Another early travel morning saw us leaving the hotel about 6:40am. A short layover, this time in a much more modern terminal, and another five hours of flying saw us in Beijing. Somehow along the way we managed to fall behind schedule about an hour, so we ate lunch in the arrivals terminal of the Beijing Airport. People split equally between a noodle bar, the Starbucks, and the KFC.
From the airport, we traveled directly to the Olympic sights - the Watercube and the Bird's Nest. Since they don't sell advance tickets, we had to wait for our tour guide to grab our tickets. An unfortunate side effect of being a group of 20-something Americans (including South and Central Americans) in the middle of a massive tourist complex is that you seem to become a tourist attraction too. While we were waiting, several groups of Chinese tourists approached us and asked to have their pictures taken with us. For near 15 minutes we seemed to be more popular than any of the Olympic sights, especially the blonde students!
After our travel and tourism, we headed to our hotel - The Regent. This 5-star hotel has Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, and Rolls Royce showrooms on the first floor - most with lobby access. Dinner was on our own, and people ate everything from Vietnamese and Schezuan to Itallian.
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