Our hotel is beautiful! It is an old (200ish yr old) villa/garden that has been turned into a hotel. Here are a few pictures:
This is my bed-there is a silk blanket on top. It has about 4 inches of padding, which is luxurious compared to the two inches of foam at the apartment I was staying at in Tangshan. The artwork in the room is beautiful, and we have a nice closet that all of our clothes and suitcases are in.
This is Becca's bed. You can also see the pretty lace curtains and heavier curtains that we can draw over the windows at night. Everything is decorated with old-style Beijing decor, and is very beautiful!
Mom is sitting next to our beautiful medicine chest/bureau/TV, and next to that is a cute terra cotta tea set with some delicious tea (one is jasmine--huacha--and I can't tell what the other is).I haven't taken any pictures of Mom and Dad's room yet. It is smaller than ours, and they might try and switch to a larger room. It is very difficult to get a room with 2 double beds in it in China, hence the two rooms. Becca and I are staying in room 218, which has special meaning for us as Mom's birthday is February 18th (2/18)!
Here is a photo of us taken by some people at our hotel from Hong Kong. All of the attendants speak English, which is a bit shocking to me coming from the polar opposite in Tangshan!We had a ceremonial throwing-away-of-Debbie's-ratty-field-clothes party shortly after arriving. I tossed my holey pair of jeans (which I had sewed numerous times in Tangshan) as well as my tennis shoes. The right shoe had 3 gaping holes in it, while the left shoe managed to stay relatively unscathed.
It was very good to just sit around and share stories of all of our travels. Mom, Dad, and Becca had a very good time in South Korea. Mom and Dad did not like the food, however Becca really enjoyed it! Mostly, it was just good to all be together. This side of the world is different than any of us have ever experienced before, as none of us had set foot in Asia! It is comforting to have each other to lean on.Getting dinner was a bit trying. We walked around for about 30 minutes, with me going into restaurants trying to see if there were enough dishes we could order to be satisfied with. Mom, Dad, and Becca had only eaten breakfast in the morning, so they were quite hungry! We ended up finding a fancy hotel and eating in their restaurant. Hotel restaurants in China are much nicer than those in America (at least in my experience!). It was a very good choice. They had a 'western-style' buffet that we ended up going to. It was about $20 a person, which seems ridiculously expensive to me after most of our meals in Tangshan cost about $5-10 for 3 people. It was totally worth it though! I hadn't eaten any fish in 4 weeks, and they had AMAZING SASHIMI!!! It was sooooo tasty! We ate many different types of dishes, very few of which were Chinese. We ordered a few small steaks to share, and had some handmade udon-style noodles as well. The rest was from the buffet and included fruit, chicken, steamed vegetables, fried potato balls, fresh cucumbers and corn, and MANY other things! For desert, we tried a selection of ice creams, my favorite of which was a mango ice cream that tasted similar to orange sherbet. I hadn't eaten dessert in a restaurant since arriving in China, so it was quite refreshing! Below is a picture of the hotel where we ate:
To end my post tonight, I would like to share my two most hilarious pictures of the day.
#1: McDonalds delivery service!
#2: In China, when children are not potty trained, they do not wear diapers. Instead, there is about a four inch gap in the crotch of their pants. Although I had heard rumors of it, tonight was the first time I saw evidence of WHY that slit was there, in plain sight on the street near where we were walking. This was earlier in the day in a different part of Beijing before meeting up with the family. I feel sorry for the children--it must get awfully drafty!
We will call Grandma in the morning via my computer. I have a great program where for VERY cheap, we can make international phone calls! Everyone else is asleep now. Becca and I were talking when I started writing this, and she was asleep 5 minutes later! They are all very tired from their travels in South Korea, and I from a months worth of field work! We are meeting up for breakfast at 8:30, and I have the 8 AM shower time in our room... That means it's bedtime! I hope you enjoyed the post. I hope to update every day or two about all that we see here!
As always, thanks for reading!
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