Relaxation Tour, Day 3

Woke up Monday morning, grabbed some breakfast and headed to Ritan Park. Walking through the park reminded me of the parks in Sevilla...right in the middle of the city are these beautifully landscaped parks with little ponds, snack kiosks, benches, pavillions and shady spots to read or play cards.

My friend Jennie and I headed to Ritan to play some rummy (she recently taught me how to play and now I am consistently kicking her butt!). We sat in a nice little pagoda (pic above) and played a couple rounds. We got up and wandered through the park--found a little temple, a place to race toy speedboats, even a North Face sponsored rock climbing wall.

All the walking made our feet pretty tired and we'd been wanting to get foot massages pretty much since we got here, so we headed to the Dragonfly spa...a 15 minute walk from the park. We both got the Oriental Foot Massage and it was glorious. I just felt bad for the lady! Walking around for the past 3 weeks in flip-flops had definitely taken it's toll.

After the massage we headed to the Sanlitun area. There was cafe we wanted to check out: The Bookworm. It was a very 'chill' place, we sat on big comfy chairs, ordered some coffee and continued our rummy game (I won, again!). We lingered for almost 2 hours, alternately reading and playing cards.

That night we ate Persian food, something else I've never tried, and it was DELICIOUS. There are so many different ethnic groups in Beijing and we've been sampling lots of exotic and sometimes unusual food.