Mark’s first breakfast on the big adventure
After five months of planning and three weeks traveling from Boston to San Francisco, we are finally underway. We landed in Beijing last night and have already had some of those experiences that make traveling so much fun. We got up pretty early and headed out to breakfast. We stopped at the concierge desk to ask about street food in the area and the woman said there wasn’t any nearby, but they have a lovely breakfast buffet at the hotel. Right – I can get something local for maybe $3 or pay $25 for the hotel buffet. So Mark & I went out on our own and in about five minutes had found a street with a bunch of tiny local … restaurants? Can you call them that? They cook stuff out in the street but you sit in chairs at actual tables. We got a bunch of stuffed buns that were *great*, a bowl of really bland bean porridge, and a big piece of fried bread that you eat with chopsticks. All for less than $2. Take that, hotel buffet!
Then it was off on foot to Tiananmen Square, where I made my first little friendie. Mark & I were trying to get our bearings, figure out what we wanted to do, when this little kid starts playing with me, waving his flag, dropping it, letting me pick it up, over and over again. Basically, he was teaching me to fetch, with his mother capturing the whole thing on her camera.
So there you have it – great local food and cute kids. What more do you need for a great adventure? Now it’s off to lunch, on the hunt for some noodles. Probably won’t be hard to find in Beijing!
Jim’s new friend
Have you encountered the young students that want to practice their English on you? Beware! It is a scam. Are you going to Xian to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers?
But the students seem so *nice*. How could it be a scam?
Yes, we’ve avoided that one, but just now someone tried to charge us almost $50 for a short taxi ride. It didn’t work…
Oh, as for Xian, no – we’re spending a week in Beijing and then getting on a train to Mongolia en route to Moscow and St. Petersburg. We’re going to see a lot of Russia but saving the rest of China for … later.
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