same activities.

From the Imperial Palace – to the Nine Dragon Juniper Tree.

And of course – there are the roof creatures, guarding all the buildings.

There was enough food. No matter than my crew (and everyone else was completely wiped) the first night is the traditional Peiking Duck.

Tomorrow we are up early and off to the great wall

Socks

The Drops Cables -aka Chicken Wire are done. Finished them on the plane today, but didn’t graft the toes till we were at the hotel. Something about needles and scissors.

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These were knit with Vampire, Sweet Sock yarn from Michelle’s Spectrum yarn of the whatever. Executed over 64 stitches with 2,5 mm needles. Pattern altered a bit, you can see the changes I made to both the heel and toe in these photos.

I have cast on the first Solstice Slip (STR SOM from Blue Moon Fiber Arts) and they are going rapidly. They will travel with me tomorrow, along with Loopy and the camera. Have to take some traveling sheep and sock pictures, after all!

-Holly