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Happy Chinese New Year to all of you back in America! We just wrapped up our second tour of the two great cities of China – Beijing and Xi’an – only this time we played the part of the “tour guide”. We’re sure the various adventures and a few horror stories have made their rounds in Dallas by now, but for those of you who weren’t aware, the Summers family decided to use their precious vacation days to take a daring trip into the unknown of China. The fact that they have survived is something to be thankful for, but we fear they may never return. It was an exciting trip for all of us, we’re sure. The Summers visited pretty much every single site of historical and Olympic importance while the two of us enjoyed having family around who didn’t mind talking and eating western food.

Most of what we showed them was a repeat of our trip last year with a couple of exceptions. We used our travel experience from that trip to plan this one which means that while our parents were still “roughing it” they thankfully didn’t have to rough it like we did last year. Last year we took buses with hard seats, buses with uncomfortable beds, crowded trains, public transportation, and of course lots and lots of walking. This year we took airplanes and taxis…and still did a lot of walking. Not too bad. The two of us started off very comfortably riding a luxury car – free of charge – to the airport in Urumqi. This trip usually costs us around $30 but the family that we had been tutoring in January was going to the airport on the same day and offered us a ride. Here you see Tiff in the back seat with the wife and daughter. Our travel good luck ran out once we arrived at their airport, however. Our 5pm flight to Beijing was delayed not 2 hours…not 5 hours…no, we were delayed 7 HOURS! Our only consolation was a hotel room near the airport in which to wait and a cash refund of $28 each. We weren’t in a rush so it wasn’t that big a deal, but c’mon – 7 hours? Unfortunately that wasn’t the only airport delay we encountered on this trip.

We’ll wait to give most of the trip details once we get all the pictures from the Summers’ camera, but until then we’ll mention a few new adventures we had on this trip. The first and most modern site we visited was the grounds for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. According to all the news websites we read they’re actually ahead of schedule for the Olympics this year (assuming they work 24 hours a day until August, which they will) but it sure didn’t seem that way from the looks of things. We couldn’t get within half a mile of the main stadium and there were cranes, fences and rubble everywhere. Fortunately the stadium is finished enough to get some good pictures, the best of which had to be taken from the middle of the off-ramp of the highway near-by. We both wanted to see the stadium, fondly referred to as the “bird’s nest” and the aquatic center, both of whose design is strikingly unique. The one thing we learned from our visit to the Olympic site was that if the traffic we faced this trip increases even slightly for the Olympics, which of course it will, then it will be next to impossible to take a step in Beijing in August. Good luck Olympic ticket holders.

Another unique adventure from this trip was the prop plane we took from Urumqi to Karamay. You can’t help but be a little scared when you’re taken by bus to your airplance and board from the rear door/stairs. To the airplane’s credit it was a very smooth ride and although it was dark outside during our flight we couldn’t have been more than 300 ft off the ground it seemed. We landed at the beautiful Karamay airport, home of one departure and arrival per day (to and from Urumqi). We didn’t even use the terminal because the plane is too small. We couldn’t help but laugh as we walked past our bags on the tarmac and then proceeded to wait 5 minutes in the airport as they put the bags on the tiny carousel. Procedure. Anyway, we’re now glad to be home and enjoying the next two weeks (that’s right, TWO weeks!) of rest until the next semester starts up. Once we get a few more pictures we’ll post again along with a list of the “highlights” of our trip.