We've had an incredible few days in Beijing since arriving via the overnight train from Xi'an. Probably the most noticeable thing to us is that the citizens of Beijing smile a lot - at least more than the other cities we've been in. They are laughing and having a good old time here in this city of 22,000,000. No, I didn't add too many zeroes. Our days have been packed with sightseeing to take it all in. We've hit the Temple of Heaven (one of four massive te...

The pollution has dropped to 393, since our arrival in Xi'an. That number still falls in the "severely polluted" realm, but doesn't have the nuclear fall-out look the city had the night we arrived. We are able to breathe (sort of) and have not let it stop us from seeing the sights. Our first day here we aggressively rode bikes along the historic city wall. While it was fun to go on tandem bikes with the kids, riding in the smog about put me over the edge. We ca...

Today has been a long day of travel. I'm writing this from the airport in Chengdu during our layover on our way to Xi'an. I probably won't be posting this until we get in late tonight to our hotel. We left our hotel in Lijiang this morning at 7am after staying up way too late. Seems like we've become night owls since we've gotten to China. Our first leg departed Lijiang at 9am and we arrived here at Chengdu at 10:45am. Our flight to Xi'an is not until 7:4...

We had 10 days and 9 nights in Lijiang. It is truly a gorgeous place. Although we are big fans of travel in the off season, this week it didn't work out to our advantage. We headed to the lake - drained for some work, to the museum - closed for a bit. Then good old Mother Nature messed with our plans - fire near where we wanted to hike, earthquake in the other town we wanted to see. We just couldn't win! Maybe since all their classmates were busy this week doing ...

I was trying to take a little nap before dinner, but my mind is racing with all the strangeness of China and I want to get it down before I forget. So here is my "stream of consciousness" list... In the area of China with the cleanest air quality there is a major fire burning right now. It is just over the mountain from where we are. The sky is gray, the air smells like a campfire and ash falls on you when you walk around. Reminds us of life during the days of t...