After four hours of sleep I awoke with the feeling that gravity had intensified.

I caught the seven AM tourist bus, which was scheduled to snake through Beijing and history.  After getting settled and meeting my crew I quickly discovered that I shared mutual friends with four of the five people on the tour.  The world continues to shrink.

The front windshield betrayed the sky's filth, depicting the unparalleled cloud of smog produced by the city below.  Having read of Beijing's pollution before arriving, I imagined the horizon would be a dirty shade of brown.  I was surprised to find that it was a dull white.  It appeared as if dense cloud was squatting over the entire city - every building, bridge and tree that was a mile or more away in any direction was drowned in the white fog, creating the illusion that all structures were born from the sky as they emerged from the haze.

The pollution made the air thick, irritating the eyes, attacking the skin and swelling the throat.  The white air undoubtedly also makes the lungs black.

Despite the conditions many of the eighteen million residents commute via bicycles in an attempt to avoid the modern, yet overburdened, roads that form concentric rings around the country's capital.  The clean streets are littered with cars, transforming each engine into to an idle smoke stack that contributes to the toxic cloud.

Today was national earthquake day.   Every citizen was asked to donate ten Yuan (just over one US Dollar) to the crusade to save lives in their ravaged neighbor state where a recent earthquake had left sixty two thousand dead so far.  The mindset of the populace parallels that of Americans shortly after 9/11, bolstered by patriotic commercials, posters and articles.  The only thing more widespread than the suffering is the concern.

Audis, Mercedes and Lexus navigate the modern roads around me which are adorned with colorfully landscaped roadside flower beds, highlighting the increasing prosperity of the people of Beijing.

Drivers are either dressed in an array of Western styles, including Gucci glasses and Armani shirts, or they are packaged in more modest styles including shirts and pants that are throw backs to the 1980s paired with carefully matched bright green socks and black leather shoes.

On the tour we saw the Forbidden City, a palace complex with nearly nine thousand rooms and even more daily visitors, Tian A Men Square, home to Mao's Mausoleum and the infamous massacre of the 90's, and the Summer Palace, which includes a man-made lake that took one million peasants fifteen years to shovel out nearly five hundred years ago.

When traversing Tian A Men Square we passed the adjacent Parliament building which is the 'republic' in the People's Republic of China.  Elected officials converge on this palatial edifice each year for two weeks in March to address all of the country's big decisions.

The tour included the traditional stops at tourist traps, in Beijing these were silk and pearl shops.  The Chinese use a rather clever tactic that I had not seen before.  The sites are called 'factories', making the real purpose of the visit less obvious to the naive and enabling the store attendants to deliver a clever sales pitch about the value of their products under the guise of an explanation of how they are created.

After recouping from the tour we headed out for a dinner with rising local business executives at a sheik Western style restaurant that is known for it's Peking Duck.  While the food was excellent, their were some oddities about the service.  The table next to us had been transformed into a workstation where napkins for the entire restaurant were systematically rolled and piled into a pyramid.  Additionally, the staff nametags didn't disclose their identity, just their titles: waitress, chef and trainee.  In China the individual identity is muted.

After dinner we headed to a local spa for late night relaxation.  The was several stories tall and was adorned like an old Las Vegas hotel.  Inside we were greeted by two young ladies in fluffy bride's maid dresses and were led to check in.  Multiple servants then took charge who, after hiding their shock at seeing a Caucasian, shepherded us to lockers and remained on call while we detoxed in the numerous spas, pools and saunas.  A highlight was the almond ice cream served while sitting in the sauna.

After an hour of lounging we showered and were dressed in reflective gold pajama uniforms.  Up stairs past the barber shop, restaurant and lounge areas, we entered a quiet room where rows of lounge chair with personal TVs cradle customers while they sleep or get foot messages.  Before settling I was directed to a private room where I received a ninety minute back rub, completing my preparation for a long night's sleep.

We were dropped at the hotel by three AM and were asleep only minutes thereafter.