We have arrived!

We arrived at the airport at 6:15am Tuesday for our flight to Detroit then on to Beijing. Everything was on time and seemed fairly smooth. The kids did AMAZING. They both enjoyed riding the train, moving sidewalk and escalator over and over and over. Whatever keeps them happy!

We were greeted by our guide in BJ and made our way to the hotel where we promptly climbed in bed. They say to push through to fight the jet lag but we just couldn't on day one. We were up super early for our first full day. Beijing is huge. Beijing extends past the city center to include farmland as well. We drove a couple of hours into the farm land area to Cuandixia village. This is a historic village dating back to the Ming Dynasty. The village consists of 92 families and a little over 200 people. No outside agencies or people are allowed to create a bussiness in the village, just the local families. Many of the living areas open to a shared courtyard that is shared by members of the same family. We were able to eat in the courtyard of a local family. The food was excellent and overall a neat experience.


This is the family home entrance. Women must step over the threshold with their right foot while men step over with the left. The height of the step represents their place in society. Each entrance has a threshold followed by a short walkway that always has a wall directly in front of it to hide/shield the family possessions from being visible to people walking by. The parents home is always placed at the north of the complex with the home of the son to the east, daughter to the west and guest/servant home to the south.

The food was excellent. Our guide described it as farm food but I can't exactly remember why. Next we were able to walk through the village and hike around the outside for a better view of the town.

It was a great first day.