My Second Week in China - Beijing

A few days ago I promised I'd report on my second week in China, so here goes. On Saturday the 21st, we flew to Beijing and checked into the Jade Palace Hotel, near the Institute for Theoretical Physics, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The same evening, my good friend Teri Weaver arrived from Seoul. I've written about Teri before over on Orange Quark. She is a journalist, working for Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, and she has recently returned from a two-month tour in Iraq. On Sunday, Teri and I spent some time wandering around, shopping in Beijing (OK, we also had mojitos at the Hyatt), and then went to see Tiananmen Square. In one sense, Tiananmen really isn't much to see - it's just a very large square, full of vendors trying to sell people the tackiest possible souvenirs of the square and of the upcoming 2008 ...