Last night we had a great meal of Beijing Duck and woke up early today for another day in the city with Jasmine.

Just back from another great day...Went to the Bei Hai Park, Lama Palace, Houtangs (alleys) tour...

Lunch was great today...the best noodles dish I have ever had and pork and string beans...then some weird spicy beef that Doug tried but I wasn't game enough to try...

Our cute incident for today...

One older man today...he must have been 75 to 80 came up to us in the park and said to our 26 year old guide..."I am listening to your English. It is very good. I will say to your Americans, 'Holy Mackeral.' Then he turned to us and said "Can you tell me what that means?" So Doug explained it to him. He then told us he visited NY and asked us what we thought of Obama and Hillary Clinton. We said we hoped they would do the right things. He said "Let's hope together they can help us get world peace." And then he walked on...It was such a sweet and sincere exchange and experience.

The weather was beautiful and we walked our tootsies off today.

Tomorrow, we are going to meet Jane at last as we venture out to the Great Wall. We will tour with her our next two days.

We really liked Jasmine, a lovely 26 year old young lady. She was lamenting how her mother goes to parks and tries to match her up with other parents who are trying to fix up their sons there. Evidently, parents don't stay out of their childrens' business in China. As Donna mentioned the Temple of Heaven is very unusual and enjoyable. There is an area where parents come with their childrens' statistics and meet with other worried parents and exchange information. It is something to be seen. A parent or two who spoke English came up to us yesterday and asked us if we have this in the US. They made it very clear to us that as their children hit their 20's and were not living with anyone or dating anyone they became very worried and taking things into their own hands to make sure their children were dating was very important. It also made them feel better to meet all the other parents who were also very worried. They made it very clear that all they did though was bring home the names to their sons or daughters. It was totally free choice from that point on. It was really interesting talking to them. Jasmine confirmed this. She said now that she was 26 and didn't have a boyfriend her mother was very worried and went to the parks. She told her mother not to and her mother wouldn't listen and kept bringing home names of boys for her to call. She said she sometimes doesn't call them and tells her mother she does to stop her from nagging her. She says her mother feels comforted going to these parks and meeting all the other worried mothers. We saw loads of both fathers and mothers.

Jasmine was ever so sweet and knowledgeable, but everyone told me how great Jane was, so we will finally meet her at last.

What's really interesting is that this city has so many new buildings taxi drivers don't know where things are. There is a huge new mall called the Raffles Mall...you can't miss it...no taxi driver knows how to find it. They also can't find our hotel. They are very honest and, when they get lost, they turn off the meter. We were really impressed with that! So, you really have to make sure you get the directions in chinese with a street address before you leave your hotel or else the taxi drivers absolutely will refuse to take you. If you have it, they will go out of their way to find it for you. They are very service oriented and nice.

Tonight, we ate dinner at our hotel at a great Asian restaurant in our hotel called Bei. It was Japanese, Korean and Southern Chinese. Expensive, but worth it. No smoking too!!! It was a multi course dinner and was really great. I don't remember Doug's meal, but I had a mushroom salad salad, a wagyu sashimi salad (yum), a beef wagyu tenderloin (yum yum), and an ice cream trio of pear, sour cherry and salt...yes, salt....it was wonderful. I think Doug's starter was a scallop and clam with cramberry foam and his second course was a salmon sashimi.

We then went out walking in Santilun which is this cool, young nightclub area that our hotel is in. It is near the silk market and Yashow market. We have a full day tomorrow and want to look at our photos, so will sign off.

More tomorrow!