Friday, May 8th - OUR CHINA TOUR BEGINS

View from our Beijing Hotel--Hutangs

Hutangs

Lunch near our hotel

Rickshaw ride from Glass Center to Curio Center

Curio Center

Curio Center

Regent Hotel where we stayed

Artist we met and purhased his picture

Artist we met
Artist we met

First dinner with Geller's and Newport's

Bed 13 in Beijing

We spent a fairly leisurely morning, doing some much needed laundry and packing for our China tour. In China, it is very common to have a washing machine but no dryer. The machine does a very good job of spinning the clothes till they are almost dry and then you have to hang everything up to complete the drying process. Some of our things were still a little damp when we were ready to go so we packed them in a plastic bag, put them in the suitcase for rehanging again when we got to the hotel.

Packing was quite easy as we were able to leave all of our tour books from Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand for Astri and Phil along with several novels that we completed, etc. We also left all of the things that we have been accumulating along the way. We will return in two weeks.
Astri and Phil are also traveling today to Shanghai where they will enjoy the weekend together and then Phil will work at the hospital there on Monday and Tuesday.

We took a cab to our new hotel: The Regent Hotel
99 Jin Bao Street
Dongcheng District
Beijing, China
www.regenthotels.com

so - this will be bed 13 on our Asian Journey! The hotel is quite lovely and we have a very beautiful room on the 15th floor. This is an upscale area of Beijing with Ferrari and Mazeratti dealerships, Gucci, Dolce and Gabianno, Chanel, etc. etc. We checked into the hotel, deposited our luggage and went to Glass City to pick up our prescription glasses. They were ready for us but mine had a very slight defect where the stem is attached to the glass and they are having me use them over the next two weeks and will have a new pair when we return. Lenny's perscription was not quite right as well and they will remake them too. Despite this, we feel that they will make it right and we will be happy with the end result. I am wearing my new specs now and enjoying the new frames and my improved vision.

We then went by bicycle Rickshaw (cost for a short five minute ride was 5 yuan - less than $1.00 US) to Curio City which is another large building with all kinds of antiques and artifacts. It was like walking through a museum but the buidling had hundreds of shops. We also walked through the Peninsula Hotel and browsed through the high end shops. We saw a Dolce and Gabianno purse similar to the one I purchased a few days earlier for $3700.00 Us (I paid $90.00 US for my high end leather knock-off).

We were approached on the street near our hotel by 3 art student who spoke very good English. we talked for a while and then they took us to their art display in a hotel a few blocks from where we were staying. We were very impressed with their work and purchased a painting from one of them..

When we returned to the hotel, we met our Atlanta group: Sandye and Mike Geller and Lyn and Linda Newport. We walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner and enjoyed the company but had a very strange meal. One of the dishes was a chicken dish which ended up being just a bunch of bones and no meat at all and when we questioned the waitress we were told that it was from a skinny chicken. We had to hold our laughter until we left the restaurant.. Many people were eating some pretty good interesting hot pot dishes but I think that we just didn't know what to order. This was my least favorite meal that we have had so far on our entire trip. I think we would have done much better had Phil or Astri been with us.

We start our tour tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m.