The North American Lepers Arrive in Beijing

Okay, so first off, we all arrived in Beijing about four hours ago after 25 straight hours of travel. Everyone is relaxing in their rooms now (Beijing is 12 hours ahead of EST, so it's easy to convert) and resting for our visit to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City tomorrow. I've posted a few pictures below of the turtle-shaped terminal in Beijing and us arriving at the airport. Stay tuned for a bunch more from tomorrow's trip.

Before signing off, I have to quickly relay our adventure in Tokyo as part of the new North American untouchable class as a result of the current flu pandemic situation. The Japanese are crazy about this stuff. Everyone wears facemasks including all of the flight attendants and security personnel. I felt like we were coming to Tokyo from Devil's Island in French Guiana instead of from Chicago. As it turned out, I made the cardinal mistake of coughing a few times to clear my throat, and they thought I was going to kill them. So they moved my seat to the back of the plane (incidentally, with all of the other sick people--now I am probably sick from them!) and took my temperature.

The whole procedure seemed unwarranted because the Japanese Flu Pandemic Storm Troopers who invaded the plane upon touchdown let all of us go after looking at our forms which said that there was nothing wrong with us. You would think that they'd do a little more of an inspection, especially of us "unclean" folks, but I shouldn't complain. At least we all got a goldenrod piece of paper after the ordeal saying that we had passed the quarantine inspection....our first Asian souvenirs!