Beijing - Reuniting with friends June 27, Day 7

How fun to be with friends again! We had breakfast with Rick & Ellen and Ellen's parents, Jim & Jane. So great to be catching up with everyone. Later during breakfast, Pam, Robert and their daughter (aka "little bug") came down to breakfast too - they were doing some touring in Beijing with another agency so they had a different agenda for the day. We hung out with Ellen and her family and took a walk down to the grocery store so that we could buy water and drinks at a reasonable price versus the outrageous hotel prices. Since we're here for five days it's worth stocking our fridge. It was so 0ppressively hot on the walk to the store and the pollution in Beijing is really terrible - buildings that are really close to our hotel are almost invisible. It was actually nice though to just be chilling for the day. Rick's parents, Yvonne & Bill arrived around lunch time and then we all went to lunch together. We were going to go out of the hotel but a rainstorm came that was torrential! We were glad because we hoped it would cool things and also reduce some of the air pollution. Up on the second floor were some shops and restaurants so we went to check those out. There was not a lot of choice so we went to this very nice looking Chinese restaurant. There, the 8 of us were shown to a private room with a large round table - really beautiful. Then the adventures began! The menu, if you can call it that, looked more like a little brochure and no evidence of prices or English. Rick's mom knows some Cantonese but not much Mandarin so conversing with the staff was difficult. They ended up bringing a manager type man and he was able to converse with Rick's mom. We finally came together on about 8 dishes but he told Yvonne that he was going to give us free tea and that we could see the price to know what value that was - we said it was okay, and that he was also going to include starters. We were all quite worried at this point about how much this lunch was going to cost - were the dishes so expensive that they could throw in starters! The starters began to arrive - about 6 of them - really beautiful - so much so that I took some photos. They were also all delicious! Then the other dishes arrived. Everything was superb and we had the most amazing and attentive service. After the watermelon - the primary dessert served here as far as we can tell, we awaited the bill with trepidation but all feeling happy because the food was so good and everything had been so pleasant. Well, after all that, it was a whopping 640 yuan - about $90 for 8 people. Although tip was included in that, we all paid 200 yuan per couple - about $26 for David and I and we made the waitresses day with the big extra tip.

After lunch, it was close to the time when we expected the fourth couple from our mid-atlantic group of 10/28 people to be arriving so we waited in the lobby for them. Due to the storm they ended up getting in much later - they had to circle an hour in the air before landing and were almost diverted to another airport. It was so good to see them and to have our group who has been through this long journey with us, all together. We hung out in their room for a while and then walked them to the grocery store so they could get water, drinks and snacks. They were pretty exhausted so we left them after than and David and I returned to our room. We had a nice visit later in our room from Pam and she caught us up on what her family had done that day with the guide and she wanted to hear more about our travels so far. We're getting so close to Indigo now - my stomach is doing flip-flops and I don't think it has anything to do with the food.