Aug 4, 2002: (Day 2)

At the Airport, we were warmly received by Br. Yusof Mah, General Manager of MM Tours and Mr. Wei Tang, aka Jason, the local Tour Guide for Beijing. 

We were delighted to board a very comfortable bus taking us to Xiyuan International Hotel, about 45 min from the Beijing Airport. Beijing is a busy city even in the wee hours. Lots of construction adding many more high rise buildings. The city of Beijing has already begun preparing itself for 2008 Olympics. In fact the Beijingers joke that their national bird is the construction Crane! 

About 80% of the people in Beijing lives in high rise modern apartment buildings. 19% of the people lives in older neighborhoods, some of these neighborhoods are not changed since more than one thousand years. These neighborhoods are known as Hutong in Chinese language. 1% of the people are supposedly rich, living in independent houses in the Beijing suburbs. Their few bedrooms houses are known as Villas. This paradigm of social equality displaying the Communist philosophy is radically different than the massive social disparity demonstrated by the Capitalist West. 

China, fondly known as the Republic of Bicycles, is more open today than ever in the past. The Communism is the order of the day but some diversity in views and opinions is growing in the society. Our guides were not criticizing the government but laying out the differences between Communist and other ideologies openly. Media and many other institutions of influence are still government owned and controlled. 

At the hotel we had pre-assigned rooms with our names on key cards. Our baggage was delivered to the rooms directly. This hotel was carefully selected for IslamiCity participants. It offered;

an all exclusive Muslim Halal Restaurant Islamicized rooms copies of Quran in the room a Musalla already laid out in the prayer corner of the room local prayer time chart

Br. Yusuf advised us to take good rest tonight and then be 'ready' for a Halal breakfast following morning at the Muslim Halal Restaurant.