So after I kept walking past the Great Wall Tour Offer of my hostel for 3 days, thinking everyday 'should I go or the hell Ronja, Beijing is already freezing enough - you don't have to exaggerate', I went with thought two and decided that during my planned studies, for which I will have to come back to Beijing anyway, I would have plenty of time to enjoy the Wall on a nice warm day. So instead of heading to the Wall I decided the night before to hook up my Chinese roommate (who spent 9 days straight in the room sleeping without even seeing a square meter of a city she has never been to), who happened to be the owner of a jewelry shop back in her hometown, to accompany me for the day, but especially to Beijing's Ancient Jewelry Market called Panjiayuan. She was great company to find good bargains and was more than succesful saving me money. A thank you to Sarah at this point!
After we both bad plenty of jewelry in our bags (and had been freezing enough as this market was outside at an authentic old market place), we headed to Wangfujing, Beijing's biggest and most well-known shopping mile, having a stroll all the way up, carrying a candied fruit stick with us to not starve on the way *twinkle* to the same delicious hotpot place I went together with my Chinese teacher the day before. I just had too good of a time there to not not come back. So this time, instead of a mala tang aka spicy soup, I tried the gali tang aka curry soup and have to say it was waaay better than the day's before. Man, I could have taken a swim in that curry soup! As Sarah is a vegetarian, we ended up ordering tons of veggies to dump into our own little bubbling pots. DELICIOUS. I could have been sitting there all day. I think I could have even put a straw into my soup to take sips of it. So this lunch totally hit the spot and was exactly what I needed after hours outside in the freezing cold weather in Beijing. So after treating myself to some new pants at Forever 21 - can you believe it, there is a Forever 21 in Beijing/I was in heaven! - we headed back down the shopping street, spending about an hour at a foreign language book store where I was heading for the English books to read to my hostkids and Sarah for the French books to help her improve both the language and the knowledge of the country. After buying a zodiac necklace for our Chinese Ayi in another store we were ready to try some Beijing street eats at Wangfujing's Night Market. So we sipped on some delcious and warm yogurt, and snacked on potatoes on a stick, fried ice cream, sesame candy and a pancake like wrap. Getting darker and darker and even more freezing outside, we finally headed back to the hostel, where I already packed all my luggage in the morning, to be able to head out to the airport he same night. As my flight back home to Chengdu was scheduled for early morning on Tuesday, and as that early there was no metro nor Airport Shuttle running (and I did not want to spend ¥100 on a cab) I decided to just spend the night at the airport. I had about 10 hours which gave me plenty of time to chat to other travelers and meet some cool people as well as some weirdoes. At least it was never boring which helped keeping me awake that night. The last 5 hours I spend together with a Chinese student traveling home over winter break of his university in America. Staying in Detroit we immediately had a lot to share (for those who don't know, I stayed in Detroit area for almost 2 months about 4 years ago over the summer) and I enjoyed his company. So when after 10 hours waiting my flight's boarding got announced, I was more than ready to take a nap in the plane. Though it was not quite as enjoyable as I thought, as after getting sick in Beijing, I was fevering on the airplane sweating in my seat like a pig and praying for that flight to finally be over. I was just happy when I saw our driver waiting outside for my arrival and who made sure me and my luggage got home safely. Amy was super excited about me coming home and Rex' eyes showed the same sort of relief about having me back. Both kids would not let of my side that day and though I felt like crab still having a fever, I was also more than happy to be back with my two kids and spend the day together with Rex and Amy, sharing stories of Bejing and enjoying each others company again.
If this trip made one thing clear, then for sure that I will be missing those little munchkins like crazy once I will make my way back to Germany. So I better get back up there giving my two kids some company :-)