The Best Valentine’s Day Ever

February 14, 2003

I had hoped that Rachel’s Gotcha Day would be Valentine’s Day, but things just didn’t work out that way. So instead we were in Beijing for a few more days before leaving on the 16th for Nanchang and Rachel.

For me, Valentine’s Day is more about fun and chocolate than about romance. Because face it, you don’t always have romance in your life. It’s more fun to spread cheer and have fun with your friends than to feel sad that you don’t have someone special.

The hotel restaurant was all dressed up for Valentine’s Day. There was going to be a big dinner event there that night. But we had already planned to hit the “Snacks” restaurant on the 4th floor for fun. But that was in the evening. In the meantime, we had a 1/2 day tour of the Great Wall at Mutianyu.

In hindsight, I had the good fortune to have an asthma attack as we walked up to the gondolas that would take us to the top of the Wall. Because I was having so much trouble breathing, John and I didn’t walk the Wall like the rest of the group. We basically stayed in one place and looked around. And what fun we had!

These photos are just a fraction of all the Wall photos I took during that hour on the Wall. It was warm, sunny, no wind. We were having fun trying to find the end of the Wall. We looked down at a small village in a valley, through my camera’s telephoto lens. We found crumbled sections off to one side. We just looked and absorbed. It was WONDERFUL.

In the evening, after a bit of a rest, we took Kelly and Carl up to the “Snacks” restaurant. We pigged out on Dim Sum Beijing style, drank tons of beer and tea. We laughed and had a good time. The other customers and the staff of the restaurant seemed to enjoy our jolly spirits; there were smiles all around.

Our total bill came to a very small amount, in U.S. currency, despite all the food and drink we consumed. We did notice right away that more than half of the bill was for beer… I suppose that would have been embarrassing if we weren’t having so much fun.

About half way through the meal, Kelly and I had started campaigning for chocolate ice cream. There was a Haagen Daaz about 1 block from our hotel. After eating and drinking our fill, we staggered down to the Haagen Daaz. But not without first ooggling at the HUGE Valentines bouquets many women were carrying. We’re talking at least two dozen white and red flowers of all types. I’m sure many bouquets had three dozen flowers.

Kelly and I were a little obvious as we exclamed over all the flowers. But we did get our chocolate in the end — an interesting fondue, ice cream, and fruit concoction. Plus we got fondue forks and a bouquet of yellow tulips!

We walked back to the hotel in high spirits. It was absolutely the best Valentine’s Day ever!