Beijing!

We flew from Hong Kong to Beijing (the Capital of China) for our Beijing trip! At this point I had a full on cold and so I was SO HAPPY to see Starbucks (don’t judge me—you know I support local at home) and got a Chai tea latte and orange juice. Fun fact: Starbucks has REALLY good food in Asia. We got to Beijing and it was FREEZING! But, I was so happy when I stepped off the plane and smelled Fall—which my friend pointed out, was probably burning pollution—but I am going to picture a nice cozy fire instead! We took a pedicab (which is a three wheeled bicycle) to a local families house. It was so cold outside, but it was really fun to get to ride through narrow streets and see all the neighborhoods. We arrived at a little house where a lady and her husband had prepared a traditional Chinese meal for us. The kitchen area was small and we all gathered around little tables and got our own chopsticks and had all kinds of yummy food. She served sticky rice, spicy things and hot and sour things with chicken and beef, veggies, soup, pot stickers. It was so good. While we ate she told us about her family, her house that was over 300 years old and the traditional customs of a family, inheritance, marriage, children etc in China. Her husband was the fourth generation living in his family’s house and the house is only passed onto the oldest son. Her husband was an artist and so they showed us all of his paintings and his studio. The artwork was beautiful and the rice paper was amazing.