China World Hotel

The five-star 'home-away-from-home' for government officials and visiting dignitaries!!
The domed sky-light in the bottom left corner is part of the ceiling of an underground mall.

I can't say that I've ever seen a Bentley in real life before, let alone, share a hotel with a Bentley owner!!!

A few views around the hotel lobby.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Elevator Lobby

Breakfast Buffet

It included both Western and Asian choices.

My choices the first morning:
grilled tomato slice, fried egg, bacon, hash brown, and a steamed dumpling.
The tastiest choice was the GRANNY SMITH apples!!! See, sadly, we don't have my favorite apple on our little island, so we took FULL advantage-- one at breakfast, then grabbing one on the way out for a snack later in the day :0)

 

You know, not every hotel has picture worthy public toilets!! 

 

Our turn-down service~ slippers in place, which coordinate with the luscious bathrobes hanging in the closet. But, you should have seen Rodney's size 13 feet in Asian size slippers!!!
Tap water in China is not drinkable, so each hotel we stayed in provided one bottle of water for each occupant each day. This hotel even placed it by the bed with a glass!

Our sixth floor elevator lobby.... taken on our way down to check out after three very full days!

Now for sites of Beijing.....

China-- Here we come!!!

When we learned we were going to be stationed in Okinawa, we began with the “OH, we could go here,” and “OH, we could go there!” Australia, Singapore, and Bangkok being mentioned.  But, always at the top of our list was the Great Wall. When we found out about the eight day/three city tour, we decided, if we’re gonna do China, we might as well do China!! Our friends, the Baileys, had had the same idea and we determined, it would make the trip even more memorable to take it together. So, now here we are standing in the commissary parking lot on Camp Foster….It’s almost 2:30 Sunday afternoon, November 18, 2012, and here comes the bus (A Navy MWR bus, I might add!!)!!! We are merely steps away from the beginning of a trip of a lifetime!!!!

 

The Baileys and the Weavers and nine other families are boarded and ready to go to the airport!!

 

Meet Yuki, our tour escort. Once he led us through check in for our international flight, we were bused out to our plane for the first two hour flight on China Eastern to Beijing via Shanghai.

 

 

We were able to see a beautiful sunset through the clouds as we flew…

 

At one point, we were able to see the lights of fishing boats on the water… It was a lovely sight!

For our in-flight dinner, the choices were fish rice or pork rice. (I misunderstood and said I’d take the chicken!!) I then asked for the pork.  It came with watermelon, a cup of water, potato salad, (the green is a divider) ‘something’ with sesame seeds on top,  a pickled slice of vegetable, an octopus ‘salad’ in the silver cup, and a pretty tasty custard for dessert.

We had a sparkly nighttime view of Shanghai at the end of our first flight. Yuki escorted us through customs and immigration and from the international terminal to the domestic for our flight on to Beijing.

Finally, after midnight, we had met our Chinese tour guide, Sunny, had arrived at the China World Hotel, been checked in, and began to settle ourselves in Room 602. We delayed our crash into bed long enough to snap a few initial pictures.

 

I feel safer already, knowing there is a fire escape mask available, should the need arise!!

Naha Festival "Faces in the Crowd"

To wrap up this section of posts, I simply had to include some of the adorable faces we saw throughout the day!! Most are cute enough on their own they don't need words from me.....
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When painting, building, or renovating a building, they drape it, so this worker was watching the opening ceremony through an opening of the draping sheets!! If you look back at the previous post regarding the opening ceremony, you'll see the "blue" building.

See Flat Stanley from Missouri tucked in there??
And, in front of me, my young friend, Olivia, packed in there with us :0)

Finally, away from the crowd, and heading up to the monorail platform to make our journey home.....
(I'm thankful my friend, Diane, was able to get this picture and let me 'borrow' it!!) 

Naha Festival Tug-of-War Opening Ceremony videos

All the banners and flags we saw in the parade gathering in place for the Opening Ceremony

The Opening Ceremony has begun

Joining the two pieces of the rope together

The ball is open, the balloons have fallen.... 

Now it's time to PULL!!!!