The Beijing Pedestrian Street (Tuesday, August 14th, 2018)

We slept in as long as possible this morning, leaving ourselves just enough time to get to breakfast before it closed. We were out of the room by 9:30, which gave us a little over 4 hours of sleep, so we were feeling good. 

When we finished breakfast, we were ready to go out and explore the city. Beijing is a city of over 23 million people. Our friend Tony told us this morning that all of southern California combined is only 19 million, so that gives you some perspective of how huge this city is. 

When Steve was here in 1995, he said that most of the traffic was bicycles and gas powered scooters. It has chabBnged a lot since then. All gas powered scooters have since been outlawed, allowing only electric scooters and manual or electric bikes to help with pollution and change the image of the city. There are now many more cars than there used to be as well. Normal people are now able to afford a car, which is the first time in Chinese history that this has been the case. Steve said that it has really helped to clean up the air. The pollution is much better than it was over 20 years ago.

We decided to head toward the pedestrian street (two blocks away from the hotel) first. 

We quickly discovered that there are huge indoor malls right on the pedestrian street, so we went in to check one of them out as well. 

This banner was on a pillar in the mall.  Cracked me up.

After taking in the overwhelming mall, we headed back outside to see what was on the streets.  We ended up in a very "local" part of town. 

It turns out that grilled scorpions are a delicacy in China.  We asked Jason later, and he told us that the scorpions are farm raised and their venom glands have been removed.

After he skewered them, they continued to wiggle for quite awhile.

 The locals eat all kinds of interesting food.

This part of the pedestrian mall was really hopping!

Another delicacy is whole fried chicken.  We ate it later and I have to say that it was the best fried chicken I have ever had!

As lunch time was approaching, we headed back toward the hotel. There was a little restaurant just a few doors down that looked good to us, so we went in and ordered. They had an English menu, which was nice, and one of their servers spoke a little bit of English which also helped. 

We ordered pork in spicy garlic sauce, garlic spinach and fried rice. When it came out, we had so much food!

It was way more food than we could eat, and it tasted great! In addition to the entrees we also ordered two beers, and our total bill was 106 yuan, which is about $15.00.

We decided that we would definitely like to visit this restaurant again if time permits.  We were the only Americans here, and there was a bit of a communication issue. The food was amazing and so close to our hotel!

Novotel Beijing Peace Hotel (Tuesday, August 14th, 2018)

We are staying at the Novotel Beijing Peace Hotel, very close to the Forbidden City in downtown Beijing.  It is a great location!  Thanks Gate-1.

Our hotel lobby is beautiful!

The complimentary breakfast provided by the hotel was really good. They had everything you could ever want to choose from, yogurts, cereals, fruit, meats, eggs, omelets, breads, crepes and a bunch of hot dishes. They also had lots of juices and several coffees to choose from. 

This is the only picture I took of our breakfasts, but it was worth sharing.  They had a crepe station where they prepared fresh crepes every morning.  They were amazing!

Being the forgetful person that I am, I couldn't manage to take a picture of our room, so on our last day as we were leaving, I finally snapped a couple of pictures.  Our room was really nice and comfortable!

Views from our room.

The pool was on the fourth floor.  Nice locker rooms.

You have to walk through a foot bath to get to the pool. This could be interesting since we both have shoes on.

Indoor pool with lots of natural light.

Gate-1 always chooses great hotels in great locations. 

Leaving For China (Sunday, August 12th, 2018)

We left our hotel at a little after 8:00 am on Sunday, August 12th, to drop off the car and then head to the airport. Check in for our flight was very easy, and we were even able to get our seats moved on our second flight so that we both had an aisle (in the middle section), with an empty seat between us, giving us some room to spread out a little bit.

We got out to our gate, which was in a temporary building in the international terminal. When it was time to board, we left the terminal and boarded buses that took us out to a temporary jet way for boarding. 

We were flying Hong Kong airlines, which we have never flown before.  When have flown to Asia in the past, the airlines have done a good job of preparing us for the time change, by helping us adjust during the flight, but Hong Kong Airlines didn’t do that.  

Our flight out of LA left a little over an hour late, so we were afraid we were going to miss our connection to Beijing, but security in Hong Kong went quickly, taking only about half an hour from when we left the plane until we were at our next gate. But when we arrived at our connecting gate, they changed our departure time from 8:10 to 9:20.  So this gave us time to look around at the airport a little bit, and I have to say that the international terminal was beautiful.

We got on the plane at about 9:00 and were ready to depart, but then the captain came on the radio and said that there were thunderstorms in Beijing, and there was a huge air “traffic jam”. So we sat at our departure gate for another 2 ½ hours before we got clearance to take off. While we were waiting, the flight staff fed us the dinner that we should eaten in the air. It did help the time pass as we sat there with nowhere to go.

We finally took off a little after midnight on August 14th for Beijing. The pilot was able to make up a little bit of time in the air, but we were so far off schedule that we were sure we had missed our transfer that was supposed to be waiting for us in Beijing. So while we were waiting in the immigration line, Steve found all of our hotel documents, addresses, etc. so we would be ready to get a taxi once we got through.

Immigration was interesting in China. We had to go through a fingerprinting process, where you lay the four fingers of our left hand on a screen for scanning, then you do the same with your right hand, then both of your thumbs. It worked for Steve, but no matter how I laid my fingers on the screen, it would not scan mine. It just kept “yelling at me” to put my four left hand fingers on the glass plate. The immigration officials finally came over to help me, and they couldn’t get my fingers to scan either. It held us up for about 10 minutes, which was getting frustrating. They finally told me to go on without the scan. 

When we finally got to the actual immigration counter, they had another finger scanner. He had me do it again on his scanner and it worked perfectly. We picked up our luggage, had it scanned, and then proceeded out to the main terminal.

We started looking around for the taxi stand, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw our hotel transfer sign. I have to admit that I got a little bit teary eyed. We were both so tired at this point, it had been a rough day, and it was so good to see that our transfer was there for us after all, even with our arrival over two hours late. Our transfer ended up being our tour director, Jason, that we would have for the next three weeks. 

It took about 40 minutes from the airport to the hotel. Jason gave us a ton of information as we drove, about things we might want to do in the area before the actual tour starts, etc. He also told us that a lot of social websites are blocked in China, including facebook, gmail, youtube, twitter and many others. 

We were both so tired at this point that we hoped we would remember at least part of what he said. When we got to the hotel at about 4:30 a.m. on August 14th, our room was waiting for us. By the time we got checked in, it was about 5:00 a.m., so we dove into bed, and never even looked around. After 27 hours, we were really hoping for a good nights sleep.

Crazy Days (Thursday, August 9th - Saturday, August 11th, 2018)

After a quick trip to Colorado to help our youngest daughter move,  we had a tight time frame in front of us before leaving on our next adventure.  



We got up on Thursday morning at Steve's parents house and once again started thinking about the trailer.  When we originally packed the trailer a year and a half ago, we had no idea where our daughter would be in life nor did we fully understand where we would be, so we packed everything that we thought might be needed.  It turned out that we had packed too much into the trailer for her current needs, so when we moved her into her new apartment, we left quite a few items behind in Steve's parents garage.  So Thursday morning we repacked the trailer for the final time with all of our remaining treasures that needed to return to Havasu with us.  It took us a couple of hours, and then we hit the road home. 

Our greatest fear with this entire trip was making it back home without any truck or trailer problems.  It seems that no matter how well you take care of your things, or how well you prepare for a trip, things can still go wrong!  And a breakdown on this trip home could have been devastating because we were under a very tight schedule. 

As we passed each milestone in Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Arizona, a small weight lifted for us as we realized that we were just a little closer to our destination in Havasu.

We arrived home a little after midnight on Friday morning, and jumped in bed for a few hours.  When we got up we started unpacking our suitcases, doing laundry and then repacking again.  We are once again using our packing cubes, which simplify our lives immensely, allowing us to cross pack our clothes between our suitcases, but still not get everything all mixed up.  We had 70 pounds of "stuff" between the two of us, and it is everything we will need for the next three weeks.  It kind of makes us wonder why we still have so much other stuff in our lives!

After getting repacked, we pushed the trailer up into the garage and just left it there until our return.  We knew we could unpack it later and save ourselves some time.   

The other obstacle we knew we had during these crazy days was that there was no food in the house since we had been gone for three weeks in Colorado.  So after a breakfast of toast, and a lunch of grilled peanut butter and jelly, we managed to get everything done before dinner time so that we could go out and enjoy a nice relaxing dinner, a quick RZR ride up in the desert, and a quick drink with friends before calling it a night.  

After a good nights sleep, we got up Saturday morning and headed for Los Angeles.  Luckily, our drive to LA also went very well.  We hit a lot of traffic once we were in the city, but it only slowed us down by about an hour.  We LOVE using the GPS, it has truly revolutionized driving in LA.  It is not an easy city to drive in even if you know the roads, so for someone that doesn't live here, the GPS is totally amazing!

We checked into our usual Holiday Inn Express hotel near LAX, eager to stretch out a little bit.  We decided to walk to our favorite nearby Thai restaurant (Ayara) and pick up some dinner.  It is only about 1/2 mile away and gave us a great chance to stretch out our legs a little bit.  After about 1,400 miles of driving over the last few days, we were definitely ready for a good walk.

The restaurant did a great job of packing up our dinner for our hotel takeout, providing us with plates, bowls, spoons, forks, chopsticks and condiments as well as our amazing dinner.  It was a meal packed for royalty.

It's been a couple of crazy days, but it will all be worth it in the end.  Stay tuned for the start of our next adventure as we make our was to Beijing, China!

Steve went to China in 1995 as part of his MBA program.  He loved the country, but was also shocked by some of what he experienced.  He has always said that it was a life changing experience for him and has always wanted to take me there to experience it for myself. The time is finally here!  So China, here we come!!!

Moving into Her Big Girl House (Wednesday, August 8th, 2018)

Our youngest daughter's new apartment is ready for her today, so we were waiting at the gate when they opened.  Steve and his dad took the newly repacked trailer of treasures with them and headed straight to the apartment, and I took Steve's mom and headed downtown to pick up our son (in-law) who just happened to be in town and offered to help us with the move.  When we all got there, we picked up her keys at the office and headed over to the apartment to get started.  Our daughter had to work today, but said she would get off as early as possible.

It is a beautiful apartment, and we were excited to get started.

But of course, it has to get worse before it can get better.

Our daughter made it home in time for a late lunch, which was great, and her room-mates parents and sister were there as well.  I had made a pot of green chili the night before, so we all enjoyed it where ever we could find a spot to sit.

And before long, it was coming together nicely.

Steve's parents left a little early and headed home.  The rest of us finished with the finishing touches and then headed to a fun dinner together at La Fogata.

We are so excited for our daughter!  She has the perfect room-mate, in the perfect location, in the perfect apartment, with the perfect room.  We know that she will be very happy here and are excited for her to start her future in this great place.

Tomorrow morning we will repack the trailer with all of the leftover treasures that we need to take back to Havasu with us, and will head out on our journey home.