Lost in translation

DONG DA HOSPITAL FOR ANUS AND INTESTINE DISEASE. We arrived safely in Beijing. Our flight path from the U.S. to Beijing took us over the northern latitudes of the globe which provided great views of the vast expanse of ice and mountains that existst there. The only point of reference I can recall is that we eventually flew over Sibera. Hard to explain but I have never seen terrain like that before.

Coming to China I thought that Forrest and I would stick out a lot and draw a lot of attention. More of the opposite happens as it seems like wherever we go, not many people give us notice. So far the atmosphere has seemed very peaceful despite the business all around. I think because we can't read any signs or ads or understand any of the language we are less bombarded with information and marketing. You have to use context of what's happening to figure out if what is a restraunt and what is a "massage parlour" (a british bloke on our tour said the massage parlours can be a bit dodgy however)

Our first night in Beijing we hit the streets for some local cuisine and found a restraunt that had some guys sitting outside preparing meat on a stick that they would give a guy at a grill to cook. Other people were eating there and showed no signs of diarrea so we tried it out. Very good, I think it was lamb or aisan pork. She asked if we wanted to try some Beijing Beer for $2 a bottle. After trying to negotiate a discount we realized that our whole meal (8 sticks of meat and 2 Beijing Beers) was going to cost us $12 in chinese money- that's less than $2 dollars american! No worries!

Oct 3- we saw the Ming Tomb, and climbed up a section of the Great Wall. Both were impressive historically, visually, and architectually. The tour is laced with tourist traps to sell all sorts of things that we have been wise to stay away from except for a t-shirt that says "I climbed the Great Wall of China". towards the end of the day our tour stopped by a Hospital for us to get a free foot massage. Upon taking my pulse. the doctor, who was my age, determined that my "Chi" was slim or low and that I would be very suceptible to catching a cold. I told him I had been jacked up on Airborne for a while but he still seemed to think I needed to buy a speacial herb supplement.

Very big and interesting country. The people seem to be very communal- and walking around late at night seems quite safe.

Sorry for the typing errors and no pics- have the stuff on the screen is in symbols. Oh yeah, DONG DA HOSPITAL FOR ANUS AND INTESTINE DISEASE- the translation from Chinese to English on many signs is way off. We saw this on a sign above a urinal and determined that we never want to go to that place- whatever it is.