Hello Friends and Family, Yesterday we took a trip to a place called the Silk Market. It is a Flea Market (a bit upscale). They believe in bargaining. This was so exasperating to me. I purchased a pair of leather gloves. It took forever. We've been told to never pay the first price at these places. He started out with 290 yuan and we worked down to 100 yuan. That's about $20.00 U. S. Who knows if it is a bargain. The gloves are nice. We have 2 free days on ou...

Hello, We made it to Beijing after one 13 hour flight and one 2 hour flight. It was very cold when we arrived about 11:30 p.m. It took more than an hour to get our luggage. The good thing is the travel agency representative was waiting for us with buses to bring us to our hotel. Our room is beautiful. Let me tell you about the bathroom, heated toilet seat, built in Bidet, beautiful shower and separate bath tub. The shades are automatically controlled. Tod...