Ellen & Victor's Visit to Beijing
10 great days of fellowship, reconnecting, walking, catching up, eating, conversing, sightseeing, walking, resting, eating, sightseeing, meeting BBC people - did I mention walking?
Tuesday, March 25 |
| Fresh off the plane. Nothing like a good cup of coffee. Wednesday, March 26
Mark & I went to language class Wednesday morning and let Victor & Ellen relax after their flight. They relaxed by walking through the Olympic Forest Park, around our stomping grounds, through the apartment complex grounds, and to the subway. After we returned, we all met Kyle & the Andersens for lunch then met up with Phil Remmer (more on him later), walked Ghost Street and its hutongs, ran into Jeremiah (more on him later), and finished the day with dinner at a local Korean restaurant.
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| Checking out Hua's Restaurant menu on Ghost Street Thursday, March 27 The Great Wall |
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| The worst AQI day of their trip, as high as 400. |
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| Visiting the Yips after the Great Wall. Having fun with Owen & Elise. |
Friday, March 28
Summer Palace
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| A beautiful clear day. |
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| The Long Corridor |
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| Our ride back to the subway station BBC Young Couple's Dinner
After the Summer Palace, we met with the BBC young couples for dinner at one of their apartments.
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| Hector, Bessie, Jared, Molly, Mary, Joel, Steven, Amanda, Nate, Julia |
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| Nate, Julia, Ellen, Victor, Mark.
I don't remember what we were discussing at this moment but we had a great time together talking about all kinds of things. At one point someone started a 'newlywed' type of questioning - how do you think your spouse would respond to .....[question].
Saturday, we visited Fangshan Orphanage. That trip deserves its own post.
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Sunday, March 30
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| Trees in bloom at the south gate into our apartment complex. |
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| Dinner with Rupert at Hua's Restaurant on Ghost Street on Sunday evening. |
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| The front of Hua's Restaurant on Ghost Street. We entered through the back hutong alley. Monday, March 31 Hou Hai Park
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| Drum Tower performers.
I opted out of this climb and instead sat and talked with a UK foreign exchange student visiting from Shanghai.
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| We had a few hours between walking Hou Hai and the hutongs and meeting some of the young single BBC gals for dinner so we discovered this place with a rooftop sitting area. How good it felt to sit on the cushioned seats, talk, relax, have a refreshing drink, and look over the area from up high. |
Dinner with some of the single BBC gals.
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| Victor, Ellen, Kelly, Christi, Vawny Kay, Juli, Rebecca, Mark |
Tuesday, April 1
A restful morning, then Wangfujing Street & Tiananmen Square
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| A quintessential tourist - eating scorpions on a stick on April Fool's Day |
Wednesday, April 2
Hotpot lunch, a restful afternoon, and the Olympic venues at night
Thursday, April 3
Saying good-bye or better Zaijian 再见 (See you later)
Love all these pictures! I wish there was a way to comment on them individually. I love the ones of each couple in front of the yellow blooming bush, and of Aunt Ellen eating on Wang Fu Jing street. Thanks for posting these! Love and miss you!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you got to see the Summer Palace! I'm sure we have some similar pictures in our scrapbooks. Everything is blooming! We were there in the winter and the plants were all dormant but the gardens were still beautiful. It's nice to see them as we could only imagine. We had a Chinese man offer to give us a guided tour that was interpreted by our adoption agency guide. Seems the Empress was a unique individual with some intense demands. I'll tell you about it some time. Love it!!
ReplyDeleteI loved the pics, too! They are so great for conveying a sense of what it's like where you are. Especially liked the one of Mark and Cheryl by the forsythia bush and Ellen and Victor at the Great Wall, but they're all interesting!
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