Beijing Day Two - Blue Zoo and Grilled Cheese

Waking up this morning was very interesting. Kris and I woke up around 2AM and were ready to go, nothing like a little 15 hour time difference to get those circadian rhythms going at 2AM. Unfortunately we couldn't go to breakfast before 6 and thankfully Libby was still asleep.
Kris and I took a walk around the block and greeted the early morning "Beijingers" with their fluffy little dogs.... They were very friendly and got a kick out of the fact we recognized them on our second trip around the block. It was about 27 F outside, but sunny and no wind so it acutally isn't too uncomfortable. We thought that we would spend most of our time here cold. . . it is quite the contrary. The heat is blasting and we are peeling layers. For our friends traveling in the winter. Beijingers love their heaters. the restaurants, hotels and even the aquarium are all rather warm.

We met our guide after breakfast, around 9AM and went to the HuongQiao Market to have some clothing made. The HuongQiao market has changed a bit, the merchants are incredibly aggressive, like nothing I have ever seen. As you walk by the merchants they call out to you and even grab you. The recession has hit China with force and made everyone a bit desperate. Here is Libby examining the fabrics. She has been a big hit in China. Walking around with her is a bit like walking around with a movie star

The highlight of the day was the amazing dumplings we had for lunch. We asked our lovely new friend, guide Cindy, to take us to good place were locals go to get dumplings. We went to a storefront restaurant with a large lobby completely full of fish, frogs, and eels in buckets (smelled GREAT!) and we ended up in a very large and very full restaurant. There was no english or even pictures on the menus so our guide had to order and it was absolutely delicious. We had 4 different kinds of dumplings.

After lunch we went to the BlueZoo, Beijing's famouse aquarium with the very long underwater glass tunnel. It was a really nice aquarium, we are obviously spoiled by the amazing aquarium in Newport, but it was good to have something fun for Libby to do, and the grownups all had a good time too. There was better access to the sea life. We could get nose to nose with a giant Loggerhead. They were beautiful! Libby commented that she really liked the divers.
By the time we got back to the hotel it was 4 and we were all jet lagged an exhausted. Kris and Sher went shopping and Irv and Libby and Matt hung out in the hotel room and watched CCTV (China Central TV) news in english. For those of you have not been here for a few years, English language is everywhere, signs, television, menus, and many people speak English. This is both nice, and disappointing.

For dinner we were exhausted and Libby had already fallen asleep by 6PM (she slept through the night waking up at 5AM with the rest of us) so we decided to order room service. The extensive menu includes everything from pizza, fried chicken wings and burger and fries to seafood stirfry and fried rice. Since there was such an extensive menu, of course Kris and Sher decided that they wanted a grilled cheese sandwich, one of the only things NOT on the menu. So being the dutiful husband and son-in-law, I called room service and asked for a grilled cheese sandwich. What number please? asked the girl downstairs, referring to the item numbers on the menus. I said, it's not on the menu. She said, Oh, okay, how do you make it please. Now I was expecting her to tell me to just pick a number. I was not expecting her to ask me in a very nonplussed way, How do you make it? So I explained as best as I could the intricacies of the American grilled cheese sandwich. She asked lots of follow up questions like "you mean just cheese on white toast, no sauce?" I said no sauce and cook the sandwich to melt the cheese. She said she would send it right up. If i didn't like it I should call her back. I promised I would and about 1 hour later the sandwich arrived. It was a club sandwich with three pieces of dry toasted white bread and cheddar cheese and nothing else. The cheese was just a bit warm from the toast. The fries were absolutely perfect as was the Australian table wine that went with it. Even though Kris and Sher brought back some Chinese Wine from the grocery store, the cheap hotel wine opener broke off in the cork and it had to be sent down with the bellhop to try to remove the corkscrew embedded in the wine. He sheepishly came back about 20 minutes later and handed me a new bottle of australian table wine with a screw top (he demonstrated how to open this for me), and the chinese wine with the corkscrew still intact.

As much as we enjoyed "going native" on our fist trip. . . we have to admit the comforts of what we know as normal are more important with a child traveling . Since they had only delivered one sandwich for all four of us, we had to order pizza and fried rice (matt stubbornly refuses to eat western food here, the rice was his). The pizza was very good, much better than the toasted cheese.. . . I think it is better to stick with what is best. . . Chinese food! Dumpling and soup are perfect meal but not all that accessible in the Hotel.