Ni hao from Beijing!

Well, we made it! The four of us are finally together after many weeks of planning. Gillian and I had a fairly uneventful journey to China. Aside from the subzero temperatures on the airplane, we both managed to get a little bit of sleep to avoid being jet-lagged once we arrived. The flight attendants themselves were okay. We feel that special attention should be given to the fact that the lead flight attendant may have had the breathiest voice we have ever heard and referred to herself as “the person.” Picture this: We're awaiting takeoff and all of a sudden the deepest female voice (think RuPaul) starts speaking, “Haaaaahhhhhh [that's her breathing deeply] welcome to United flight number blah blah with direct service to Beijing. I'll be your person for this flight...” Our person? What?! We had both never heard of a lead flight attendant referring to herself as the person and thought it must just probably be something random that United does... or she just made it up to make herself sound... we don't even know. It was weird.

Once we landed in Beijing, Chinese health officials came onto the plane to take everyone's temperature. Culture shock #1. If you have any sign of an elevated body temperature, you will be quarantined in China for 7 days. Luckily, nobody on our flight had a temperature and so we were able to deplane. Fast forward to this morning- the Chinese health officials called Cat's phone to ask if Gill had a temperature. Rest assured, she didn't then and doesn't now!

We then made our way to baggage claim, stopped to grab some bottled water and prepared ourselves for the taxi adventure to Cat's apartment. We gave the taxi driver the map Cat had prepared for us and weren't entirely sure he knew where he was going but after several head nods, we felt secure enough and hopped in. 45 minutes later we arrived at Cat's apartment. SUCCESS!

Gill and I stole an hour or so of sleep while J and Cat went to pick up some food. After that we got ready to go out for “hot pot” with a group of 12 people – 8 of who are HBA 09s. Hot pot involves having literally a pot of hot spices/stock/sauce boiling in the middle of the table and you order certain meats and veggies to throw in the boiling spice concoction to cook. It was pretty good although I wouldn't recommend dunking your meat in peanut sauce so much that you wonder where your meat went. TOURIST ALERT!

Following dinner we all came back to Cat's and a couple of her exchange friends joined us for a pre-drink. After many games of “Canada vs. Exchange” flip cup it was off to Bar Blu which is about a 15 minute drive (read: $5 cab ride) away. We all danced the night away to songs that were popular circa 5 years ago and had a blast.

Today we are off to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City but plan to stop for some Kung Pow Chicken before as per J's raving reviews.

Hope everyone at home is doing well. Please send us updates when you get a minute!

Zai Jian (bye) for now!

Love,

L, J, C & G