Last Year - October 1st - China's 70th birthday - We Saw The Parade - We Were In Beijing

October 1st starts Golden Week in China. Today is the 71st Birthday of the world's most populous country. They have 1.3 billion people - about 4 times as many as the United States. 

Last year we spent 6 months in Beijing the capital - where Nancy taught at Beijing Normal University as a Fulbright Scholar. We had a lovely apartment and enjoyed seeing China from the inside out. With so very few white faces - we were a minority but enjoyed a warm welcoming from everyone. People would come up to us on the street and welcome us - and use their best English idioms and slang on us. It was a life altering experience for us that now seems like just a dream. 

I recorded this parade using my iPhone on a tripod watching our apartment television. The party went on all day - I only recorded the first 90 minutes. 

We went to China in August and returned to the USA in January - right before the pandemic hit. We were able to travel freely through China to Shanghai - Nanjing - and Xian. We flew in and out of the country to Vietnam and Japan. We walked on the Great Wall. We enjoyed Shanghai Disneyworld. We had three sets of American guests that helped keep us from feeling homesick. 

There are so many other places in the world to visit - I doubt that we will ever fly the 15 hours to China again. But we have good memories of the people of China to last a lifetime.