We've in Beijing

5 pm Friday in Beijing, 5 am Friday in New York, and we're settling into our hotel (the Great Wall Sheraton, located nowhere near the Great Wall but just off the Third Ring Road).

Some notes on our trip so far...

As I mentioned in my last post, the flight was a lot shorter than on our last trip to China (2000), since Continental and several other airlines now take a great circle route. The flying time is just over 13 hours. It sounds long until you consider the alternative -- last time, with stops in Anchorage and Seoul, the same trip took almost a full day. Our plane, a Boeing 777, had individual video screens at each seat with hundreds of movies and TV shows to watch and games to play on demand. Between that, eating and sleeping (I actually managed four or so hours), it didn't seem that long -- I barely started the books I brought along. I'm now a Continental fan.

We were almost delayed 45 minutes in Newark -- the president was flying where our plane had planned to go so the airspace was closed, but our pilot found an alternate route.

In Newark, there was heavy security (bomb sniffing dogs in the terminal and a phalanx of TSA officers on the jetway). I didn't understand until I saw in the China Daily that Al-Qaida has threatened to attach overseas Chinese in retaliation for the unrest in Xinjiang. In Beijing, there was heavy security of a different kind. Because health authorities here are really worried about swine flu, everyone had to complete a health questionnaire and walk past a bank of infrared cameras that presumably were looking for anyone with a fever. The health officials and immigration inspectors all were wearing surgical masks.

We were met by Tony, our guide for the next two weeks, and took a van with another family to our hotel. The girls have one room, and we have another a few doors away. Nothing special to do until tomorrow night, so we have some time to adjust to the time change. I'm trying to keep myself awake until normal bedtime tonight -- so far, so good.

More tomorrow.