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Royal Caribbean has shared a new look at heir private destination in the South Pacific, Royal Beach Club Lelepa. Located in Vanuatu in the Southern Hemisphere, guests aboard sailings starting in October 2027 out of Brisbane and Sydney will be able to experience the latest Royal Caribbean has to offer. https://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/press-release/1862/royal-caribbean-delivers-more-island-time-than-ever-with-royal-beach-club-lelepa-and-new-2027-28-australia-summer-lineup/ Royal Caribbean is unveiling its most exciting Australian summer yet with all-in holiday adventures and the debut of Royal Beach Club Lelepa*, the Southern Hemisphere’s first Royal Caribbean exclusive cruise destination for a holiday like no other. From October 2027 to April 2028, travellers can look forward to more short getaways, weekend departures and ways to bask in island time on Anthem of the Seas from Sydney and Voyager of the Seas from Brisbane, delivering 2- to 12-night holidays across Australia, the sun-soaked South Pacific – including the ultimate beach day at the all-new Royal Beach Club Lelepa – and breathtaking New Zealand. The new lineup of 2027-28 holidays on two of the boldest ships at sea are now available to book on Royal Caribbean’s website. “As the most trusted holiday partner in Australia, Royal Caribbean continues to raise the bar on the ultimate family holiday with Royal Beach Club Lelepa – a first-of-its-kind destination in the Southern Hemisphere inspired by the natural beauty and spirit of the South Pacific region,” said Gavin Smith, vice president and managing director, Australia and New Zealand, Royal Caribbean. “We know Australian families love holidaying in the South Pacific, and Lelepa takes that to an entirely new level with an experience they won’t find anywhere else in the world. With an expanded lineup of weekend sailings, short escapes and longer ways to holiday, we’re giving travellers even more reasons to explore fan-favourite destinations across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific.” The ultimate island time is in store at Royal Beach Club Lelepa – a first-of-its-kind destination located on the island nation of Vanuatu in the Southern Hemisphere, included on every South Pacific getaway from Sydney and Brisbane starting October 2027. Guests can enjoy two pristine beaches, including a serene adults-only retreat and an activity-packed family beach where friendly competitions invite travellers to become the island’s champion. Whether it’s unwinding on sun-soaked shores, hiking a scenic nature trail or snorkeling in crystal-clear waters, Lelepa offers something for every kind of holidaymaker. From 10 bars and unlimited island eats to umbrellas, loungers and towels all included, guests can enjoy the perfect day in untouched paradise. Australian Summer 2027-2028 Highlights: Anthem of the Seas – From Sydney, Australia Across 24 headline-making getaways ranging from three to 17 nights, the Quantum Class favourite is providing more ways to celebrate the weekend with 3-night escapes and South Pacific holidays, including visits to Royal Beach Club Lelepa for guests to bask in spectacular island beauty. 9- to 12-night New Zealand holidays take holidaymakers to far-flung destinations, including Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Milford Sound, for families looking to experience landscapes, culture and cuisine that deliver on the wow factor in one seamless getaway. Adding to the adventures are ways to ring in the festivities with a 9-night South Pacific Christmas holiday – featuring Christmas Day at Royal Beach Club Lelepa – and a New Zealand New Year getaway that welcomes 2028 in the beauty of the Sounds, turning the most wonderful time of year into a once-in-a-lifetime celebration. The spectacle of the season is a 17-night Transpacific adventure departing from Honolulu. Swapping the long-haul flight for a Pacific crossing, travellers can journey across the world’s largest ocean before arriving in Australia in bold, unforgettable style. Voyager of the Seas – From Brisbane, Australia Bringing the heat to the Sunshine State from October 2027, Voyager will deliver 29 sun-soaked holidays ranging from two to 25 nights, turning Queensland into the launchpad for memory-maxing adventures and more weekends for families and friends to experience the ultimate getaway. Starting at the beginning of the Queensland summer holidays, travellers can go from Brisbane to beyond beautiful 7-night South Pacific adventures visiting the brand-new Royal Beach Club Lelepa, along with Noumea, Lifou, Mystery Island, Port Vila and Luganville, including Christmas and New Year escapes. Closer to home, 4-night Whitsundays getaways to Airlie Beach, alongside six vibrant short escapes, put bragworthy beach days in Queensland’s own backyard. For those ready to go bigger, a spectacular 25-night Transpacific adventure departing Seattle calls French Polynesia and Hawaii before arriving in Brisbane. With two iconic ships owning the lineup, the 2027-28 season brings bold adventures to maximise every moment at sea. Thrill-seekers can reach new heights on the RipCord by iFly skydiving simulator, master the waves on the FlowRider surf simulator, enjoy sweeping 360-degree ocean views from the North Star observation capsule, and have a friendly face off in the glow-in-the-dark Battle for Planet Z laser tag clash. When it’s time to refuel, holidaymakers can discover flavours from around the world, including fresh sashimi at Izumi, premium steaks at Chops Grille, and rustic Italian classics at Giovanni’s Table. World-class entertainment is the star of the show on both ships as Anthem hits the high notes with the Olivier Award-winning phenomenon “We Will Rock You,” while Voyager dazzles with the ice-skating spectacular “Ice Odyssey,” where professional skaters bring the magic and mystery of tarot cards to the rink. More details on the 2027-28 holidays are available on Royal Caribbean’s website.

so. . . one of the reasons I love TPR (and there are many, among them the great friends I've made over the years with other posters/trip goers) is that via Robb & Elissa, I'm able to do things I never thought in a million years I would get to do. this trip to China was one of them. I'm serious when I say that this trip knocked out several things from my bucket list, including my #1 (getting to visit all currently existing Disney Parks in the world). I'd looked forwards to this trip for almost a full year, and now that it was upon me I had a bit of panic (the Government had shut down and what would that do to travel?), and a lot of excitement. Elissa and Robb were invaluable assets in terms of knowing what to apply for Visa wise, what apps to set up, how much local $$ to bring, what VPN to get, what eSim, etc. etc. add to this, my Boyfriend was fully moving in with me, 2 days after I left for the trip - after spending the better part of the prior year and a half traveling back and forth an hour 40 minutes each way to stay with me every few days. and I'd be gone for almost a month, while he was alone in the house. But I valued so much that I was invited to join, and overall, wouldn't trade the experience for anything! the first installment here is getting to China, so not a lot of pics of things other than myself and plane food. but we'll quickly get into many amazing things in upcoming installments. *and I'm even gonna go back and finish off my Oktoberfest report from last year. . . whoops! life got in the way, but gonna finish that, as that TPR trip was amazing as well. anyways. . here we go, off to the races up at 3am, and Jim and I took a pic before he drove me the 40 minutes to the Austin airport, before he headed back to Waco - as he had to work that morning. I always tend to fly United for international flights, because for me? they are the best of the worst. They ALWAYS mess something up, be it delayed/cancelled flights stranding me somewhere, lost luggage, a missed connection. . . something! (that said, this trip? first time, EVER, no luggage lost, and no flight cancelled that left me stranded somewhere.. even tho there was a bit of drama, as you'll see). the bonus is that because I've always had issues, I have a ton of credit and goodwill from the Company, so when they offered to upgrade me to Polaris Business class (after some flight f**kery that moved my flights around multiple times in the month leading up to the trip), for less than $150? I grabbed it. and because of that, I had access to the United Lounges on my flight there. here I am around 4am having a light snack in the Lounge in the Austin airport. the first flight went without a hitch, and since they had upgraded me to Business for the long flight, this much shorter one (still 3 1/2 hours tho) bumped me into 1st class: nice, wide seats and to my surprise, a served, warm meal! the rest of the plane got the option to buy those meal boxes, but I was able to have Peach crepes. and they were good! (but it was too much food) landing in San Francisco, I had about 3 hours until my connecting flight to Beijing. . . which was a good thing, as the walk from my terminal to the gate for the international flight took almost 30 minutes. (the gates are NEVER close to each other. . LOL). took this pic of the plane I had gotten off of as I passed it walking from domestic into the international terminal. I wasn't really hungry, but I had almost 2 hours to kill, so hung out in the lounge there and eventually had a light snack here too. I'd been really trying to lose some weight before China (so my big American butt would fit in the Chinese rides). . .but this was a bad start that I was already eating way too much. spoiler tho: I was only denied 5 things during the whole trip. . and really, it was only 3, because one I didn't even try (knew I was too heavy) and the other I was *just* below the weight limit, but I didn't want to argue with them, so just said ok and stepped aside to take pictures instead of riding. beautiful day tho. . . so wasn't expecting any issues. hahahaha. . yeah. some of the SF Airport artwork as I headed to my gate. which as noted, was the ass end of the airport, and down the stairs. but at least made it and the flight showed on time still. the Polaris Business Class on United is amazing. Even tho I tend to get claustrophobic in these "bathtubs". . these ones seemed OK, since I was the only one on this side, and there was no "door" so it was open. the seat reclines all the way down and slides forwards and turns it into a flat bed for sleeping. they give you so much stuff, it took some rearranging to fit in. but I enjoyed my glass of champagne while boarding. then we sat. and sat some more. and sat some more. the pilot came on multiple times to tell us that we were holding for the wind to let up, but he hoped we could take off. luckily I wasn't the only one on the China TPR trip, as Shane and his son Fischer were also on board, and also in Business class, so we chatted while we sat. I got an alert from United offering us a $25 (I think?) coupon to use in the terminal to get a snack, but it must be used today. and I walked up to Shane's seat and said - "they're gonna make us deplane" not even 20 minutes later, we got the announcement that the crew had timed out, and we all had to deplane, and to come back to the same gate in about 3 hours, as they had already called a new flight crew. the conspiracy theorist in me thinks it had something to do with Air Traffic Controllers (as my prior pic showed, it was a beautiful day. . and other flights were taking off.. so very odd, the "wind" was only affecting the one runway that we HAD to use, because the other one was under construction). anyways, we took all our carry ons off, and since we were all Business class, we 3 headed back to the lovely United Lounge in the international terminal to hang out and wait. exhausted already - and not even on the 14+ hour flight - but sending proof of life home to Jim and telling him what's going on. eventually, we made our way back down to the gate at the new time, and tho they were late getting boarding going - we started boarding moments after the flight crew came in, but interestingly just after the door steward had announced that they were delaying boarding so they could finish cleaning the plane (yes, the same plane we had been on earlier). so this is me not really trusting them, but trying not to panic, that if the flight got cancelled, how the heck was I gonna get to China in time for the food tour I had booked on the day after my arrival? but eventually, we did back away from the gate. . and about 6 1/2 hours after we were supposed to have left, we finally took off and headed towards Beijing. here's a peek at the menu - they really do love to feed ya on international flights. I didn't have everything - I was simply too full. but I did have the beets salad: the prawns: a few cold brews: and tho I watched a few movies, and never sleep on flights, I actually did lay the chair down into bed position and napped for about an hour or so. woke up to desert snack service (that I passed on), and this beautiful sunrise out my window. I did give in and try the grilled cheese for the 2/3rds flight snack (it looked way better than it was, and funnily Shane, Fischer, and I had all gotten it and all had the same opinion of it). we were starting to pass over cities . . .and were supposed to land soon only ~7 hours after we had been supposed to arrive. . but hey, we were here! and the perk of arriving so late, was that the terminal was pretty empty. Which made getting thru Customs and immigration a breeze Shane had arranged a car, and the driver had been following along with our flight delays.. thank goodness he was there waiting for us, when we finally came out of arrivals. we all breathed a sigh of relief, and piled into the car, for the drive to the hotel we were staying in pre-trip. a Hilton, as had been recommended by Elissa. not sure if it was because we arrived so much later than intended, or what.. but I ended up in a HUGE corner suite for the night. . .for a super reasonable (ie: inexpensive) price. really, the room was big: the first of many hotels that had the bathroom/shower open to the main room. yes, you could pull out the sliding panels to block it off, but it seemed to be a thing in China, that one would be able to watch someone in the bathroom (tho not on the actual toilet - in most cases) if one chose to. most all of the hotels on this trip provided bottled water, so never really worried about getting sick (and didn't really, luckily). the view from my corner room. at this point i was exhausted. . so after a shower and a call home to let Jim know I had arrived safely (14 hour time difference, so my 1am was his late 3pm) I climbed into bed and was out cold. I had a food tour booked in the morning, and had to check out and meet Elissa in the lobby by 11. tho I did get up to pee during the night, and the toilet freaked me out enough by opening up to greet me and lighting up, that I grabbed my phone from the charger, and snapped some pics. freaky let the adventure begin!!

Yukon Striker has an almost identical element. Front row, right side is especially terrifying on the brakes because it shimmies like a son of a gun.

Day 1: Universal Studios (full day). Part 1: so today was the official kick off of the trip! a full day at Universal, and it was a Monday which meant the Halloween event was going on! (I believe it runs Fri-Mondays until Halloween). it's NOT called Halloween Horror Nights, seemed to be called "Scares @ Universal" , but a very similar thing, with houses and scare zones - tho what is "scary" in Beijing seemed to be very different than what is "scary" in the US, at least as far as the Scare Zones go. I'll get to that later in this update first up tho, was breakfast - which was included every morning during our stay at the Universal Studios Grand Hotel. here's as close as I seem to have gotten to a "room picture", myself and Stacy that I sent home to let Jim know we were ready to go for the kickoff of the trip. the walkway to the breakfast area goes over the park entrance, so got a preview of where we would be in the next hour. and what a surprise! it's a "character breakfast" I was absolutely thrilled of course. . . even tho I have not seen more than a couple of the "Despicable Me" films, or any of the "Minions" movies. they wander around during breakfast from table to table, and also pose at the front for photos. different characters most mornings. and in costume for Halloween it was a very good, and large, breakfast buffet. and tho I didn't take a lot of pictures of the food, I did focus on the sweets table so got lots of those pics! Toothless creampuffs no idea, but adorable spooky donuts! I tried this thinking it was just a case of "mis-translation to English". . . but nope, it wasn't pieces of chicken. it was Chicken Cartilage. (one of the few things I moved aside once trying a single, chewy/cruncy bite). and all areas of the food tables were decked out with these adorable Minions in Halloween costume sculptures: breakfast eaten, we headed down to the main entrance, and went thru Security as a group (hotel guests get early entry to some parts of the park, and TPR went thru security and the entry as a group to ensure no issues with tickets. tho we were all gonna meet up in an hour when Transformers land opened to the public to all ride Decepticoaster together as a group thru the general line. the entrance area really is not that spooky in the daytime, before they pump in all the fog. reminded me very much of several parks in Europe where the front entrance has a "cover" that turns into an entertainment area at night. spooky hanging tree a look back at our hotel from inside the park. that "bridge" on the 2nd level is where I snapped the pic on the way to breakfast earlier. out of the main entrance street, you are hit with a stunning view of the main lagoon, and the mountain that houses one of the park's signature rides: Jurassic Flyers. (that area wasn't open just yet either, but would be in about an hour) headed towards the "early entry" side of the park: Minions land, and Harry Potter Minions land is an indoor area. . not really large, but housing the kiddie coaster, and a couple of flat rides. tho if you count the coaster in the facade, this park has five credits lots and lots of fun theming over here, even if I didn't "get" most of it. Group shot before we split up for about an hour (some to get the kiddie in minions land, or the junior in HP land). Courtesy of Robb not allowed to go this way yet (the Moose out front - and those employees there - told us). but the torches were already lit to start the day. park staff directing folks to the right for Harry Potter, rather than to the left for Jurassic Park area. tho I've still never been to a USA Universal park - so have nothing to compare it to. and am not a huge Harry Potter fan (and have issues with the Author). . these lands that I have been in at other Universal parks continue to impress me. they are so well done. (tho I will say the "moaning Myrtle" in the bathroom here, sounds very "adult" when she's moaning in Chinese, LOL) this was the ONLY time all day this area looked like this. it soon swelled up with so many people (MANY of them dressed in robes with wands) that it was hard to move, and became quite claustrophobic to me. They LOVE Harry Potter here. taking advantage of the early entry crowds to get a pic with the train. the main ride in this area, tho we skipped this for the moment to get in the shortist-it-would-be-all-day line for "Flight of the Hippogriff" - I believe a true Mack junior coaster. it was more fun than the one I remembered riding at Universal Japan. . so wonder if it's the same model? by the time we finished that coaster, Jurassic Park and Transformers were about to open, so we headed towards Decipticoaster, cutting thru Jurassic Park. past Jurassic Park, if you hang a right here, is Transformers world. this intersection would be used as a "scare zone" later tonight. my first good view of Decipticoaster's launch. several folks had told me it was a "clone" of Hulk at the Orlando Park, but in talking to some Universal Beijing folks, they explained it's actually NOT a clone, tho it is very close. this is due to some minor differences in the track, but heck if I can remember exactly what the differences were that he told me. across the plaza is another large Transformers ride, but that one wasn't opening with this area, and they told us to come back after 2 and they'd have it open for guests. Decipticoaster doing it's thing. group shot before we got in line to ride (courtesy of Robb) whee! (pics thanks to Elissa) what did I think? I really liked it! it had a ton of floater air (which I really enjoy) and when I commented to someone that it wasn't as forceful as I had expected and was very re-rideable for me, that's when he told me about the differences with Hulk at Islands of Adventure. one thing I DO recall, is the storyline - as I asked about that, since the onboard audio is all in Chinese. he explained to to me, and now I love the coaster even more: the train is actually a Decipticon. an evil surfer (dude) who has turned himself into the train to try and torture/kill the riders, and the control unit is trying to safely get us back to the station. too damn adorable. then we all split off again for the rest of the day, and the group I was with headed back over to Jurassic Park to get the other big coaster. but first, we passed "West Dock Dogs". . which amuses me. this is the Queue Line for Jurassic Flyers - a Mack inverted powered coaster, that has seating similar to the Arthur ride at Europa Park. EVERYTHING must go in a locker - tho provided free of charge. so no pics of the station or queue past the lockers. I did enjoy this ride, but was disappointed by the lack of any dinosaurs on it! the paddocks you "fly" over, are all empty. it seemed as if they blew the whole setting budget on the queue line. (oh, the ride across from it *totally* makes up for the lack of dinos on this ride, but I really do wish at least there were some statues of dinos in the paddocks you go over). still a fun time, but the line stayed pretty long all day due to capacity on it, so I only rode this the one time. here's the ride across from it. and I wanted Dinos ? yup, this gave them to me. Elissa told me this was her favorite ride here, and that I'd love it, and yup, she was 100% correct. I ended up riding this a few times. Myself, Nick, Stacy, and Nick are ready for a Jurassic Adventure! the queue line formation reminded me a lot of "Dinosaur" at Animal Kingdom (and we saw a bunch of other TPR folks in this line too) Universal really does do a great job with the theming in the queues. . . and the use of the digital screens. no pictures from the actual ride, because there were "no photos or recording" signs everywhere. but EVERYONE was recording or taking pictures. on most every ride we had been on thus far. So I inquired about it, and the advice we got was "do as the locals do". . . .well, the locals were all taking pics and videoing. . . so when I rode this later, I took some pics that I'll share in part 2 (or 3). it was hard to get non blurry pics tho, as the vehicles are moving pretty well as you're being chased by dinos. . . LOL exiting tho, I was able to snap a couple of pics of Jurassic Flyers in action: then my small group headed over to Minion's land to get the last coaster credit in the park: Loop-Dee-Doop-Dee - a kiddie/jr coaster, that does, in fact, not "loop", nor "dee-doop" . . but some folks count credits, and MUST ride every coaster available. as it wasn't just an oval kiddie? I got in line with them to ride too. from the station, a peek at one of the other rides in this area. Dumbo as "bugs" I guess? the train design is fun too. do as the locals do - see, folks filming on the ride. so we got a pic and it's a pretty good one, I think. we had the whole day, and with the coasters all ridden (tho some would get re-ridden), we took a detour back to Jurassic Park for Raptor Encounter. is this Blue? no idea, but it was well done. we even talked the Nick's into posting for a pic. tho I ended up purchasing the one of myself and Stacy. (it's already hanging on the wall at home). exploring along the backside of the park - as we hadnt' been over here yet, and the map showed a pretty large structure back here. turned out it was Kung Fu Panda area (another franchise I have not seen any films from). . to get there you have to pass thru the Waterworld Show section. we made note of the times it was playing, as I've never seen it, so wanted to catch a showing. and then suddenly, it gets lush, and there are Panda's everywhere: it's the "Kung Fu Panda: Land of Awesomeness" and yeah, I'll agree with them. . it's pretty damn STUNNING inside here. (and cool. . the sun had come out by now and it was warming up) the lantern balloon ride looks incredible. as did the carousel - but we'll get to that shortly. this was the main reason to come back here: a boat dark ride. "Journey of the Dragon Warrior" note it says wait time is 10 minutes. so that is ALL walking the queue. I think this one wins the prize for being the longest queue line I'd ever been in. it just went on and on, room after room, and it was a double sided queue . . so giant rooms of just row after row of empty queues. . . Seriously, the walk was almost 9 minutes to get to the loading station. it was so long, and with so many steps, that even tho I LOVED this ride? I declined to go back and ride it again later because I didn't want to do that much walking again. I can just imagine if every here on a day so busy that the queue would be full. . this would be a 4 hour wait. finally getting to the load station: as noted tho, the ride IS worth it. such a great dark ride, even if I didn't know any of the characters represented. really impressive animatronic movements too. and some screens. it's a fairly long, and impressive, ride. wasn't gonna leave this area without carousel freak me, riding the carousel tho! even talked some non-carousel crazy folks to ride it with me such impressive carvings! and even the toilets in here were themed to the film. . . to be continued in part 2

Day 0 - Beijing Back alley food tour & bus to 1st basecamp hotel: Universal Studios Beijing! part 1 Elissa & Robb had found a local food tour company that was very highly rated, and had made plans to take the tour. She offered to anyone that was arriving early, if they wanted to join in, and I believe we had all 12 spots filled with TPR folks. after a great sleep (thanks to Tylenol PM to knock me out and help prevent jet lag), I got up and got my first look at the actual view from my room. pretty nice. it was nice and cool, and I had slept with windows cracked. . .was loving the weather. but I had an important task to take care of now that I was actually thru Immigration & Customs: China parks tend to be very restrictive on age/weight/height. so anything I could do to make myself look younger, I needed to do. Cutoff age was 49, so needed to look at least that young - or at least tell them I was that young if they asked. Some dyed hair, but for me, that meant shapewear (for weight, since they mainly eyeball), and cutting off the goatee, as I knew that would make me look much younger. and it did I made sure to take note of the warning on the Q-tips the hotel supplied, and was aware of my "ear socket and deep nostril" checked out, and had the hotel hold the bags (as we weren't headed over to Universal until ~3pm, and the food tour started at 11am). we met up in the lobby, and grabbed a pic with Robb, and the cow that was hanging out by the hotel front entrance: my roomie for this trip, Stacy, also did the food tour with us! with excellent Navigation from Elissa, we made our way over to the nearest metro station, and headed to the meeting spot for the food tour. random pics snapped while walking to the metro. this rail system was super easy to understand, and that was true of every major city we took the train in. and it was great to see so many things with English translations, even if the vast majority of the people did not speak English. (translator app is super helpful) we got to our stop about 40 minutes early, so we were cut loose to explore the area and meet back to start the tour at 11. the area in central Beijing is absolutely gorgeous the stop we were to meet at was apparently next to a pretty major landmark - the Central Axis and Wanning Bridge: all over the city there were little "workout" areas and many of them were being used by older folks staying in shape. Andrew and Jon too ! these folks were just hanging out on an afternoon putting on a performance in a music circle. myself and John - he was a huge hit over in China (especially among the kids). . they just hadn't seen a beard like this often. . so lots of folks snapping pics of him. the aforementioned music performance. and yes, the singer really did sound an awful lot like Yoko Ono singing. was very cool to hear tho, and the folks gathered were very appreciative. absolutely no idea why this "Patrick and Spongebob holding each other's cakey-butts" was on this bike, but I saw it several places around Beijing. perhaps a local "graffiti art" type image? Dancing Children, yay!!! Not today, as it was Sunday. . but later in the trip, we'd see so many children in the parks on school trips. back at the station, we snapped a pic with our food guide and then we were off! our first stop down an alley was this tiny (well, they were all pretty small, local places) noodle house. looking around the alley as our guide explained how this local place had been here for many years, and was very popular for their pulled noodles. a peek into the kitchen from the table I sat at. the 12 of us on the tour took up pretty much all the tables in this place, so we were able to learn about the food, and how it's made and should be eaten. mixing everything together. it smelled incredible. as someone who likes spicy, I added chili sauce to mine, but not until after tasting it first, to get the full flavor of the noodles yum! you can tell I just *hated* this the kewl side of the place being so small, is that the owner and chef came out and sat with us to watch us eat and judge our reactions. they were so surprised I asked if I could take their picture. (behind them are pics of Chinese celebrities who have come by this place for noodles) moving on towards our next stop, I did notice that some of the architecture in this neighborhood was very "heavy". . . what I'd expect from a Communist place. . but most of it was not. which made places like this stand out that much more. I truly was surprised how much i enjoyed the people and places in China, and found everyone to be just delightful. (well. . except for that one Disney saleswoman who couldn't understand I wanted to buy a medium shirt for my bf, and kept pointing to my belly and saying "too fat" when I tried to check out with the shirt). LOL our guide explained to us how most of these entrances we were passing in the alleys were homes, and the blue "studs" indicated wealth/prestige. . so the more of them, the higher the rank. many had 1 or 2, but a few had 4. then we turned onto a little strip center and into our 2nd stop: slightly bigger place, and we only took up two of the 4 long tables in here. some of the options, tho we were going to try the first one, a famous Beijing dish called a Door Nail Dumpling (because it looks like a door nail on the Forbidden City giant red doors) our guide explained the history of the dish, how it got it's name. . . and broke out a local alcohol - that was quite strong - for us to try. cheers! here are the Dumplings. and they were OMG so good. . . I think would rank way up there in the top 3 things I ate this entire trip. absolutely delicious back out into the main street, and down another alley way, and we were at our 3rd stop. this one just looked like a doorway. . but as you went back, it split off into multiple houses/restaurants. we sat at a table in the "courtyard". . and were served multiple dishes to make a meal. Pork (or chicken. . not sure which) oh, maybe that one is the chicken? lots of options on the table, and our guide explained the proper way to eat everything. these were a "desert". . which really tasted like a red bean marmalade. it wasn't bad, but it wasn't a favorite of mine. mainly because I really hate being sticky, and you can tell from just looking at these, how sticky it was. here she is explaining procedure to us again, everything was quite good. very low on the "spiciness" level (for me), but really great on flavor. as soon as was done, I had to go wash my hands (the sticky thing). . so got to see my first "traditional" Chinese toilet. ta-da! and then we were on our way back thru the alleys and back onto a main street for our final stop. it wasn't on the main floor tho. . it was on the rooftop (overlooking the historical landmark "Drum Tower") noted, ummmm. . . vampire policeman? I think? adorable that they put "cloud lights" above the stairs as you ascend three flights to the rooftop. the rooftop was lovely - and covered in Astroturf. yup, our final stop was Hot Pot (which many of us on this trip had never had before). . with beef, pork, and tofu options and ADORABLE mustard dipping sauce bowls the aforementioned Drum Tower view from the rooftop dining. food tour over, and myself full, fat, and happy, we headed back to the metro to grab our luggage from the Hilton, and head over to Universal via transfer bus that Elissa had booked. the front of the restaurant entrance that we went into for the rooftop dining. yeah. . the metro was a LITTLE more crowded on the ride back to the Hilton. but the transfer bus was there, and we loaded our luggage and spread out. the official trip didn't start till tomorrow, so 15 or so more folks would be meeting us later at the hotel. pics from the bus window as we left central Beijing (since the Universal resort is on the town outskirts) and it had been dark the night before, so I didn't get to see really any of the city just a tiny fraction of the apartment buildings, that stretched for miles in every direction around Beijing. and crossing over one of the multiple "moats" that surround the city. and then. . .glimpsed thru the window on the opposite side? we turned into Universal Beijing resort. to be continued. . .