Another letter from Theo. I tried to find a good photo of the traffic, but none of it looked much different from Chicago traffic to me.
Rule Three for visiting Beijing: trust your driver. With 3 million cars mixing it up with 10 million bicycles, plus pedestrians, the city streets are insane. Intersections have three sets of lights, for cars, bikes and walkers, and all are ignored to equal degrees. Every turn is an adventure. Addendum to rule three: don't watch.
Rule Four: have a best friend and trust them too. Ours is Grace (or that's what her name translates too at least) and she's been great, handling everything and being fun and interesting company for all. Kai is hopelessly in love with her and was crushed to hear we'd be leaving her behind tomorrow.
Sunny and clear today, which is very unusual for August (it typically rains 27 days out of the month), and perfect weather for climbing the Great Wall. Grace tried to talk us out of making the whole climb, warning us that we'd be going from 44 meters altitude (in Beijing) to over 800 meters at the high point of the pass that the wall surrounds. We explained to her that we live at 1600 meters and she just watched in amazement as our kids scampered up the slope, adults following and yelling for them to wait for the guide.
Then we went to the Sacred Walk of the Ming Tombs, where we skipped most of the culture and just enjoyed the park -- the emperor's processional walk is lined with willows at one end, birches at the other, fragrant and cool and breezy. It was very relaxing after the climb, and everyone is pleasantly tired.
Which is crucial, because tomorrow is the day. Keep those happy thoughts coming.
..Theo
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