This is what I've been waiting for!

I arrived in Beijing very late, I was a little concerned about transportation to my hotel but I managed to catch a shuttle to the BJ railway station. From there I argued with taxi driver and bicycle drivers about fare to go to my closeby hotel... They were asking for 50¥ when the metered taxis would be less than 20, I managed to talk a bike driver into 35, my first waste of 5$ in China hooray! I froze to death along the way. That's right, I'm dead and frozen. When I arrived to my "guesthouse" I was pleased to see a multi story hotel standing there! I checked into an 8th floor room with a terrace :-) my papa will be joining me for the weekend. Still, the one thing I truly have been waiting for ALL YEAR LONG has been the little hotpot soup fast food place ... Oriental mall... And I made my way out after a frustrating morning changing rooms and floors 3 times to get a room with an opening door haha!! I walked along Wangfujing street eagerly searching for 1. Milk tea and 2. My hotpot place... I snagged 2 taro milk teas and then stumbled upon the mall. Was it here? Could I find it after one year has passed? I let my legs guide me as I wandered ignorantly through the mall... And in a direct path to my spot!!! Hooray!!! I made it!!!

I sat down at the bar and greedily stared at the menu in Chinese and prepared to point at random food items... Then to my surprise the hostess brought me an English menu!!!! Omg! I happily ordered my platter and wolfed down my long awaited meal. Ah. Welcome to Beijing. The mealu decided to try: lamb & beef with mixed extras. The veggies were lettuce, cabbage, mushrooms, Chinese parsley, carrots and something that could be a turnip or root vegetable. Also came with an egg, tofu, duck blood (closely resembles a dark brown tofu slice), small crab roll, something looking like a tube of pastry, and a side of mini dumplings. Cost: 50¥ and this was enough food for 2 so I've bagged the rest for my pa :-)

After my hot meal, I made my way to the subway and stuffed myself onto the train to meet my father at the south BJ railway station. I forgot about rush hour! I crammed myself into the train and got a shot above the heads of a packed car full of black hair... You can easily spot foreigners in Asia if they have light hair!

Also, I forgot about the freezing cold and I don't have a winter jacket... God I miss that 30 degrees in Thailand! Looking for the macdonalds, (meeting place) I decided a hot milk tea would suffice to warm me up. As I wandered the station, I spotted about 4 macdonalds! Oh well. I have 45 minutes to figure it out.

After watching the sunset, I met with my papa and we made our way back to my hotel. He decided to take me to a special restaurant, where the specialty was ... Dunkey! That's right. Dunkey meat, dunkey soup, dunkey sandwhiches, dunkey knuckle, dunkey tongue, dunkey penis and testicle! Mmmm I'm going to have to try that one! After our meal we got lost in the alley streets and I walked past a tech place with what u presumed to be Internet... So I got online for ten quai and managed to read an email. Woohoo. Back to hotel and time for bed! No idea what tomorrow will bring.