We were met by our Tour Guide "Michael Song", who works for the tour company "smarTours, Inc." with whom we had booked the tour. SmarTours had assigned Michael to be our Guide and Guardian for the entire 16 days we would be traveling in China. 

In addition to Michael, smarTours had also arranged for us to have a local guide in each city to which we traveled. In Beijing our Local Tour Guide was Mrs. Zhu xio ying a very knowledgeable and excellent guide who, like Michael, spoke excellent English.

After retrieving our luggage and clearing customs both of which were facilitated by Michael, we boarded an air-conditioned bus for the approximately 45 min. trip into the city to our Hotel for the next 3 nights, "The Beijing Radisson Plaza State Guest House".  Note:  This hotel was just constructed and we arrived during what they called their "Soft Opening".  They were still in the process of opening some of the Restaurants, Lounges, and Meeting Areas but this presented no problems to us. Actually, the service and food were of excellent quality and our assigned room was lovely and the service was outstanding. We are sure that it will grade out to a 5 Star Hotel very soon.

After getting settled in and a bite of lunch, I hit the bed for an afternoon of rest and Norma decided to take advantage of an included tour to one of the Attractions,  "THE SUMMER PALACE", located in the northwestern outskirts of Beijing.

That evening all 30 of us on the tour along with Michael and Zhu our guides met in the hotel restaurant for a get acquainted dinner before turning in early to rest up for first long day of sightseeing on Monday.