Hope not to return to Beijing….at least until they do something about the smog. My lungs, nose, and eyes are all complaining today.
In spite of this , I truly enjoyed my interactions with the people I encountered. The highlight was my impromptu dance session with a mixed group of people around my age.  As I don’t do zumba or line dancing I can’t  say it was similar, but maybe.  We were in a line and we were waving our arms and doing steps that were a little complicated and of course we were all laughing….at me!

The Summer Palace was a new experience, vast and full of locals enjoying the exercise, beauty and each other.  As a directionally challenged person, the three changes of trains made this side-trip quite exciting as well.

It’s hard to whine about not sleeping due to jet-lag, time-change, etc. when I knew that 2 days on the ground was not enough time to adjust and took this mileage run anyway.  The perks definitely outweighed this inconvenience.  In addition to collecting the miles I was able to enjoy the benefit of a “free” upgrade both ways!