CHINA

We landed in Beijing after 19 hours on planes - and were handed scavenger booklets. So off we went again - to Tiannemen square where we had to buy a kite and find a chinese kid to fly the kite with. Once we left the US there are now eating scavengers in each place - to make us try the local food. Some have been great - and some just AWFUL. The next day we went to the Great Wall of China and walked all over it (so cool). And then we raced around Beijing for the next day and a half doing dozens of scavengers. We had to find hidden places in the city and unravel clues. We even got into an accident on a moped rickshaw (our driver ran over an old man - no serious injuries but lots of yelling in chinese). We went on a scavenger to a restaurant where no-one spoke english and the menu was in chinese... we ordered what we thought was soup (after full-scale charades) and got a bowl of cold orange liquid with jello-like lumps in it (no idea what that was). We also had to go to a Lama Temple where we watched the monks praying in their temple. At another temple, we had to buy these little metal disks and throw them at a bell that is under a bridge - if you hit the bell and make it ring you get good luck (Rainey hit it twice - I am without any luck). What a great scam - sell people disks that they then throw at our bell - then they leave and you collect up the disks and sell them to the next person. Beijing is SOOO polluted that by day 2 my eyes were inflamed and my sinus felt on fire.