Saturday, July 03, 2010

Monday, June 28, 2010 11:20 p.m. Far East International Youth Hostel Rm 323

Let me just say that Business Class rocks! From the quality and quantity of the foot to the never-ending glass of water, the spacious digs to the attentive service, it was a great way to spend a 13 hour flight.

I got a fair amount of sleep on the flight and in the Red Carpet Lounge as evidenced by the fact that I'm not yet catatonic.

I got through immigration with a reasonably short wait, jumping lines when a Polish tour group slid in front of me and then skating on the fact that I neglected to fill out my visitor's entry card.  After cruising through customs, Susie was right there.  Our first stop was Starbucks where I got my first coffee in 2 days (but a frappuccino due to the heat).

We took the train and the subway into Beijing with me struggling to pay attention since I may have to go to the airport by myself to get Suzannah.

It's about a 10 minute or more walk from the subway stop, Hepingman, to the hotel but it was HOT!  We got here, checked in and showered, then wandered down Qianmen Dajie, the newly restored pedestrian mall which had been our main thoroughfare when we were here in 2005.  It's quite different, reminding me of the pedestrian mall in Leon.  We continued on to Wangfujing where we had dinner at Shanghai Restaurant in Beijing APM.  A stop at the Foreign Language Bookstore and then a fairly long walk back (but nowhere near as long as in 2005).  

Hot, crowded, dirty but still cool to be somewhere so far from home.

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