Siem Reap, Cambodia- Day 6, Dec. 28 – Elephant Rides and Angkor Wat

We’d packed the night before so we’d be ready for our flight home from Cambodia in the afternoon.  The hotel was nice and held our luggage for us until we returned in the afternoon before heading to the airport. B and I ate a delicious breakfast of Cambodian (Khmer) fried rice while the kids ate toast with weird jam on it and we waited for our tuk tuk driver.

The hotel pool.  No time to swim. 😦

Our first stop was riding elephants, which is available until mid-morning.

From B:

The first place we stopped had all their elephants already engaged, so she recommended a different place. They charged me $45 ($15 for each of the adults and the kids were free, I guess), so I paid with a fifty. Then the woman asked if I wanted to buy a pineapple. I said, “No we just ate breakfast.” It turned out she was selling whole pineapples to feed to the elephant. We rode our elephants around a temple. It was fun, but not a very smooth ride. Afterwards, we bought pineapples to feed to the elephant.

Feeding the elephant pineapples:

As we walked away, the elephant trunk came towards Squirt sniffing around for pineapple, Squirt looked at the trunk and hurried past a little more quickly.

From B: Then we went to Angkor Wat. On the way, we passed some monkeys sitting on the grass. We asked our guy to stop for us to see the [macaque] monkeys. While we were stopped, a monkey got into the basket on the front of an unattended motorcycle and stole the owner’s breakfast. That was fun to watch.

From B: We toured Angkor Wat. A guy tried to sell me a guide book that, the day before, I saw someone else selling for a dollar. He started off noting the MSRP on the back is $27.50 and offering $25. I figured I’d pay about $10, so I said no. He came down to $20, then $15, then $12. After a long time of following me, he offered $10, but by then I’d already established that I wasn’t going to buy from him. Inside the temple, a different guy was selling it for $12. I wanted to keep my ones, though, so I actually preferred a price of $15 to $12. He was thrown off by my offering more, so he gave us some postcards to go with the book.

My camera lens must have gotten sweaty, or condensation on it at this point because the next batch of pictures are blurry and the lighting is weird.

Little Guy read a Jack Stalwart book that is set here and he’s pretty sure this is the lake into which Jack Stalwart parachuted.

From B: N made friends with a shopkeeper named Plee, and we were going to come back to her stall and buy something because she was so friendly and chatted with N about their kids, but when we got out of the temple, we couldn’t find her. Meanwhile, my first guidebook seller was offering $10, then $5, then $1. Lots of the stalls had numbers, but Plee’s didn’t have a number. She had told N, “I’ll see you if you come back,” but she didn’t get our attention as we walked back and forth, while everyone else tried to sell us everything they had.

From B: We bought a pineapple and a mango from a woman, and N [tripped] almost dropped Simon on his face getting into the tuk-tuk. We asked our driver where else we should go, since we still had several hours until we had to leave for the airport. I thought he would suggest another Angkor site, since we’d already bought tickets for it. Instead, he suggested the war museum. I did not want to see a Khmer Rouge atrocity museum myself, let alone take my children to see one. I told him, “That would be too sad.” So he took us to downtown Siem Reap to do some shopping. I bought some software that I’m pretty sure won’t work, and I got a Manchester City jersey for Little Guy. We bought some more ice cream, then bought some Tintin artwork for our house, then went back to the tuk-tuk. Again, we had time before we needed to leave for the airport, but our driver suggested he take us back to the hotel, even though we’d checked out already. But we didn’t really know what else to do, we went to sit in the lobby area (the ground floor was wall-less and had cafe seating and a swimming pool) for an hour and use the hotel wi-fi.

Two tuk tuks took us to the airport (B heavily tipped them since it was a $5 ride and all he had left were 20s and we’d wanted to heavily tip OUR tuk tuk driver, his friend just had a lucky day).  We waited, at a Kit Kat Blizzard from Dairy Queen, tried not to think about the missing Air Asia flight that went missing that morning from Malaysia, and eventually boarded our plane back to Bangkok where we’d have a few hours layover before our evening flight to Beijing. We arrived at Beijing after midnight, spent a long wait in line to re-enter the country.  By the time we got to the train to take us to baggage claim, Squirt was hysterical (he’d fallen asleep on the first, hour flight, from Siem Reap) and it took forever for him to fall asleep on the flight to Beijing.  We got our bags and found our driver we’d arranged ahead of time.  I think we got back to our apartment around 3 am… not quite what we had thought about when we booked a flight that landed at 12:45am. B taught the next morning at 7:45.

Siem Reap, Cambodia- Day 5, Dec. 27 – Ta Keo & Angkor Thom

Next our tuk tuk driver took us to Ta Keo.  This temple had a lot of steep steps, it was tough for Squirt, but he made it to the top. (Even with a shoe that we’d just discovered was falling apart and we had used a hair rubber band to reattach the flappy part of the sole to the shoe.)

From B: Next, we stopped at Ta Keo, which was very tall and had a lot fewer people. We climbed up to the top. When we were again at the bottom, I bought some more water. The woman was selling both the large and regular size bottles for a dollar each. She must make so much money from her mark-up that she can afford it. Also, since coins are heavy and difficult to import, they use Cambodian money for less-than-dollar prices, but most tourists don’t have any Cambodian money, so the smallest unit of account is the dollar.

We continued on to Angkor Thom. On the way, we spotted wild monkeys in the jungle. Pictures and videos of the monkeys will be in tomorrow’s post.  And a Google search teaches us they are macaque monkeys.

 

From B: At one of the temples, immodestly-dressed women were not allowed. A young French couple in front of us were flabbergasted. Instead of buying something to cover up with (one of the reasons there are clothing sellers around), they just backed up a bit, allowed us to get our children turned away (no one under 12 allowed, they said), and then the French guy palmed some cash, shook the man’s hand and said, “Sir, please.” They let the immodestly-dressed woman in.

I was angry. The conventional wisdom around the world is that Americans are rude, presumptuous, and condescending, but everyone we saw on our trip who was rude was European. At our Thailand hotel, an Australian couple was nice to us, while a young Spaniard was rude and took food intended for our kids. In Cambodia, the very few Americans we saw were appreciating the foreign culture, while the Europeans we saw were put out that things were up to the standards of Europe. I’m sure this French guy knows all the talking points about Americans thinking money solves everything, but when it came down to it, it was the Frenchman who disrespected Buddhism and Khmer culture because his girlfriend couldn’t be bothered to not wear shorts.

N stayed at the bottom with the boys while PS and I climbed to the top. At the top, some Cambodian teenaged boys asked to take their picture with PS. Afterwards, as we walked away, I said to PS, “You know what they’re saying to each other right now? ‘I didn’t know a person could be that pale without being a ghost.'”

It was a long, hot, sweaty day so we went back to the hotel around 3 or 4pm.  Squirt fell asleep in the tuk tuk on the way. We relaxed in our hotel for a little while before heading out to find diapers and dinner.

After getting diapers (pull-ups, sold individually from a street vendor was the best we could find), we hired a tuk tuk to take us from our hotel (the In Miles Boutique) part of town into the downtown, touristy streets and Pub Street where we found a French/Cambodian restaurant called Le Cafe Grand to eat at for dinner. It was Brandon’s birthday (starting in Bangkok, ending on Pub Street in Siem Reap). We ate: spring rolls, satay, Khmer noodles, fried mango and chicken with rice, and green curry soup.

Since it was B’s birthday, we got gelato for dessert. Yum.

Siem Reap, Cambodia- Day 5, Dec. 27 – Ta Prohm

Our flight from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia was at 8am.  We needed to meet our ride to the airport at 5am, so we needed to wake up at 4am.  Unfortunately, my cell phone didn’t auto adjust to Thailand time when we arrived in Thailand and Bangkok is one hour earlier than Beijing.  We went down to the front desk of the hotel and checked out only to have the clerk inform us that is was 4am and our shuttle wouldn’t arrive for another hour.  She was nice and let us return to our room where we spent the next 50 minutes playing/reading on devices.

The flight between Bangkok and Siem Reap is one hour.  B spent the entire flight filling out the immigration forms and visa applications for Cambodia.  The one hour flight also included a full meal (we’d just eaten at the airport).  Thailand doesn’t require a visa for tourists for under 30 days because were were American.  Cambodia requires a visa so after landing we finished filling out our forms and waited in line. In Cambodia, we dealt in US dollars.  For change smaller than a dollar, they’d give us Cambodian money, but most places quoted us both currencies or only US dollars.From B: We got to the front of the line and the man looked through our papers, then said, “One hundred eighty dollars.” A guy from church had said the Cambodian immigration agent had tried to charge them full price for their kids but after some arguing, he had relented. I gestured to the three littlest kids and made a “they’re small” hand signal (hands close together), and the man said, “Ninety dollars.” So Buddy, Little Guy, and Squirt went from being full price to being free.

 

We’d arranged with our hotel to be picked up and to store our luggage until check-in time.  There were two tuk tuks waiting for us at the airport.  I spent the ride to the hotel taking in everything we went past as well as worrying that our tuk tuk driver had lost B’s tuk tuk driver and who knew if we could trust these people.  Luckily, we all ended up at our hotel where they presented us with orange “juice” and an ice cold wash cloth.  They let us take our stuff up to our room (shoes off in the lobby, no elevator, 4th floor).  Then they arranged for the 2nd tuk tuk driver to be our driver for the day and he took us out to the sites.

The tuk tuks in Cambodia are a trailer being pulled by a motorcycle and have two benches (instead of the one bench and a little step that the Thai tuk tuks have).  This was much more comfortable for our entire family to ride in one.  For $15-20/day, you have a tuk tuk driver to drive you to the sites and wait for you while you get out and walk around the temples.  We had the same driver both days, his English wasn’t perfect and we sometimes had to explain things in different terms, but it was pretty good and he was very nice.

From B:  We got our visas, then our luggage, then exited the airport. A man was waiting for us, holding a sign with my name on it. He had a friend with him, but it seemed the friend knew very little (perhaps no) English. They had the Cambodian version of tuk-tuks, which are two-wheeled trailers that attach to the back of motorcycles. They have two benches, one facing forward and one facing backward, so they can seat six pretty comfortably. We only needed two to get out of the airport because we had our luggage with us. Anyway, I went with Buddy and Little Guy and a suitcase and two carry-on bags, and N went with PS and Squirt and the other suitcase and two carry-on bags. We drove down the highway from the airport to Siem Reap, past giant luxury hotels and tiny hovels. Eventually, we got to our hotel, In Miles Boutique. It was down a small driveway from the road between Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. (Sometimes I feel like Jay Gatsby, always on the wrong side of the harbor. N and I like the things we see and do, but they are always slightly off from the version that everyone else does. A woman from church told us some fabulous hotel in Siem Reap that we HAD to stay at, but instead we ended up staying at kind of a weird retrofitted hotel that no one visiting Siem Reap would even see by accident.)

We started at an entrance gate where we showed our passports and PS, B and I paid (12 and up, $40USD for a three day pass) and got these tickets which we had to show at the “entrance” to each site.

Our first stop was Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm is famous from Angelina Jolie’s Tomb Raider movie and is a favorite among tourists because it is very much still in ruins (trees growing through the buildings, etc.). People selling stuff to tourists in Cambodia is a bit annoying.  They follow you and walk alongside you for a very long time trying to sell their souvenirs/water/postcards, etc. Their English is really good.  It was really hot and humid.  I was happy to see that in our pictures, you can’t see that we are completely drenched in sweat.

This map should give you an idea of where we were traveling:

From B:

We started at Ta Prohm, which I guess is famous for being the site left most in its “natural” state, with giant trees growing all over it. It was in the “Tomb Raider” movie, evidently. I was very frustrated by the constant picture taking. Instead of coming to Cambodia to see things, everyone was there to take pictures of things. And everyone expected the other visitors to get out of the way of their pictures. One group of tourists wanted a picture down a long walkway, so they were holding up large groups of people to get the walkway empty.

Lots of the people were French. Almost none of the tourists were American. Outside each site was a gathering of locals selling bottled water, trinkets, clothing, guidebooks, and food. When we got back to our tuk-tuk, I bought some water and a pineapple (which was so delicious, like the one in Thailand), and a magnet from an adorable little girl who was probably four years old and just kept saying, “You buy, one dollar.” Of course, as soon as I bought anything, I had a giant crowd, so we had to make our escape in the tuk-tuk pretty quickly.

 

Squirt got in a “smile for the camera” mood, so I took advantage of it:

We bought water bottles, pineapple, mango and a magnet from street vendors.

Bangkok, Thailand- Day 2, Dec. 24

Our hotel was a bit out of the way, but just a short walk from a Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) stop that took us into town and near both the subway line and the Skytrain line.  Our first stop was a mall for an ATM to get some BAHT (divide by 30 to get a price in USD) and some food.  Thailand was great as far as people speaking English and there being more western foods and stores (including a 7-Eleven every block).  We ate delicious pasta, scrumptious sandwiches and Aunty Ann’s pretzels. Then we just sort of walked around to get a feel for Bangkok eventually ending up at the Chao Phraya River for a river cruise.

 

Our river cruise took us up the river, down and canal, back to the river and dropped us off at Wat Arun.  On the canal, I spotted these giant, alligator lizard things sunning on the bank.  We looked them up when we got back to the hotel and they are monitor lizards. The river water was gross and full of trash so I feel bad for those lizards. We also pulled up next to some boats selling stuff (floating market) and spent some time waiting in the canal lock with other river cruise boats waiting for the water to raise/lower to the right height. Squirt fell asleep.

Wat Arun – The Temple of Dawn

We’d been told ahead of time that a lot of the temples don’t allow women to wear shorts, short skirts, tank tops, flip-flops, etc.  I wasn’t sure if this included men and children or not so to play it safe, we wore pants and closed-toe shoes for the entire trip.  It was hot.  BUT, there were signs at most of the temples, women had to put on provided kimonos (and who knows how often they are cleaned), and I even saw men wearing borrowed pants.  I’m not sure about the flip flop thing because most temples make you take off your shoes. If we do this again, I’d pack a sari for PS and I to tie around our waist like a long skirt and make the boys wear zipper pant/shorts.

We took a ferry back across the river to the other side, and visited Wat Pho aka Reclining Buddha (with wild cats/kittens everywhere).

We had a tuk tuk drive us to a neighborhood where all the fancy hotels are because they are supposed to have nice lights for Christmas (it was Christmas Eve after all).

We accidentally wandered into a mall with the outdoor courtyard taken over by Santa Snoopy statues.

  

 We took this picture on the subway (or maybe SkyTrain) home because Little Guy was concerned about all the pick pocket warning signs everywhere.  We kept telling him he didn’t need to worry because he didn’t actually have anything in his pockets.  He was still concerned.

 

Our hotel was three bedrooms and for some reason, the twin beds in each room were pushed together.  I kept them like they were to prevent Squirt from rolling out.  Here’s how I found them when I went to check on how they were doing.

Thailand- Day 1, Dec. 23

Initially, this trip was supposed to be only to Siem Reap, Cambodia.  A friend at church suggested it as one of their favorite places and we figured with the short amount of time B had off for Christmas, it would be perfect.  Except, there are only so many flights a week and they didn’t fit (going or returning) with the days we had off.  B suggested Bangkok and after setting that plan into motion, we decided we should try to fly from Bangkok to Siem Reap.  Amazingly (especially after the travel disaster moving to China was) everything fell into place and worked out wonderfully.

B’s schedule was to teach December 23rd and finish at 4:30pm, with four hours off before that last class of the day.  Our flight to Bangkok left Beijing Capital International Airport at 7:45pm.  Probably enough time, but after our previous fiasco, I was worried.  B’s principal was really nice when B mentioned it to him and told him to leave at lunch and he’d cover B’s last class.  Woo hoo.  We left way earlier than needed, took the subway to the Airport Express line (¥25), got to our check-in desk before it was open and waited around.  Like I said, we were a little overzealous in wanting to get to the airport and not miss our flight.

The bottom, right-hand picture is Squirt asleep on the plane resting his feet on PS.

We land late.  It’s a 5 or 6 hour flight.  Looking around after going through customs B recognizes a teacher from his school that he doesn’t really know, but must have been on our flight.  He ends up being on our return flight too, on B’s row a few seats over. We had arranged for a shuttle to take us to our hotel.  Eventually, we spot someone holding a sign with my name on it.  They have us wait and then walk us to the waiting van.  The kids are in various stages of sleep during the really long drive to the hotel.  B, being a map guy realizes the driver is taking the long way to the hotel to avoid toll roads.  It seems to take forever, but we eventually arrive at our hotel.  It’s called iCheck Inn Residences – Sathorn.  It’s basically short-term apartments for business travelers that they also rent out to families.  We have a three bedroom apartment complete with kitchen, washer/dryer, and enough beds for everyone.  It’s very nice.

Tianjin: Wednesday, Nov. 12

Finishing up in Tianjin.

The kids got ahold of my phone and took a lot of crazy pictures.  We woke, dressed, packed and went to the train station to buy tickets (to avoid a 5 hour wait).  I was unnessessary this time, we could have hopped on a train in 20 minutes but our luggage was at the hotel.  We ate breakfast at the train station McDonald’s (Egg McMuffins minus the cheese for some reason).  Tickets in hand, we headed back to the hotel, finished packing, double-checked that we’d left nothing behind and checked out.

Orange Juice machine in our mall.  We finally had a 10 yuan note and tried it out.  Pretty good.

Waiting for the train back to Beijing.

Tianjin: Tuesday, Nov. 11 – Part 2

Th main attractions we wanted to see in Tianjin were the Tianjin Tower (for the view) and the Tianjin Eye (for the view and because ferris wheels seem exciting and fun).  We also wanted to do a river cruise at night (for the view) but it was pretty cold so we opted to skip that on this trip.

After the Nanshi Food Mall, we walked across town (not too far) to the Tianjin Eye.  On the way we passed people launching lanterns like in the Disney movie Tangled but we were set on the ferris wheel, so we kept going.

The air wasn’t bad.  I think he was keeping his nose warm.

It was a cold night.  The outside part of the line was only about 25 minutes and then another 15-20 minutes inside.  Once you are in your “car,” it’s a 30 minute trip around the wheel.  Our car was our family plus one young Chinese guy.

Tianjin: Tuesday, Nov. 11 – Part 1

We woke up Tuesday morning with this view from our hotel room window.  I know that it doesn’t show much without a before comparison, but the air had been horrible the first two days we’d been in Tianjin and we’d only been able to see a handful of these buildings.  It was a clear day, perfect for all the “seeing” we had planned for Tianjin.

First up, the Tianjin Radio and TV Tower (very similar to the CCTV tower in Beijing). It was fun to go to the top and almost be able to see to the ocean.  Maybe on an even clearer day, the ocean would have been visible.  It’s 415 meters, so it’s actually 10 meters taller than the tower in Beijing. Inside it has pictures of other tall towers.  It was fun to see the Eiffel Tower (which I’ve been to), the Tokyo Tower (which I’ve been to), the CN Tower in Toronto (which B’s been to) and the John Hancock Center (which we’ve all been to).  Plus some other buildings we plan to see, like the Pearl Tower in Shanghai.

While up in the tower admiring the views it wasn’t Squirt and the other kids who drew a crowd, it was me.  Maybe they didn’t see the rest of the family, or maybe they just wanted a picture of the crazy foreigner with FOUR kids.  I had to spend a great deal of time while an older woman tried to take a picture of me with her husband on her cell phone camera.  I was trying hard not to crack up because she had the camera so low, it was obvious our heads weren’t going to make the picture.  Her husband just sort of shrugged and smiled at me after he saw what his wife had captured.  But then I had to have my picture taken with the wife and two of her friends.  Eventually they had me track down a kid for a picture, but the family was scattered about so I don’t think they ever ended up with a picture of all four kids, unless they were standing behind me while I took a picture (which happens a lot).

This was near a church we didn’t actually end up going in but it looks cool.

This was an area called Ancient Cultural Street full of lots of little vendors.

We then walked to Tianjin Nanshi Food Mall.  It has a McDonalds, and some other sit down style restaurants, but mostly it’s just people selling their food, or street foods, but off the street.  It’s a two story, mall-like building (although as far as we could tell, the 2nd story was closed).  I’d promised the kids we’d warm up on hot chocolate after the whole, Ancient Cultural Street plus a long walk, freezing part of the day.  We SLOWLY drank hot chocolate at a McDonald’s, even skimming the cooler part off the top with a straw.

We tried Jian Bing (which B’s students had told him was the street food he loves and described to them, it wasn’t, but we wanted to try Jian Bing now).

Part 2 coming soon to a new blog post.

Tianjin: Monday, Nov. 10

We requested two connected rooms at the Tianjin Aqua City (area of town/mall) Holiday Inn. We ended up with two rooms (1 King sized bed per room) across the hall from each other.  We put the three big kids in one bed (they all fit decently) and B and I took the larger room with a couch and a bench for Squirt’s bed.  Our hotel was connected to a mall and in the basement of the mall was a subway stop.

Monday we woke up and went to the McDonald’s in the mall for breakfast.  It was too late for breakfast (and we found out later in the trip that it didn’t matter because this mall McDonald’s didn’t serve breakfast ever) so the kids (and B) elected to have Chicken McNuggets, etc. for breakfast.

Our hotel from across the street.

An adorable street sweeper.

The air was horrible on Monday.  I don’t remember exactly what the number was, but it was above 200 which is “very unhealthy.”  This had us a bit worried because we’d planned to walk around town a lot and a lot of what we wanted to do in Tianjin depended on seeing views.

We started at Gulou N Street and walked toward the Drum Tower and then down Gulou S Street.

To illustrate how poor the air was.

     

The caution signs for drivers in China are great and Buddy already loved signs.  In Beijing, we aren’t really on any of the big streets that have these signs unless we are on a bus so we haven’t had a chance to get very man pictures.  In Tianjin we saw a lot.

Tianjin has an Italian Style Town. All that really looked different to us was the cobblestone street and the naked, marble statues.  Apparently, as a coastal town, Tianjin, in the 1880-1900s was the port of Beijing, so westerners trading with China had a lot of turn of the century, European architecture and history (similar to Shanghai).

We walked to a Walmart (B wanted to look for a better map of Tianjin) and learned that our Walmart is ghetto compared to this one in Tianjin.  Then we walked to a giant, outdoor mall (and fancy indoor mall) on Heping Rd. and walked past the St. Regis hotel which looked pretty cool.

Off this mall strip was a food alley.  A bunch of people jumped in front of us in the churro line so we walked to the end of the street and back.  Being a coastal city, there were a lot of fried squid on a stick options.  There were also these aebleskiver looking balls.  We bought a pack of them before I saw the guy making them put a bit of raw looking bacon in each one before flipping it over.  We were feeling adventurous, but I was wary of that raw looking bacon so I ate a small, not through the middle bite.  It was okay, but hot, and a little doughy in the middle.  We ended up trashing them and getting churros.  Later, we looked it up on the internet and found out those are squid balls and westerners find them thoroughly disgusting.  Glad we didn’t bite right into them!

After the food alley, we spotted a cool looking church (St. Joseph’s Cathedral or Lao Xikai Catholic Church), walked to it, found a Paris Baguette (my favorite of the Chinese/French bakeries), got a snack and headed to Five Great Avenues, where five streets intersect.

We headed back to our hotel and wandered over to the attached mall for dinner.  Outside the fancier restaurants in Chinese malls, at the host/hostess podium, there is usually a picture menu.  The food at this particular restaurant looked good so we went there.  After being seated in a shower-themed area, we looked at the tables near us (toilet-themed) and realized our restaurant had some sort of bathroom theme happening.  Complete with poop-filled bowls under the clear glass tables at the toilet booths.

A Vacation: Tianjin, China

APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) had their huge meeting in Beijing this year. Everything shut down. It was like Golden Week all over again. The government wanted air pollution and traffic to be at a minimum so they shut a bunch of stuff down for a week. This included B’s school. He had off November 7-12 (but had to work a Saturday and a Sunday to make up for some of it). Initially, we were thinking of traveling to Chengdu to see the pandas in a panda preserve there, but the longer we took to decide (overnight train vs. flying, etc.) the more expensive it was getting, so instead we decided to take a mini vacation to Tianjin, just 37 minutes away via high speed train. We booked a hotel for a few nights and the next day we found out the Young Women’s Girls Camp was going to be while we were gone. Luckily, since we’d decided against Chengdu, all we had to do was cancel the reservations and make them again for the second half of the APEC holiday. Princess Sparkley went to camp Thursday night (to the leader’s house), then to the Great Wall Friday and home late late Saturday night.* Sunday we left for Tianjin.

We’d read online that the high speed train (at least to Tianjin) is easy as far as buying tickets goes because they leave every thirty minutes or so meaning there is no need for advance purchase. We didn’t take into account APEC week traveling and needing 5 tickets (Squirt is free) on the same train. We bought our tickets and then had FIVE hours to kill at the Beijing South Train Station.

We started at Pizza Hut (which, so far in Beijing has always been a nice, sit down restaurant with a rather extensive (not just pizza) menu. Squirt and I took pictures. We all explored the train station a bit next. Squirt liked going in the various stores. The kids played their Kindles. We created a spectacle with our giant family. And finally… FINALLY, we boarded our train and 37 minutes later we were in Tianjin. I wish we had a high speed train to church!

Did I mention my camera died? Not that it was great, but my cell phone doesn’t always do a good job either (see below).

Having gone through security twice (Beijing subways have medal detectors and then the train station security), Buddy had wondered if all the restaurants and shops in the train station had to put their food and products through security. On one of Squirt and my walks around the station, we saw it happening.

 

 

 

 

*The subway ride from the leader’s apartment was going to be about an hour and a half. PS was supposed to get dropped off at 9pm and the subway shuts down between 11 and 11:40pm. She didn’t get dropped off until after 10 due to getting lost, dropping other girls off, and getting stopped twice on the drive from the Great Wall and being required to show their passports (extra security due to APEC). She and B got home close to midnight just making the last train.