May 13-14, 2013 The Scenic Way to Beijing China

May 13-14, 2013

The Scenic Way to Beijing China

On my previous trips to Australia and Japan, I have always flown across the Pacific Ocean. Looking at the Pacific Ocean from 30,000 feet gets rather dull after the first 10 minutes. Now on this trip to Beijing, the pilot took us on a scenic trip that I have never been on before. We flew from Detroit, Michigan north west on a great circle route to China. With no stops in Hawaii or Fiji for gas, this new Boeing 777 could make it non-strop. What a great advance from my previous trips. On top of that, we flew out at 1:00 PM from Detroit so were following the Sun and were able to fly in daylight. We flew up the Michigan and  crossed Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Great Slave Lake and then to the Beaufort Sea. We were at 72 degrees latitude before turning west to cross Siberia. This is the further most north that I have ever been. We crossed the International dateline at 8:00 PM and jumped to May 14. The Beaufort Sea was all frozen up and covered in snow. The mountains and hills in northern Siberian were beautiful as well as they were covered in snow and looked like the Rockies in wintertime.

Dorothy and I arrived in Beijing on time about 2:40 PM after our 13 hour flight and were met by our guide, Lee and her driver. Beijing is impressive with all the skyscrapers and wide clean streets. Our hotel, the Beijing Crown Plaza Hotel Wangfujing, is on the Wangfujing Street that is the famous shopping area of Beijing. As it was only 5 PM Beijing time when we settled in our very lovely hotel room, Dorothy and I decided to go for a walk on Wangfujing Steet to walk off the 3 delicious meals we had on the flight to Beijing. We saw the very old St Joseph’s Catholic Church that was originally built in the 1600’s and rebuilt several times after it was burnt to the ground, and destroyed by earthquakes several times, Wangfugjing Shopping Street, that is very impressive especially the section of the street blocked off for only pedestrians and the famous outdoor eating area that has all different exotic food to look at and taste.

After we walked off all the food we had been served on the plane, we came back to the hotel and had a shower and went to bed. We were dead tired. 

Great Circle route taken by the Boeing 777.

Snow covered  mountains in  Siberia, Russia.

High rise building hear Beijing International Airport.

Dorothy in front of  St Joseph Catholic Church on  Wangfujing  Street.

Con on the shopping area on Wangfujing Street.

Dorothy at the food stalls near  Wangfujing Street.

The Crowne Plaza Hotel we stayed in on Wandfujing Street.