November 3, 2012 –
At the beginning of November we met up with friends in Beijing to see a Kung Fu show at the Red Theater. Now, this event took place during some big political convention happening in Beijing which ended up greatly effecting our trip – and not for the better.
:-/
Mr. Li, our driver, has dropped us off at the Comfort Inn in Beijing. It's across the street from Sanlitun and the YaShow Market. It's a great hotel- and it's about half the price to stay here than at the Hilton! It's great for our needs (plus, they don't even balk when you say you've got two kids instead of one!). It's not super fancy but we don't need super fancy!
Check-in at the hotel was super quick and now we're heading across the street to the Sanlitun shopping area. Wow! I love this area. Why??? Because we're not the only westeners here!
Anyway, we've decided to eat at the Blue Frog for lunch:
Check out the caution on my bottle of beer:
Oh no! While we were eating lunch we've noticed it's raining. Ugh! It's a really good thing that we brought our compact umbrellas with us!!!!
Playing around in the Beijing Apple Store (in Sanlitun):
This Apple store is BIG. It's two floors!!
I think we'll head over the YaShow market and see what's for sale there. Who knows what we'll find there!
Our friends are back at the hotel. So, let's head back there and meet up with them!!!
On our walking tour of Sanlitun today we passed by a restaurant called Bite-a-Pita. We'd heard from friends that this particular restaurant has great hummus. Mmmmm….Hummus! And when we were trying to come up with a restaurant for us all to go out and eat at we suggested this one. Yay! Our friends said yes!
Hummus, here we come!
Croydon ordered something- a sandwich, I think? – and the waiter explained that it was lamb flavored beef (or was it chicken? Can't remember). We got such a good laugh out of his phrase, "lamb flavored…"! Hahahaha!!!! Then Croydon ordered a beer and the waiter said, "dont' worry, it's not lamb flavored beer!!!!" LOL!!! (we think that he meant they used lamb seasonings on the beef. Whatever!)
Annika's cartoon drawings:
Oh wow!!!
It's REALLY raining!!! And the wind is blowing. And it's pretty darn cold. We're trying to get a taxi…can you please help us???? Okay. We REALLY need help!!!! None of the taxis are stopping!!!! We've always heard that the taxi drivers in Beijing are EXTREMELY RUDE and refusing to give westerners rides. And it definitely feels like that's the case tonight. We've had many taxis pass us by while we're waving frantically at them. And now we're soaked. Soaked! Our umbrellas aren't any match to the blowing side-ways rain. We need to head to the Red Theater. Jennifer got us tickets to see the Kung Fu show there. I'm not sure we're going to make it! At least Croydon managed to get a cab….well, now that we've spoken with him it turns out it wasn't a taxi but a guy with a GPS. Why can't a car like that stop and pick us up????? Thank goodness Jennifer, Brian and Landon have their driver here. That would be terrible if Jennifer had to stand out in this rain – she's pregnant! AAAAAAaaarrrrRRRRRGGGGgggggHHHHHhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! Why won't any taxis stop for us?????????????????????????????????? I'm really starting to hate Beijing right now!
Okay, deep breath.
We're soaked. We can't wait outside any longer. The hotel can't help us get a taxi either. We're going to our room to warm up. I don't think we'll be able to make it to the show. Better call Jennifer.
Sigh.
Ah! Jennifer said they just arrived and it's early enough that they can send their driver to come pick us up. Maybe we'll make it to the show after all!!!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Many thanks to Jennifer and Brian's driver who managed to – some how – get us to the theater just in time for the show to start. I'm still pretty darn cranky about Beijing but I'm going to enjoy the show now!
Ummm….I totally didn't take any photos of the show! Oops! The theater was cold. Too cold. After not having warmed up properly from being soaked the cold theater was uncomfortable.
The show was amusing. Although, since when is dance/ballet part of Kung Fu????? The show was narrated in English (thank goodness). The show followed the life of a young boy, abandoned by his mother at a monastery, watching him grow into a powerful kung fu master.
Jennifer and Brian have very kindly offered for us to squeeze into their van for a ride back to the hotel. Guess what lesson we've learned from this excursion to Beijing???? Ask our driver to kindly stay in Beijing!!!!
We're back at the hotel now. And ever so grateful to Jennifer, Brian and Landon for the lift. Thank you!!!! Thank you Jennifer for getting the tickets for us! Now I think we'll disappear into room and take a long HOT shower! I'd love to warm up. (just for the record, I do love cold weather. I just don't like getting soaked.)
Good night!!!!
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Good morning! Check out the view from our hotel room this morning:
!!!
hello, winter!
Yesterday we decided to eat breakfast at the Starbucks that is adjacent to our hotel. Mark went on a scouting trip to make sure that it was indeed open. Yay! It is open! Oh my….it's sleeting outside and there are some deep puddles of water that we're having to slosh through. And our shoes never did completely dry out from last night's excursion. Ugh. Wet feet. Nothing will make me feel cold than having wet, cold feet.
But hey! Look at the bright side-
There's Starbucks!!!!
🙂
Our driver is coming to pick us up soon. We can't hang out in Beijing today as Annika has Zombie Prom (the musical) rehearsal this afternoon. That means we need to head back to Tianjin this morning.
And it's a darn good thing we left early enough….because check out the nasty road condition:
Whew! Somewhere between Beijing and Tianjin the sleeting/snowing stopped and the roads were clear. Thank goodness. Although, I kind of liked having snow- snow makes everything look pretty.
We're home! Time to take Annika to her rehearsal and time to unwind from this weekend! Hope you enjoyed the ride!