Last Night In Beijing

Up, ate breakfast, packed all of our stuff, and waited for Mr. Xue.  He was suppose to pick us up at 8:00 but Todd got a message saying it would be 8:15.  Seriously, we were ready to go.  He arrived and we packed the van...4 suitcases, 2 giant duffel bags, 3 back packs, a camera bag, and a giant purse.  All the essentials we need when we get back to America.  Off to Beijing.

We arrived to a lot of traffic in Beijing.  That's one thing we won't miss.  Our first stop was Chef Too for a light lunch.  Todd and I shared a burger and Cameron had fish tacos.  They recently made some changes to the restaurant.  Now they have a little store inside where you can buy meat and other items.  To me I thought it was odd because the things you could buy were really random and odd things.  I guess it didn't matter since we would never be there again.  Good lunch though.  While we were eating for some reason we were talking about hair or lack there of.  Cameron said "Grandpa isn't bald he just has a lot of space between each hair".  Holy cow we all started cracking up laughing.  We then had to decide which grandpa he was talking about.  He said it applied to both.

We went to check in the hotel next.  We chatted with William, Todd's friend who works at the hotel. He told Todd he was going to give us the biggest room in the hotel for our last stay but the hotel owner was in town.  Instead he gave us the second largest room.  What a nice guy.

Up to the 27th floor.  We found the Capital Suite.  The door opened outward.  We walked in and Cameron said "I wish we would have stayed here for a week".  Big living room, big table in case we needed to have a meeting, big refrigerator/freezer, whirlpool bath tub with a tv ...what more did a kid need?

Enjoying the comfy couch.

What an odd place to read.

Our gift...sweets, fruit, chips, beer, and a panda.

We walked down to Ladies Walking Street.  I was on a mission to get a pink Hello Kitty phone case just in case Cameron gets a phone.  Todd knew of this idea as well.  We started walking around and pretended to look at IPad covers when we were actually scoping out phone cases.  Cameron had no clue.  We lost Todd for a minute but then found him.  We continued looking around.  I found the perfect pink case.  It said Hello Kitty and had a picture.  I slyly asked how much...30 rmb (less than $5).  Sold.  I threw the money and quickly stuck the case in my shorts just as Cameron came around the corner.  I bent down and pretended to be looking at something in a case.  We continued on.  Todd mouthed to me he bought a case.  I mouthed back 'me too'.  He almost died.  We both started laughing.  Cameron asked what was so funny and I made up a story about the green iPad cover we saw and Todd played along.  Phew.

Back to the hotel.  Mr. Xue picked us up at 3:30 to go to Yashow Market to kill some time.  We didn't need anything and we didn't really have room for anything.  We just didn't want to sit in the hotel.  We walked around but didn't see anything.  We went to the DVD store and bought 2 movies and season 34 of the Simpsons.

I see our van.

We decided to go walk around the outdoor mall across the street.  We ended up in an Adidas store. Cameron found a couple shirts he liked.  The under armor feeling type.  We asked how much.  400 rmb...whoa.  A little out of the price range (over $60).  I mentioned they probably had similar ones at the market so of course Cameron wanted to go look.

Back to the market.  The shop we buy jerseys from had the shirts.  Cameron found some he liked and we walked away.  Todd likes to be alone to work his negotiation skills.  We knew she started way out of the ball park so we weren't sure if he would get any or not.  He got 3.

Cameron and I saw a Nike shirt in another booth and it had shorts.  Cameron really liked it for whatever reason.  We waved Todd over and asked him to see if he could work his charm to get those too.  Again Cameron and I walked away.  We kept hearing Todd say "no, that's ok." She would give another price.  We couldn't see or hear Todd anymore so Cameron didn't think he would get them because the lady didn't seem like she wanted to negotiate much.  Next thing Todd walked around a corner with another package.  Cameron had a huge smile on his face.  Went in needing nothing ended up getting 4 shirts and shorts.

Mr. Xue dropped us off at the Kro.  We needed one last pizza fix.  Ordered a salad and meat fest pizza.  Delicious.  We went next door and got Blizzards from DQ.  We didn't need them but they were good.

We will miss this delicious pizza.

Back to the hotel.  Up to the lounge for a few minutes then back down to the room..  We watched The Croods.  It wasn't near as good as we hoped but it was something to watch.  Off to bed.

Cameron had to try the whirlpool tub.