Beijing
I was up before everyone else the morning we were to leave for Beijing. I was excited to see a place that I've been to twice before in my life, and a place which has meant a lot to me for many reasons. I was anxious to share my 'laojia' (means 'old hometown') with my wife and her family.
As we were landing I noticed something right away. Beijing was always pretty polluted, but as we landed we flew through a cloud of brown smog so thick that you couldn't see any surface features below it. After we landed and made our way to our hotel, I noticed how many more cars there were and bad traffic had become. A taxi cab driver told me that the number of cars in Beijing had gone from about 400,000 when I lived there to now around 3 million.
Within 24 hours I had started to get very ill with some respiratory flu. I managed to go with Mary and my in-laws to the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City before it got so bad I couldn't go anywhere. Everyone except for Steve (Mary's dad) got ill to some degree. I missed out on a trip to the Great Wall that I had arranged for everyone. Luckily, Mary, her sister and their dad was able to make it. I had been to the Great Wall twice before in my life, but this was a trip to a new spot on the wall. One that had fewer tourists. Mary's mother and I were both too ill with fever, chills and headache to do anything that day. I sequestered myself in our hotel room for most of our stay, so I don't have as many photos of the trip as I would like.
So, sadly my 3 day trip to Beijing was a bust. It was nice to visit the city, and see some familiar sights..including a stop at my alma mater..but overall, the pollution and traffic left a bad taste in my mouth (literally). So, sadly, it made me a bit anxious to get back to Hong Kong and civilization.
Flying while sick is no fun, and with the Bird Flu scare it made me feel a bit uneasy about traveling. When we landed back in Hong Kong, everyone had to walk through this infrared scanner, looking like something out of a sci-fi movie. It was to detect body temperature. I thought for sure I'd be pegged for having a fever, but luckily my temp was normal then.
posted by Joe @ 3:00 PM
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