We made it!

Beijing (Sat 7-17-15)  WE MADE IT!  This time in Beijing we stayed in the center of town.  Driving to our hotel, which is beautiful, I noticed we were on a street with stores like Cartier, Tiffany, etc. Not at all what we saw the first time here five years ago.  Our guide said that it was the center of town which is the prosperous district - HA no kidding.

Since we arrived at 5pm after a very long, long flight and sleeping little - we just wanted to eat and go to bed. Our guide recommended the Chinese restaurant next door to the hotel.  Anything outside of the hotel is a bit of an adventure. In my opinion since we don't speak Chinese, it is all an adventure!

The food was OUTSTANDING! We had soup, a noodle dish and spring rolls.  As we ate it was fun to people watch.  Since there was only one English speaking manager we were left to take our time which was fine.  We tried to pay once and ended up with the waitress bringing us two more beers. Hmmm, we needed a different strategy to ask to pay!

I wish I had a camera for this experience (but my phone battery died on the trip over).  When we were leaving we noticed that the tables that people ate at were trashed.

We are only here this time to rest and move on to Shenyang.