“De-de and Gr-gr Meet in Beijing”

Chinese has different names for younger brother (De-de) and older brother (Gr-gr). My De-de, Rick, visited us in Beijing. We amused ourselves showing people how much we look alike! He was in Bangkok and Hong Kong on business and made a quick flight up to Beijing before heading back home. Rick is a designer, manufacturer and retailer of ladies clothes and accessories in Cape Town, South Africa; so you can imagine he is often in China meeting with manufacturers. He flew in on a Thursday night and out on the following Monday afternoon. Since Rick lives in SA, we don’t see each other all that much; the last time I saw him was last summer at our Mom’s 80th birthday. Usually when we do meet, it is in a family context and it is about 20 years since we have had a one on one visit with Rick. So we both felt it was pretty bizarre to be spending time together in Beijing.

Rick’s was a quick visit, but he did see a lot of Beijing. Friday morning he visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. I meet him after the tour and we did a pedicab tour of the hutong north of the Forbidden City. We had lunch at a famous restaurant in the hutong called Passby Café and then strolled around Houhai Lake and walked the Antique Street. That evening we meet Don and Eve and several other Concord College teachers for dinner at the Indian Kitchen – it was Brenda’s birthday supper. Saturday morning we headed out early to the Great Wall in the school car. We did the Wall at Badaling, which is nearest the city. I was quite impressed as it was an easy cable car ride up to the Wall, but once you were up there the walking was very steep! It was a clear, cool and windy day but the skies were blue and the views were spectacular. I was quite impressed with Badaling, but as we were leaving it began to get very crowded. After lunch we visited the Ming Tombs, which I had never seen. That evening we went for dinner at Abella’s, one of our favourite neighbourhood restaurants. On Sunday we went shopping in the Silk Market and that evening we went to the Chinese Acrobat Show and had a late dinner at a Lebanese restaurant. On Monday, Rick did a little exploring around our Chaoyang neighbourhood. We met for lunch and then he left for the airport. It was a quick visit, but Rick got to see a lot of Beijing (and picked up a snow globe) and we enjoyed showing him around.

While we were driving in a taxi, a picture of our Dad slipped out of Rick’s wallet. Dad was probably about 25 when the photo was taken and he is swinging a golf club. I couldn’t help but think how much Dad would have enjoyed visiting here too. Dad always loved to travel and was never able to do that much.