Beijing, China 2006

All images and associated pages copyrighted © by Don Chesnut, 2006

16 June 2006, Friday

We arrived in Beijing (from Guilin) sometime in the afternoon. A conference bus was waiting for us and took us to the Shaoyuan Hotel on the Beijing University campus. At the hotel we registered for the 2nd International Palaeontological Congress (www.ipc2006.ac.cn). Then we attended the reception nearby. After the reception, we went to our hotel and registered for our suite. We stayed at the Beijing Resource Yanyuan Hotel, also known as the Ziyuan Hotel, about a block from the university campus.

• Anne in the sitting room; we had a bathroom, a shower room with sink, two bedrooms and a sitting room
• shower room

17 June 2006, Saturday

The conference opening ceremony was held in PKU Hall. I attended conference sessions throughout the week. Meanwhile, Anne, Mary and Nora went on daily field trips around Beijing.

• PKU Hall
• opening ceremonies and talks in PKU Hall
• bicycles parked on campus
• more bicycles
• Frank Ettensohn and Tomasz Baumiller walking to lunch; we often ate at the Muslim restaurant on campus.

18 June 2006, Sunday

Father's Day: the girls gave me a bottle of rice whiskey with a snake in it. They had bought it in Guilin and kept it in their luggage. The girls were able to take it back home when they left China and I still have it.

Congress Banquet, Friendship Hotel

• conference banquet; our table
• dragon dance; dragon dance movie 1; dragon dance movie 2; dragon and lady in green; dragon close-up; lady close-up (Mary took these pictures with my camera)
• dancing ladies in yellow; ladies in back; another view of ladies; close-up of ladies in front; lady with arms up; yellow ladies movie 1; ladies with hands at waist; movie 2; three rows of ladies; more dancing; two ladies bending (Mary took these too)
• movie of pink ladies with white fans; pink lady; ladies with arms extended; kneeling ladies; another view of the same; ladies with heads turned; two ladies standing; kneeling to standing; close-up; another close-up (Mary took these as well)
• contortionist in pink; standing with leg raised behind head; arm out; handstand with legs apart; handstand with one leg bent; both legs bent en echelon; handstand with legs beyond head; bow pose; extreme backbend with chin on floor; small candelabra; candelabra on foot; another view; candelabra balanced on foot; handstand with candelabra; prone with five candelabras; another balanced on mouth (Mary took these)
• monkey king martial arts dance movie 1; movie 2; movie 3; monkey king; another view; spears and swords movie; fight with lots of flips movie (Mary also took these)
• Friendship Hotel

19 June 2006, Monday

I attended a tour of the Beijing Museum of Natural History (www.bmnh.org.cn) and the Geological Museum of China (www.gmc.org.cn). I donated specimens of the Pentremites conoideus from Kentucky to both museums.

• Beijing Museum of Natural History
1. Director of Museum
2. sauropod dinosaurs
3. Leonardo di Vinci exhibits, worm gear; some of Leonardo's geared devices; array of mechanical devices
4. petrified wood in front of museum; close-up of petrified wood
5. petrified wood and front of museum
6. front of museum with di Vinci advertisement
• The Geological Museum of China; another view of the same
1. interior of Paleontology section
2. Mesozoic bird with feathers; another specimen; another bird fossil
3. a Chinese pterosaur
4. another vertebrate fossil (I don't recall what it was)
5. dragonfly
6. spiny reptile
7. Mesozoic stemmed crinoids
8. Cambrian onychophoran
9. Cambrian trilobite
10. view of exhibits
11. large crystals in hallway
12. Mao Ze Tung section of museum
• Beijing street scene on way back to campus (20 years ago, it was all bicycles)

20 June 2006, Tuesday

We met our old friend Gejun Lee (Lee Gejun) and had dinner with him. He is with the Chengjiang Station of Palaeontology (Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology). Gejun had stayed with us in Kentucky years ago.

• Nora and Mary at our hotel restaurant
• Gejun, Nora, Mary and Anne at the hotel restaurant

21 June 2006, Wednesday

This was the last day of the conference sessions. I mailed my poster presentation home.

22 June 2006, Thursday

I had to get up early in order to leave for my Tibet field trip. But this was Mary's birthday as well.

• very early morning birthday celebration
• Mary's silk outfit

I walked to the Shaoyuan Hotel on campus and met the others who were attending the Tibetan field trip. We were taken to the Beijing airport and boarded China Air flight 4112 to Lhasa. The flight left at 9:30AM.

Tibetan trip or Parent Page (up one level)