Day 1 -- Sightseeing

Sunday, December 7, 2008. Our morning started early Sunday (December 7), but fortunately the only thing on the schedule was sightseeing. We were dragging from the travel and time change, so I was thankful that we didn’t have to start our official meetings until Monday.

ACYPL does a very good job of ensuring that all of its delegations are diverse. This delegation is no exception. We are a group of 4 men and 4 women from 8 different states. We have 4 Republicans (a state senator from Mississippi, a state representative from Tennessee, a government affairs executive from Arkansas and a non-profit foundation executive from Colorado) and 4 Democrats (me, a state senator from Minnesota, a state representative from Vermont and a city commissioner from Dayton, Ohio). This trip has all the makings of a great reality TV show.



Our day started with breakfast at the hotel then a bus trip to the Forbidden City. It’s very cold here right now -- below freezing every day. The air quality is very poor. The haze is constant and the smell of heating coal is thick. It actually burns a little when you breathe.

The Forbidden City was spectacular. Movies and photos cannot capture the magnitude of the compound. The city itself is in varying states of repair. The entrance and exit were magnificent, having recently been refurbished for the Olympics.



After the Forbidden City we headed to the main site for the 2008 Olympic games. We saw the Bird’s Nest, the Swimming Cube and many of the other sights from this August.



After lunch we headed out of the city to the Great Wall. The smog was heavy while we where there, so we couldn’t see far, but it was spectacular nonetheless.



Back to Beijing for dinner, we met with an official from a Chinese government think thank. Dinner was long, as we discussed at length the current economic crisis. Exhausted after a long day we headed back to the hotel for some sleep.