Friday September 14th

Our Journey has gone well so far. Since we've been in Beijing the weather has been in the 60s with misting rain and fog. Beijing is a very big city, but we've only seen a small area as we've stayed within the circumference of our hotel. There are many many buildings, but we have not seen any near the height of the ones in downtown Dallas. There are a lot of cars and bikes, but the traffic is no worse than traffic in Rowlett at 5pm. The people have been very nice, especially the young people who are very curious or want to practice their English. We went to Baskin Robbins and Subway for dinner yesterday. The young guy working at Subway asked a lot of questions about my t-shirt. His English was limited, but he got help from the other workers. After Subway we went to Baskin Robbins and had ice cream. The whole time we were there the three young girls behind the counter leaned over the counter with big smiles on their faces and watched our every move.

Our route to China was different than what I expected. We flew northwest over Utah, Idaho, Washington State, Mount Rainer, the Canadian coast, the Alaskan coast, across the Bering Sea and then down off the Russian coast to Tokyo. Between Washington State and Canada the outside temperature was -70 degrees at 40,000 feet. Before we arrived in Japan we flew through a snow blizzard. The Tokyo airport was small about the size of Love Field, but there is a larger airport in Tokyo.

Today we will tour the Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven and Beijing Panda Zoo and tonight we will go to the Chinese acrobat show. We will be out most of the day so there will be no updates until later. All is well. Thanks to all for the prayers.
Jason