I decided to walk down to the south lawn of the White House to see how much of the welcoming ceremony I could see. Not much. Army Honor Guard buses were blocking the part of the first fence I could get close to. Secret Service had the next fence blocked off, so I went to where the Honor Guard Howitzers were (amazingly not blocked off). I was able to hear Bush speaking the whole time I was walking there, but couldn't see him. It sure must have been loud right there on the lawn. The photo isn't good, but I could just barely make out Bush and Hu Jintao. Amazingly, I could hear Hu speak at this distance and even understood a little bit of it.
The Tibetan and Falun Gong protestors are ubiquitous today. As I was walking to the Corner Bakery this morning, I saw what looked to be Hu's motorcade preparing to depart the Willard Hotel. There were huge banners and flags everywhere, so of course, I walked toward them to see what was going on. I normally try to keep my distance from the Falun Gong protestors. I sympathize with their plight, but the Chinese Embassy regularly has goons follow and film them and I really don't need my face to show up in one of those photos, especially since the embassy has my passport at the moment and I'm China-bound very soon. Anyway, I walked right into the motorcade. The Secret Service Suburbans had their windows down and I could easily see the rifle slings across the agents' suits, though the rifles remained below the windows. Pretty sure I got my photo taken today, but I have a good alibi, since I was walkingt to my office. Lotsa excitement around here this week.