Beijing    January 10th, 2010    Page 2



I have already seen so many amazing things! The first occurred before we even arrived in China. Apparently, the fastest way to get to the other side of the northern hemisphere is to fly directly north. I looked out of the window five or so hours into the flight, and saw that we were flying right over the polar ice cap. I could see huge islands of ice, white against the dark blue of the sea. Even from 30,000 feet the chunks looked massive.

After a quick stay in Shanghai (population of about 19 million), we took a second flight to Beijing, the political capital of the country and host to the 2008 Olympics. There, we saw Tiananmen Square, which became infamous in 1989 as the site of a massive pro-democracy protest and subsequent military crackdown. Adjacent to Tiananmen is Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum (or Mao-soleum, as I would call it if I were in charge), where Mao Zedong’s body is reverently displayed in a glass case. In an older part of the city, we walked through the Forbidden City, which is the enormous and elaborate

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