Repeat Offenders, Day One

Next in Line
Originally uploaded by jrherron.

Early Tuesday morning it was time to throw off the shackles of work and do what we do best, jump on a plane travel far away and make a town our own. This time we meant business, since we'd already been to Beijing once, and knew what to expect in a lot more situations. Getting on the plane was mostly drama free, scoring some first class seats for Me, W and travel/food buddy Francie. I watched Alvin and the chipmunks, Superbad, and 3:10 to Yuma. There was time for a little nap mixed in there, but I found myself unable to get a real night's sleep and knew I'd pay for it later. We arrived in Beijing early Wednesday afternoon and had much running around to do. We met the rest of our travel party at the hotel, and then broke out to the Sheraton Great Wall, where we had to go sit with the travel agent to arrange the final details of our Xi'an trip. We grabbed a little food at a little place the Sheraton Concierge recommended right around the corner, where we dove right into our first Chinese food and our first Tsingtao. We had to go back to the hotel after that, since W had to take one of her finals online. After her test, we were ready for some Peking Duck. We asked specifically how to get to the Famous place in town that we'd been to last time, but instead got pointed to a place right near the hotel (The Marriott Executive Apartments) that we got lost trying to find. We went back, and someone else at the concierge desk actually walked us there personally. It was a nice gesture, but the place was already closed, so she nicely walked us to a nearby noodle shop that had great food, little spoken English, and a cat that wouldn't stop crying while we were there. I know what you're thinking, and the cat was a very well taken care of pet on a leash who was just a little noisy, he was never in any pain. We enjoyed a great meal that included fresh made noodles and then went back to the hotel and crashed pretty hard.