We made it safe and sound to Beijing! It has been a long 2 days, and we're both pretty wiped out, but I wanted to get this off so people wouldn't be worried (as if!). I've been up for about 27 hours now...
In the past 36 hours, we've been in El Paso, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Vancouver, and Beijing, and we managed a 20 minute visit with Johnny B in the Phoenix airport, a great visit with his brother Jose and his wife Erica in Los Angeles (thanks for letting us stay at your place!), and got to sightsee over Siberia and Alaska! We also met a new friend, Dave, in the Vancouver airport who was on his way to Beijing for business. He had a driver picking him up at the airport, and offered us a ride to our hostel. What a great introduction to Beijing. Crazy traffic, crazy driving, unbelievable construction, and interestingly, lots and lots of trees. The new airport terminal (the largest in the world!) was pretty stunning, if a little empty. I'm assuming that won't be the case a few weeks from now with the Olympics starting.
For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing, Beijing is 14 hours AHEAD of Mountain Standard Time. I found it extremely interesting that by flying west to get to China, we actually were getting further away in timezones until we hit the International Date Line. Then suddenly we were a full day ahead of where we were just over the line. So basically we flew 10 timezones back in order to get 14 time zones ahead. Confused? I hope so. =)
Alrighty! More to come. I'm excited about this adventure, as you can tell.
-Matt!
ps- for you birders out there, I've seen Rock Pigeons, Eurasian Tree Sparrows, and a Carrion Crow so far, plus a Red-billed Leothrix in a cage. Off to a slow start! Two lifers, though.
4 comments:
You showed up in China the same day as another one of my friends- it's the place to be! Gald you made it, we miss you guys here at Audubon.
Hi guys!
It's great to "hear" about your adventures... reading about your journey into Beijing was a trip down memory lane for me-- I was there about 8 years ago, and found it both overwhelming and energizing. Hope you are having a great time! --Michelle Louis
Hey hey!
Glad to see you guys got there OK. Thanks so much for the coffee! Our mailbox smelled so good it was ridiculous!
i'm so excited to follow along on your blog travels! i put a link to your blog on my blog, so now we're all "linked up" and blog buddies. yay! hope you are both having an excellent time. i can't wait for you to find out about baby wagner in just a short time now! love you both!
jerri
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