DJ - Welcome back to China with Carl and Don. We've completed our first day of traveling into the real China. I say the real China because Peking reminds me of Dallas or Houston in the go-go years of 1970-1980. We've driven today 225 kilometers to the city of (I'm going to try to attempt the Chinese pronunciation) Zhang Jiakou. This is a city of 600,000 people in an arid part of northern China. The topography here reminds one of Arizona or Nevada with dry conditions and mountains similar to the Superstition Mountains on the outskirts of Scottsdale and Phoenix, Arizona. The hospitality, curiosity and enthusiasm of the Chinese people is, for me, the highlight of this day. I would guess that several hundred thousand, if not a few hundred thousand, observed the rally parade of cars pass through many cities, towns and villages. When we arrived in the city where we're overnighting at 4 o'clock this afternoon, there was a huge gathering of people on the main street of the town. The cars generate enormous interest and people crowd around them and are very excited. Before coming to the telephone and placing the international call to give you this update, I just spent an hour walking the streets and visiting with people who crowd around you in numbers of 50 to 100 and want to talk English. The young people want to know if I know Michael Jordan. In the local theater here there is a movie about a great person in the sky. It's a movie about Michael Jordan. Many people want to know where you're from and where you're going and why you're in their city. They do this in a way that is very pleasing and extremely gracious. We learned in our conversations on the street tonight that every primary and middle school is required to learn English for six years. When one contemplates the long term implications of that, it's really quite remarkable. This policy began after the end of the cultural revolution. So many young people take great delight in saying, "Hello", and "Where are you from?", and "I would like to talk to you." Also as you walk the main street of the city, you experience a remarkable economic phenomenon, and that is entrepreneurship. People are selling all sorts of everything in just little simple fair like arrangements street bazaars. Taking great delight in negotiating and promoting their merchandise. It's really quite amazing.

Our day began at the Great Wall of China. We set off from Peking at 6:30 AM, arrived at the Great Wall for a starting ceremony with Chinese officials at about 8:30. Our day finished at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The temperature here is around 90. When the car is underway, it's a very comfortable 72 degrees inside the car. The weather in this region is more pleasing, drier than the Peking area. In Peking the temperature usually equates to the relative humidity and it can be very sticky and steamy. Our health is well. We are consuming a significant amount of fluids - water. As Carl has commented, bottled water, and in fact frozen bottled water, is sold by vendors off of bicycles, and that in itself is an indication of the remarkable economic change here in China. So we're just beginning to experience, as I say, the real China, and our experience thus far, has been very pleasing.

The competition amongst the cars is taking its toll. The lead car, driven by Lord Montagu, who is a member of Parliament in the UK, left the Great Wall and within just a few miles, the radiator was sort of ground up by the fan which came loose and flew into the radiator. Remarkably, they've been able to patch the car tonight with cooperation between German and English people. The car seems to be running. There are two cars that are out of the competition. One is from Portugal and one is am American car, a 1929 Ford truck, replicating a delivery truck of the 1920s, a Model T Ford. The gentleman driving that car, Francis Nor and his son are seeking a ride in one of the other vehicles.

Well the world is truly connected and I want to show you how that is by making two family communications or announcements. From Australia, Jeanne Eve and John Matheson are driving a Rolls Royce formerly used by visiting royalty in Australia. Jeanne has advised her children, Marion and Louise, to tune into our web site and to pick up events on the rally. So we say hello to Marion and Louise and tell them that their Mother is doing them proud by enjoying this trip and making daily notes and dictation and being a very good sport in the elegant Rolls Royce Limousine from Australia. Our web site was also recommended to Brad Thomas of Tulsa, Oklahoma who is with Interchem, a large international chemical company, along with John Arrend. They are friends with Maria and Thomas Noor of Germany who are one of the drivers of a Mercedes in the competition. Truly an international flavor to the event.

And again, the rules are much like a golf outing. Each car has a score card. Each day, each car must compete against the race course, which is a pre-planned amount of travel over a pre-determined amount of time and along the way, you have to overcome reading the road signs in Chinese, road conditions (a lot of trucks on the highway here, slow traffic). You have to deal with the weather and mechanical interruptions. You have to get to the end of the day. So everyday is sort of a race, if you will, and the score is kept and computed and posted everyday. The Financial Times, which is a business newspaper from London and from Asia is carrying, every Saturday, a report about the Peking to Paris Challenge. The Financial Times is sponsoring one of the cars in the competition, along with the accounting firm, Coopers and Librandt. The car is quite unique, not only mechanically, but in color - it's pink, which we're told, matches the news print that is used by the Financial Times. So again, on every Saturday, the Financial Times carries a report on the Great Race and the goings on in this event.

Tomorrow will be a more difficult day. Travel will be 500 kilometers, contrasted to 225 today and the pace of the competition and the demands will increase with every passing day. The first car sets off at 6 AM and each car follows subsequently in one minute intervals. Our car, when we began today in the competition, there are 93 cars that showed up at the starting line, and ours is 65, so that means an hour and 6 minutes after 6 o'clock is our starting time and we have to reach certain check points and certain control points within the prescribed amount of time, keep our score, watch our stopwatches, maintain steady driving conditions and get to the end of the day within the rules of the competition. This has to be done day after day, after day, over the course of 45 days, with the course getting increasingly difficult once it reaches the European continent of Greece, Italy, and Austria. The people who have designed the course, take great pleasure in trying to get the drivers lost. American drivers are at a considerable disadvantage because of their lack of familiarity with the European highway system and the back roads. But, nonetheless, we'll carry on and do our best to seek a gold medal, or a silver medal, or a bronze medal. There are three levels of awards based on the performance of the team over the course of the event.

Well, there you have a summary of today. It was a remarkable day of pageantry because of the ceremonies at the Great Wall. We were very please to have Narcelle and Liz and Suzy Schneider there to see their father and husband off. Mechanically, our car seems to be OK with some carburation difficulties from time to time. The Packard is not the most beautiful car in the event, we think it is perhaps one of the strongest cars and the most dependable under increasingly cruel conditions. So we end the day feeling really delighted that we're a guest in China and that the people have been so cordial. I just can't tell you how remarkable it is to see thousands of people turn out to watch the cars as they enter communities. It's almost like a major holiday parade. And the people just love to visit and talk and get to know who their foreign guests are. We're glad to be in China. We can report to you that we're in the competition and getting ready to rest up for tomorrow and go forward on another day. We'll bring you some of those details at the end of the day tomorrow if you'll come back with us for the update at that time. So long for now from Zhang Jiakou, China.