China Part 2 - Trip Overview -

The night before our China trip, we packed a little suitcase full of diapers, clothes, and other necessities and brought our precious baby boy over to our sweet friends Brian and Amanda Evans. They have two little boys of their own and we knew they'd have their hands full over the long weekend having three boys in their home, all under the age of three! I knew leaving my little man would be hard, but I did not expect it to be as hard as it was. As the trip approached I got cold feet and wanted desperately to back out of it. When we put Caden down for the night at their house, I cried.

The Evans' were troopers as they had to unexpectedly deal with Caden getting the stomach bug. He blew out both ends for a whole day... and in a strange form of irony, their older son, Trevor, threw up literally two seconds after we walked in the door to pick up Caden on the night of our return. And their other son, Parker, soon followed. It just doesn't seem right that they offered to watch our child for a long weekend while we travelled, and they were 'rewarded' with all that!

The next morning, Thursday the 27th (Thanksgiving Day), we left for the airport on a 6am bus. Once at the airport we met up with the tour group agent, checked in with basically two giant, empty suitcases (in anticipation of all the shopping we planned to do), and headed off on the 1.5 hour flight to Beijing. On the plane an Asian lady sat next to John. She apparently had not traveled much. We were polite to her, smiling, nodding, etc.... She looked over briefly at the book we were reading on Beijing, pointed at it, asked to hold it for a second, and we obliged. Then, it came time to fill out the declaration form for entering another country so we pulled out our passports to get some info from them and the lady tried to take our passport and look at them! Huge red flag!!! Not long after, she pulls out her cell phone (IN MID AIR) and turns it on! Another huge red flag! But, she was just a very naive traveller, not a terrorist.

Upon arrival in Beijing our tour guides met us at the airport and we were loaded on to buses and the touring began. First we stopped for lunch. On the way to lunch our tour guide (we had Willie, the other bus had Shelly) briefed us on things to be aware of in China. The first one was not to drink the water. No ice, no brushing teeth in it, etc. Only drink bottled water, from a store (not a street vendor) and check the seal to make sure it's not broken. Another word of warning was to always pay in exact change when dealing with street vendors because counterfeit money is a big problem there. We were really glad we'd been warned about this and brought with us mostly small bills ($1, $10, and $5) in American money because ATMs will only give you Yuan and in large denominations. Most vendors like dealing in dollars because of the exchange rate, rather than Yuan. 1 Yuan is roughly worth about 7 cents in American currency, 100 Yuan is about $15.

Throughout the whole tour (minus one meal) lunch and dinner was included. We would divide up into tables of about 8 or 9 people and there would be a giant Lazy Susan in the middle of a large round table. The staff would bring plate after plate of foods for us to eat. There were usually forks available, but we tried to eat with Chopsticks. I suffered through the first meal with them, but by the end I'd gotten the hang of it. The first full day in China, I never got full. The food was less than appetizing and if I liked a dish they brought, most likely everyone else at the table did, too so there wasn't enough to go around. But, by the second day that seemed to change. I don't know if I just acquired a taste for the food or if I was just too hungry to care at that point but I really liked all of our meals from that point forward. I had a sprite with just about every meal and at some of the meals they would bring a 'specialty' for us to try such as Chinese wine, and once Chinese liquor.

The group trip was the easiest way to see China. Everything was done for us, arranging for the Visa, checking in to the hotel, figuring out where to eat so we wouldn't get food poisoning, etc... It really is the best way to do China, but if we went again, we'd go on our own. I don't necessarily recommend this to others out there because it is not the easy way to do it. Especially if you're thinking of taking children because this country is not kid friendly (well, at least not 'baby' friendly)! There are no changing tables, high chairs, etc... I probably only saw 10 babies the whole trip (in part I'm sure to the one child per family rule for the country). That aspect alone is SO different from Korea. Here, you see babies everywhere.

We followed most of the tour, but we did deviate on our own a few times. The itinerary for our trip was:

1055 Arrive at Beijing Airport
1300 Lunch at Shan Shui Jian- Cantonese Style
1430 Tour Temple of Heaven
1630 Tour Tian An Men Square
1730 Watch Acrobatic Show
1900 Dinner at Hua Fu Ge Restaurant- Peking Duck Special
2030 Hotel check-in and rest

Day Two:
0700 Hotel Breakfast (bring your own breakfast foods if you travel to China!)
0900 Visit Jade Carving Factory (on the way to the Great Wall)
1030 Tour at Great Wall
1300 Lunch at Friendship Store- Mixture of Chinese Food
1430 Tour at Summer Palace
1630 Visit Pearl Factory
1800 Dinner at Shu Wei Nong- Suchuan Style (Spicy Food)
1930 Visit Wangfujing Street
2030 Back to hotel and rest.

Day Three:
0700 Hotel Breakfast
0830 Tour at Forbidden City
1030 Visit Silk Quilt Factory
1200 Lunch at You Shi restaurant- Western Style
1330 Free time. Rest of day at leisure.
**Dinner self treat

Day Four:
0700 Hotel Breakfast
0800 check out of hotel
0830 Leave for airport
1220 Depart for Incheon
1510 Arrive at Incheon

The Itinerary I typed above is verbatim from the Itinerary we were given. I will take each day/trip and elaborate on them in the following posts...