The China Experience in Beijing begins. The flight from Los Angeles was exceptionally tiring because we attended the KofC monthly meeting in San Bernardino, CA late into the night and had to drive to the Hyatt Hotel in Anaheim to be with our twin grand daughters Bea and Zoe along with their mother Rhanee and our other daughter Risha. The twins celebrated their 9th birthday on May 10.
Ces and I restlessly slept through the flight with a stopover in Narita Airport in Japan. We arrived at 10 p.m. on May 10. Yang Wang, a Grand Hyatt Beijing representative met us at the airport and efficiently whisked us through immigration and customs ahead of everyone else and sent us off on a Hyatt limo to the hotel.
The staff is pretty efficient at this Hyatt property. Our accommodation is in the Regency Club which opens up the lounge for us to enjoy breakfast and dinner amenities. Woo hoo! Diamond membership in the Hyatt definitely has its perks!
We had a late dinner of what else but seafood noodle soup and some dumplings at the hotel's 24-hour Grand Cafe. Delicious!
Tired we may have been, we still woke up at six and enjoyed breakfast at seven at the Regency Club lounge.
Two things impressed us today. First, Beijing is extremely clean. We spent a lot of time walking around and did not see even a small piece of paper or cigarette butt anywhere on the streets. Plus, there are flowering plants all over the sides of streets and the freeeways within the city. Second, the Catholic Church we heard holy mass at was filled to the rafters with people, mostly very young people!
We walked for 30 minutes from the hotel to the church. That's when we noticed how clean the sidewalks were. There were uniformed workers, much like the Metro Aides of Metro-Manila in the Philippines, with brooms and pans. They kept the streets clean.
We asked the young ushers about the presence of many young people in church. We found out that they have religious formation classes that run in three-month cycles. Apparently these classes are always full with young people graduating and getting baptized as Catholics. Thus, the presence of many young people in church. There were many, many more of them than there were old ones. The choir was outstanding with the congregation heartily singing along in Marian concert. It was also impressive to see that no one was in shorts and almost everyone at communion had their hands clasped in prayer over their chests as they walked to and from communion! Even if it was elbow room only situation, everyone managed to kneel when they were supposed to!
We took a cab to the Pan Ja Yah flea market. Despite the intermittent shower, the market was full. Of course, it is a covered market place. It had an array of both authentic and fake products: home crafts, antiques, paintings and the like. I bought a chess set of Chinese design for a bargained price of $30 from the quoted $200 and a cane for $5 from a quoted $80! Ces got herself and our daughters Aari and Mahal signature seals of their names in Chinese.
We were extremely tired by two in the afternoon and decided to take a cab back to the hotel where we had a snack of seafood noodle soup and various dumplings at the Made in China Restaurant at the hotel.
National Public Radio in the USA claims that the best Chinese food in Beijing is at the Made in China restaurant, particularly the Peking Duck.
One has to make reservations to have dinner at this restaurant. So we made one for tomorrow, Monday, May 12 at 8:45 p.m. and pre-ordered our Peking Duck. Apparently, one has to do this if one wants to have the duck!
We've never had a taste for duck. (Is it because of balut?) So, we'll find out what this duck is all about tomorrow!
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