Separate and Together

February 13th — I wake with swollen, very sore feet. There is no way I can handle a full day walking tour in The Forbidden City and The Summer Palace with these feet. I give John my APS camera, lots of film cartridges, very specific photo instructions (like this photo of the covered walkway at The Summer Palace), and send him off.

My goal for the day: put my feet up (literally), and hop a taxi down to the SciTech Mall about a mile away, to see if I can find a good pair of comfortable athletic shoes.

John is having fun wandering around with our group, revisiting familiar places from our December 1999 trip. He does an EXCELLENT job taking photos, much to his surprise.

Around lunch time, I decide to venture out. All the taxis have disappeared. I guess they have to eat lunch, too. With trusty map in hand, I take off for a very painful one mile walk to the SciTech Mall.

SciTech Mall is really one big store. Nordstrom on steroids. It could be overwhelming to the average Western shopper. Unless that average Western shopper is a well-seasoned veteran of The Mall of America. I start riding elevators, walking floors, in search of the place where athletic shoes are sold. Smiling at all the people wondering what I was doing in their Mall.

After using my entire Chinese vocabulary*, I finally become the owner of a pair of blue size 9 Nike Airs. In my new shoes, I almost stroll back to the hotel.

John comes wandering in after 6 pm, exhausted from the day tour. But excited that we are going to a Beijing duck place recommended by our liaison, Tu. With Tu’s directions and my map in hand, a bunch of us take off for … the subway and Wangfujing Street.

After walking a short way down Wangfujing, we duck down an alley and find The Duck. It’s the same fabulous Beijing Duck place we ate at on our first trip. Eat great food. Get grossed out by duck parts and duck soup (what was Groucho thinking?). Now mandatory photos with The Duck afterwards. Kelly and Carl looked particularly comfy with The Duck.

We decided to go down another alley off Wangfujing Street. We found a night market — an absolute delight! You could buy anything you want there — from porcelain and jade to scorpions and snakes on a stick. It felt like the Minnesota State Fair. Especially the food-on-a-stick part.

As you can see from this final photo, I was having WAY too much fun running around. I didn’t think about my feet again until I was in the subway. I was too busy soaking in everything I could about Beijing — so in the future I could tell Rachel and Sarah about this wonderful time in their homeland.

This evening test showed me I was ready for the next day — a trip to The Great Wall.

*Jiao. Mei Guo. Bu hong se de. Xie Xie. — Nine. United States. Not red. Thank you!