Stormy Beijing Night

I love looking at the tanks in Chinese restaurants. They have all kinds of critters swimming around waiting for their debut on the dinner table. It's like going to the aquarium! This beautiful blue lobster was in the tank of a Seafood restaurant in Qing Dao, home of Tsing Tao beer. I guess the beer came about before the spelling changes for all the cities in China. In any case, I have no idea where these blue lobsters come from but they are the most spectacular cobalt blue. I'm told they turn orange just like any other lobster when you cook them but this one lived for another day and another platter as we had dumplings and fish.

I flew into Beijing later today in the midst of the most spectacular bolt lightening storm. Huge white sparks split the sky, diving down to the the water laden ground. The plane made it in just as the rain torrents arrived in sheets, drumming on the skin of the plane. The trees along the highway glowed in the light of the storm and looked back hauntingly and the taxi crept along the water slick road. The flash of police cars rushed by, likely to assist with traffic accidents in the storm.

The taxi driver didn't speak English and I don't speak much Chinese. Some odd sounding Chinese rap was pounding on the radio. I was hoping that the driver understood which hotel to go to after talking to a friend of mine at the airport but admit that I was staring out of the window nervously hoping that he knew where he was going. It would really suck to be dumped off on the street corner by a frustrated taxi driver in a torrential rain storm. We got off of the highway onto the city streets and the rain slowed some. I could see the dim flourescent lights in passing windows. The city streets seemed endless as I wondered if we were headed to the right destination. Of course, this wasn't the first time I've trusted fate to Beijing taxi drivers but I was dead tired and really hoping I wasn't going to need any creativity to get to the hotel. We did eventually get there and after a little fiasco with the room key, managed to get to my hotel room safe and sound, another adventure completed.