A few things to remember about our Beijing trip...

When we arrived at the airport in Osaka and were walking toward our check-in counter, Beaver said to me, "What do Chinese people look like?"
"Well, they look kind of like Japanese people." I told him.  "They have black hair."
"Do they wear clothes?"
"Yes, they wear clothes!"
"Do they carry things in their hands, or on their heads?"
"Um, mostly in their hands."
"Do they buy their food at a store, or a market?"
"Probably both."

That satisfied his curiosity about Chinese people, but it made me wonder, have we been somewhere that people don't wear clothes?  Thailand, maybe?  Although there it's the foreigners not wearing clothes, not the Thai!

As I was walking back down from the top point of the Great Wall with my friend's 5 year old daughter, she suddenly said to me, "I guess Chinese people aren't so bad after all!"  What?  Did she think they were going to be?  This comment was made with no other explanation.

Our driver was picking us up at 7:30 Thursday morning to go to the airport.  Beaver had hardly eaten on Wednesday.  A little bit of rice for lunch, a little bit of rice for dinner and that's it, but he seemed cheerful enough, so I wasn't terribly worried.  We got to bed about 9:00, and an hour later he woke up coughing and then threw up a little, which led to crying.  I got him settled, he drank some water and didn't seem like he was going to throw up again, but I checked his temperature and it was 99.9 F.  That made me a little worried, but I put him back in bed and he slept well until about 4:45 am, when he woke again.  He tossed and turned and couldn't get back to sleep.  I checked his temp again and it was 101.1 F.  I gave him some tylenol, and then lay awake worrying.  We had a long day of travel ahead of us - an early start, a four hour layover in Korea, and a ferry ride to the car once we got back to Japan.  I didn't expect to be home before 10:00.  How would we manage with a sick little boy?  Not to mention the current Ebola scare, and the fact that Asian airports have scanners to check your temperature when you go through immigration.  What if we got stuck at a hospital in China?  What if they wouldn't let us back into Japan?  What would we do?  As I am laying there fretting, Beaver suddenly says to me:

"How can we find the London Eye?"
"The London Eye?"
"Yeah.  How can we find the London Eye?"
"Well, in London!"
"Is it the tallest ferris wheel in the world?"
"Yes, I think so."
"I want to go to London and ride on the tallest ferris wheel in the world."

What on earth was going through his little mind to lead him to ask about the London Eye at 4:45am in Beijing?

We made it home without incident.  Beaver's temperature stayed normal all day until about 5:00pm when it got up to 100 F again.  I gave him some more tylenol and haven't had to give him anything since.  Thank goodness.

When we were in our car and nearly home, Beaver said to me, "I'm hungry, Mommy.  I want a snack when we get home.  I hope we have some beans!"  He causes me a lot of grief when food is concerned, but he has lately had a thing for beans.  When we got home, he went straight to the cupboard and pulled out a can of kidney beans.  The last can of beans in the house.  I opened it up, and that was his snack at 10:30pm after an all day haul from China.  Plain kidney beans straight from the can.

Beaver and his bedtime snack of kidney beans.

One more thing to remember:  The entire Hammershmitt family bursting out into a random Harry Potter inspired song from Youtube when we were all getting slap-happy with exhaustion on the drive home from the Great Wall.