Ryan recieves his most honoured guest of all
A few days ago Ryan was fortunate enough to receive a very special visitor: his mom! Lucky guy!
Winter is off-season for tourism in Beijing, but landing on the first day of a real Beijing snowfall (nothing like the 4-foot snow drifts of Halifax this winter) which made sightseeing a tad more difficult. Not about to let a little snow get in their way, the two enjoyed having the Great Wall almost all to themselves guessing that it must have been minus 10 to 20-degrees-C when you factor windchill.
Ryan’s mom enjoying the view of the Great Wall through several layers
Ryan’s been busy showing her the real China. While most tourists take taxi’s everywhere as they rush to pack their 2-weeks with everything the Lonely Planet guide tells them, Ryan prefers to take everywhere. Buses are better, not just to show mom the sights, sounds, and smells of his temporary home, but because it’s a fair-priced way to travel to all the places we know so well; besides, we seldom know the exact name of places to just tell taxi drivers, but we grab the right bus and — voilla! — we’ve arrived.
On return from Golden Street, they board the #904. “It’s a trusty bus,” Ryan tells me, knowing it goes to many good places. A foreign language student generously offerd his seat to mom, but soon they notice a very cold draft from the open window. Mom asks, “could you ask them to close it?” Upon closer inspection, the young lady holding her head out of the window was tossing her cookies, as they say. “Sorry mom, but no,” comes the reply as they watch someone hand the sick person a hankerchief.
Ryan says the best line of the day came from the language student now standing beside him. In broken, but adequate English, the fellow mutters: “What a pity.” No one could have said it better.
Tonight we had the pleasure of sharing with her one of our favourite dining experiences in Tianjin: hotpot. Looks like they’re off to a great holiday together!