Sunday in Beijing

I got to sleep in today before leaving for the 10:30 service at the Beijing International Church--only foreign passport holders were allowed inside, due to government regulations. The service was quite good, Acts 8:1, about the scattering of the church and also about persecution for one's faith. Rather appropriate in a country that only lets foreigners practice their faith. As planned, I met Vanessa there. She was with Stuart, a Yalie that had been at the disco with us. He knew a girl named Charley, also from Yale, who knew a guy from Texas, who was teaching English and Guitar in China.

We all went for Korean food with some more people that Charley knew, one of whom was Korean and only knew Korean and Chinese. We let her order, since she knew what was good. The food was very good and apparently also very authentic. I had lots of stuff, one of which was Ox-Tail soup...the meat still had bones in it! We sat on mats at low tables, and they even had hostesses in traditional outfits.

From there, we went to Starbucks for coffee and talked until 4 pm. At that point we went our separate ways, myself back to the apartment to pack. At 5 o'clock, Mr. Ren showed me some of the country club before setting me up on the shuttle bus to the airport at 5:30 pm. I paid the departure tax and had no problem checking in. They didn't even ask for my passport or any ID. I was through customs by 5:50, but it didn't much matter since the flight was late getting in, so we boarded around 7:20 pm. Dinner was a pretty good peppered chicken leg in pesto sauce w/ potatoes and white wine. The food on Dragonair and Cathay Pacific are really good. And the music on Dragonair was terrific: Dance/Techno, Jazz, oldies, and classical.

Not my flight: this plane is apparently a nightclub

Around 10:40 pm, I had the luck to see the city, from Central to Mongkok, lit up in the night, like an electric rose garden planted between the clouds. The glow were only dimmed, not obscured by clouds. I caught the E34 bus from the Airport at 11:30 pm and I was home around 12:30.

Related Links:

• More posts from: Summer in Asia: Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, China, & Indonesia
• End of Tour Summary: Korea
• Our Adventures in New Zealand and Australia