Category: China

Nadia got up at around 5:30 am ready to go, go, go. We waited around until they started serving breakfast and headed downstairs. It’s included with our room and has a wide variety of Chinese and Western food. Lots of fresh French bakery items since it’s a french owned hotel. The croissants and madeleines are delicious and buttery. I took Nadia to see the bunnies again in the lobby and then she climbed the marble steps and started performing. She wanted me to wait at the bottom while she did her songs and I tried to get some photos. She caused quite a sensation in the lobby with her signing and dancing. It was really funny.

 

We decided to brave the snow and head out to Wang Fu Jing street, which is really close to our hotel. It’s a HUGE shopping street with malls and all kinds of stores. Every possible expensive brand you can think of is down there. For those of you who watch the Food Network or Travel channel this is the street with the night time food market with the scorpions on a stick and that kind of thing. We went into one of the malls looking for lunch. Our plan was to do that and take Nadia back to the hotel for her nap. She fell asleep in the stroller while we were trying to decide what to eat. We were up on the 6th floor of the mall getting overwhelmed by all the food choices when a guy came up flashing a menu in our face telling us in English how good the spring rolls are. We decided to eat there…here is what Nadia looked like when we got seated.

We ordered Spring Rolls, Cashew Chicken (spicy for Mike) and Shrimp Fried Rice. The Spring Rolls were one of the most amazing dishes Mike and I have ever had -EVER!

The name of the restaurant was “Yummy Coconut” and here is the man who wooed us in to the place and was really entertaining while we were eating. He told us he was from Hong Kong and that was why he could speak English so well. At the end of our meal he brought us a can of Coconut Juice to taste and it was really wonderful. When I asked him to pose for a photo he said, “I want to have big muscles like him.” (pointing at Mike)

Nadia ended up sleeping through our entire meal and for another hour while Mike and I wandered around the shops in the mall. She woke up and we went into the trendiest McDonald’s on the face of the earth and we got her a happy meal and I got a pineapple fried pie. I was hoping for a banana pie like our last trip, but the pineapple was delicious.

After leaving the mall we stopped at a little grocery store to get Diet Coke, a big bottle of water, and I found Lemon flavored and Milk flavored Ritz. We also got some peanut butter and chocolate Oreos that are awesome. They are not as sweet as in America which makes them super delicious.

Once back in the room we just killed time until we could go to sleep. We were all really tired, but had to stay up. We walked up the hallway to see what they had for the evening happy hour to eat and drink. Nadia wanted milk, but they serve it here juice box style and I think it’s very highly pasteurized and she thinks it tasted odd, but she still drank it. Here she is playing in the tub with her toys and no water.

I am going to put up another post later today with photos from Mike’s camera. Now we are headed out to wander around the town.

First I want to answer the luggage question – we packed three 25″ compact duffels, 2 backpacks and Nadia’s Minnie bag. We also brought our stroller, and just from our day of travel I am SO HAPPY that we did.

I was able to sleep about 5 hours and Mike got about 3 hours and then we got up to head for the airport. We picked up my aunt Paula at her house and then she took our car home after work (thanks Paula!). We got through security very quickly and then found some breakfast and waited at our gate until it was time to board.  Once we found our seats Nadia was very excited to see that everyone had a TV screen of their own. I want to take a moment now to talk about how awesome Korean Air is – they completely lived up to all the hype we had heard. We flew economy with them, but their economy seats have a slightly longer pitch and they fly direct from DFW to Seoul. Each seat had a blanket, pillow, bottle of water and a kit with toothbrush, toothpaste and slippers. Right before take off they came over to check on Nadia and to tell us what her meals were going to be. They marked her seat with a sticker. 10 minutes after take off they came over and gave us a large trash bag and our own box of tissues. They did this for the 2 other families with small children who were in the 2 rows in front of us also. The in-flight entertainment had movies, TV shows, tons of music, kids stuff and video games. I played some Mega Alien game for like 90 minutes and it was a fun diversion. Nadia enjoyed playing Memory.

About an hour into the flight they came by with drinks for everyone and they brought Nadia a Korean Air backpack that had an activity book, stencils and a magna-doodle shaped like a plane. Super cool. Then they served all the children their food first. I thought this was so smart because we could get Nadia settled and actually eat a hot meal ourselves. The food was very good and there was a lot of it! Throughout the flight they offered water, juice and tea along with serving 2 other snacks. On our 2 hour flight from Seoul to Beijing they served a full meal and once again brought Nadia some Korean Air activities.

On the 15 hour flight from DFW to Korea Nadia had a meltdown at about 8.5 hours in, along with every other child in our section. That was A LOT of crying. Mommy was close to a meltdown at about hour 11.5 because I just needed to sleep. At that point Nadia had only slept about an hour and a half and she was all grabby on me and poking me and I was going a little crazy. Mike was awesome and suggested we switch seats so that I could be on the outside and get a nap. It was great. Then Nadia was awake during our layover and kept telling me she was not tired. She instantly feel asleep once we took off and slept the entire 2 hours. Then she slept in the stroller while we did everything in the airport, and in the car on the way to the hotel.

Click the photo below to see all the photos in this album.

We got to the airport in Beijing and I commented to Mike that if you had asked me when I was a teen or even 10 years ago if I thought I would be familiar with the layout and routine of the Beijing airport I would have laughed. We breezed through customs, exchanged some money and grabbed our bags. Our driver was waiting with a sign and we headed out to his car. It’s funny the looks and comments that our linked together luggage got, but it worked like a charm. We were told the drive to the hotel would take an hour, but it actually took less than a half hour. We got to the hotel and tried to check in and she said we needed to go the Premier desk on the 19th floor. We are staying at the Novotel Peace hotel and online I found an awesome Chinese New year deal. You had to pay in advance to get the deal, but we would get a King suite on the executive floor. We got all checked in and they told us that our breakfast would be included each morning and that each evening there is a happy hour with food on our floor. We headed to our room and were totally amazed at how giant it was! It’s like a big apartment huge! When the guy brought our bags he told us that we were in the largest suite in the entire hotel. We are on the top floor in a corner room with an awesome view. It also has 2 bathrooms and the master bath tub is like a hot tub. Nadia asked me first thing this morning if I would take a bath in it with her.

We got to sleep by 10:30, which was wonderful, and Nadia woke us up at 5:30 and she was just happy and chipper as could be. We woke up to a light dusting of snow that looks really pretty. We had breakfast downstairs and it had a huge selection of American, Chinese and French food. I told Mike you know you are in China when you get fried rice for breakfast. YUM! They also make their own fruit yogurt and all I have to say is yum, again!

Now we are just playing with some of Nadia’s toys and trying to decide what to do today to keep ourselves going. We were not expecting snow, so I don’t know what we are going to do. My goal of the day is to find some Orange Ritz so perhaps we will just hunt down a grocery store or Walmart.

Oh and because it’s year of the Rabbit this is what they have in the hotel lobby.