Welcome to Beijing!After a 13+ hour marathon but uneventful flight we've made it safely to Beijing! We are staying at the Holiday Inn Downtown for 3 nights unatil we leave for Zhengzhou. To say it was sureal coming in to land is an understatement. Our flight path was north from Newark, over Quebec and the Hudson Bay and then across the polar ice cap. We started turning south over Russia and flew over that for a few hours. I remember looking out the plane window once I knew we were over China and thinking, "I'm looking at the land of my daughter's birth." Our landing was one of the smoothest I have ever had. Lots of buildings and homes around the airport, which is north of center city Beijing. It actually reminded me of the midwest strangely enough. The in seat entertainment systems on Contenintial were great! Lots of movies, tv shows and music to partake in. There was also a screen which would show where the plane was on a map. It also showed the miles we had traveled, miles to go and the current outside temp. I think the coldest we saw was -70 degrees F. We were cruising at 38000 feet for a while. Before we could de-palne, the ministry of health came on and took everyone's temp.on the forhead with a scanner. It only took a few minutes and we were able to leave. We had to fill out a health forn, immigration card, and show our passports numerous times. After all that we found our luggage pretty quickly and found our guide Sindy and our guide waiting for us. Sindy helped us check into the hotel and will meet us tomorrow at 9:00 to visit the Forbidden City and more. I'll post more after the tours.