August 7

I got my Chinese yuan today at the currency exchange. All the bills have Chairman Mao’s face on them. I can hardly believe I’ll be in Beijing in two days! I’m flying from JFK nonstop to Beijing. It’s a 13 1/2 hour flight and Beijing is 12 hours ahead of New York so it will be quite a time change. At least I’ll have lots to time to watch movies, sleep or read my book.

Did you see that there was a terrorist attack in northwestern China this week? They killed sixteen policemen. China says it’s more worried about internal terrorists than foreign terrorists but they say that this will be safest Olympic Games of any city ever. I’m not concerned.

I’ve decided to take a surgical mask with me in case the smog gets bad and just in case there are any flu’s going around. This would be one hell of a place for a virus to take hold. China has really done its homework. I read that they’ve put aside 2 million of doses of antiviral drugs just in case of a SARS or avian flu outbreak.

I’ve been reading up on Chinese history. Did you know that Ghengis Khan used carrier pigeons to send messages? Maybe that’s why the Chinese call their famous black, one speed bicycles the “Flying Pigeon” brand. With the restrictions on the use of cars to keep the smog down, I think I’ll see a lot of those bicycles.