Daughter and her friend visited Beijing on spring break. She lived here for the last two of her high school year. Her friend never set foot in China what-so-ever. They planned a full agenda: sight seeing, restaurants she missed, friends to reminisce, surprise birthday party (she is the surprise), etc.
I was just getting used to this serene, orderly, tidy empty-nester life. Their arrival mercilessly transformed it with semi-chaotic whirl-wind of activities catered to the whims of young college kids. It was very nice to see my kid; also nice to feel the calmness crawling back after they have left.
| Day 1 | Arrival. She almost gave her birthday friend a heart-attack jumping out of a box as a surprise. Dinner at A-Che, a Carribean restaurant on DongZhiMenWai (东直门外). |
| Day 2 | Morning to the Forbidden City (故宫). Drove by the almost finished CCTV tower and marveled at the design. Mother met them near the north gate and brought them to a hot-pot lunch. After Temple of Heaven (天å›), they came to the office to pick me up back home. We swang by Olympic venues: Water Cube and Bird’s Nest. DingTaiFeng (鼎泰丰) dinner with a friend. |
| Day 3 | Great Wall at JuYongGuan (居庸关). Toured Commune under the Great Wall (长城脚下的公社), an ultra-modern hotel designed as a commune of individual houses. They skipped lunch and came home for dinner. |
| Day 4 | I tour-guided them at Summer Palace (é¢å’Œå›) and DongYue Temple (东岳庙). There is an hour or so before the dinner when we came back, so I dropped them off at YaShow (雅秀) for some touristic shopping. Lunch as JiaoZi (天津百饺å›) restaurant. Peking Duck (大董) for dinner. |
| Day 5 | They went hiking at Fragrance Hill (香山). At around noon, they went to XiDan (西å•) directly for shopping. McDonald for lunch. Belagio (鹿港å°é•‡) with a friend. |
| Day 6 | WangFuJing, hair-cut, birthday party followed by KTV. |
| Day 7 | PanJiaYuan (潘家å›) then Beijing Planning Exhibit Hall (北京规划展æ½é¦†). Lunch at KongYiJi (å”乙己). Dinner at Very Siam (éžå¸¸æ³°). |
| Day 8 | Leave home at 9am, depart from new Terminal 3. |
I am quite impressed. They packed lots of activities into a week. I was almost tempted to send them to Xi’An for a day trip, the real cost for that is 2 dinners slots. For these kids, that will be impossible to make up from their social calendar.
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