Gardens, Fragrance, and- you guessed it - food!

After a week straight of work, we finally had a couple days off! Did we slow down? Of course not. Despite the heat, Regan, Stephanie, Sam, and I decided to check out the famous Beijing Botanical Gardens on Saturday. Apparently, this is a much anticipated Olympic tourist spot, because all the gardens were decked out with bush sculptures of the events. (I included a pic of the field hockey guy) This place is so manicured it looks like a Better Homes and Gardens magazine! In fact, as we were leaving, we witnessed a bridal fashion photo shoot going on...

Sunday, we stayed the course by visiting the Fragrant Hills. There are a few nice trails that lead you to the top of the hills (mountain is more like it.) After two grueling hours of scaling the incline we made it to the top, not to be disappointed. The view was spectacular (what I could see of it through the sweat cascading down my face.) We lucked out with a rare clear day and were able to see miles of the mountain range. The Fragrant Hills have several temples and Chinese-style pagodas you can hike to, but we only made it to a couple before we had to head down. Oh yeah... we opted for the chair lift for the return trip. I know, I know, we are young and able, but we really did have to get back for a meeting by 5:45!

Ok, so for my little food tid bit of the day... we went to a Peking Duck restaurant the other night and were not disappointed! We had made reservations and they led us to a room we shared with one other family. In China, it is rude to finish all your food. It is an insult to the chef because it implies that they didn't feed you enough. So the family of 5 next to us had mountains of food, but we ordered a whole duck for the four of us and cleaned our plates! Can't quite grasp this concept. The cultural differences at meal time are so huge, maybe this is why I talk about food so much. Oh- and I don't think I've ever mentioned the size of the plates. You get one small plate, only a little bigger than a tea saucer plate, and this is what you use for your whole meal. The first few meals we had we thought they were for bread or appetizers. Not the case. I guess you're just supposed to put one bun on at a time...

K, that was lengthy sorry! Olympics start in 5 days!