First morning

We tried to stay awake as long as we could last night, but we were both pretty much out of it. We did succeed in our short outing to the grocer to get bottled water, snacks and a pair of gloves for Kari. Later we also Skyped with Grammie and Lillian. But then we were out, until about 3 a.m., when a raging caffeine deprivation headache woke Kari up. A few baby aspirin later, we were back asleep until 6 a.m. So jet lag may not hit us as hard this time.

We arrived at the new terminal at Beijing Capital International Airport yesterday afternoon. Two years ago, in January 2008, it was still a couple months away from opening, so it was a new experience for us. It is a gorgeous terminal -- we definitely could see the influence of the Olympics on its design and size.

This morning we had a great breakfast buffet in the hotel restaurant. Chinese hotel breakfast buffets are incredible, as they offer choices for all palates. You can get western food or more traditional Asian breakfast fare -- or both, in our case!

Now, off to the Badaling section of the Great Wall (a different section than we visited in 2008) and the Olympic village. We'll check in again after our excursion today. (Incidentally, we can't open the blogger site from this hotel, but can post remotely by email. So we have no idea how the posts are formatting -- a good excuse if it looks sloppy!)