China - Day 1

We have safely returned from our trip so now it's time for posts and pictures. We were gone for a total of 20 days with 18 of those actually spent in China so I have decided to make 18 posts over the next few weeks, one for each day of our vacation:Today's is more of a warm up post as day 1 was largely spent catching up on sleep and getting used to the time difference. After long flights to Dubai and Beijing we finally arrived in China where we were welcomed by our local guide (and had our temperature checked before we were allowed off of the airplane). It was immediately obvious that there is a pollution problem in the country as the air was thick with smog, but at the same time we were impressed by the very modern and clean roads. After checking into our very nice hotel (where we were given a free room upgrade) we had the evening to ourselves so we walked around the neighborhood a bit and ended up eating at a fast food restaurant called Kung Fu that featured Bruce Lee's image all over the place. We were not sure what we ate but it was good and I followed up dinner with a chocolate milkshake from a nearby Dairy Queen; I was liking Beijing already... By the way, Happy 4th of July! Play safe with your fireworks Americans.