Tampa Staycation October 9-10th 2010

This weekend we decided to explore our own city. We headed down to St Petersburg to check out the Saturday public market. We were really impressed. The market had a lot of stands selling a variety of canned foods, vegetables, fruit, clothes, jewelry, and food vendors.

We loved the sausages we bought for lunch at Kurt’s All Natural Meats.

After the public market, we headed to an Italian market nearby. The market was insane with people. We could definitely see the draw – lots of fresh meats, cheeses and varieties of gourmet sauces, olive oils and balsamic vinegars.

We headed back toward Tampa to check out the  Cigar City Brewing Company tasting room. It was really cool. It’s located in a non-descript warehouse since the brewery is in the same location. The tasting room is basically a bar. We tried eight different types for $12. Between Glenn and I, we tasted most of the beers on tap. We even lucked out and got to try an Apple Saison they had only produced 5 gallons of. The highlights for us were the Brown Ale and the Rye Porter so we purchased a quart of each to take with us.

Drinking all the beer worked up an appetite so we headed to one of our favorite BBQ places – Smoke. They have great BBQ and even better sides. We really like their grilled wings.

After Smoke – it was time to head to the hotel. The evening festivities included quite a bit of drinking so we used points to get a hotel room downtown. It’s much cheaper than a cab! Our hotel was the Marriott and we got a great room with a terrific view of the Bay.

We could even see the port and the Carnival Inspiration getting ready to set sail.

After some pool time, we headed off to the Aquarium for the Brews by the Bay Oktoberfest. We stopped on the way to the St. Pete Times Forum for a quick beer with our favorite bartender.  The Brews by the Bay event was fantastic. We tasted a lot of different craft beers and several restaurants had food samples to try. Our favorite beer was Widmer Prickly Pear Braggot. It was so delicious. We went back a couple times.

Our favorite room was the Shark Tank. They had an acoustic guitar player. You can see the Weeki Wachee mermaids in the tank in the background.

The mermaids were replaced with a scuba diver dressed in full German beer-drinking gear.

The event also featured a DJ and a live band. We had a ton of fun!


Sunday morning, we headed to one of our favorite restaurants in downtown Tampa: Datz Deli.

It’s more restaurant then deli. The food is fantastic. We ordered monkey bread – only to discover it could feed a family of 10. Our corned beer hash and eggs Benedict were fantastic. We were home in time for the Colts kickoff.

Overall, it was a great weekend. We definitely have a lot more exploring to do in the Tampa Bay area. It’s fun to play tourist in your own city.

Baseball and Homecoming: Milwaukee, Valpo, and Chicago

Last weekend, we embarked on a multi-city trip. We have a goal of visiting all the Major League baseball parks in North America. By some miracle, the Brewers, the White Sox and the Cubs were all home and it happened to be my college homecoming so off we went to the Midwest for 5 days.

AirTran had a great deal where we could fly into Milwaukee and out of Chicago for less than $250 per person. We flew into Milwaukee on the first flight of the day. We wanted to maximize our time in Milwaukee so we made a list of fun restaurants and bars that we wanted to visit.

We started the morning at Comet Café – a restaurant known for “slow food”, locally sourced ingredients and everything made from scratch. Glenn had an awesome BLT with a fried egg and I tried the bacon pancakes. Both were very good. After Comet, we headed to the Milwaukee Public Market in downtown. It was a little smaller than we were anticipating, but it had a great mix of artisans. We discovered a great Spice Shop where we picked up some flavored salt and Himalayan salt slab. Unusual souvenirs, I know.

From the Public Market, we walked through downtown to the Safe House. We had seen the Safe House on TV and wanted to check it out. It did not disappoint. We entered through a non-descript storefront, figured out which lever to pull and then entered through a secret book case door. Exiting the bar was just as challenging!

The next stop was Miller Park. We had purchased tickets for the 1:30 pm tour. It was a terrific tour. We got to go down to the field, hang out in the dugout and the press box and learn more about the history of baseball in Milwaukee and the construction of the park.



After the tour, we checked in at our hotel – the Intercontinental. I was able to use points and they still upgraded us to a suite. The hotel location was fantastic and everyone was really friendly. We headed out to explore Old World 3rd Street and ended up at the Cheese Bar. All I can say is that it had Wisconsin cheese plates

with matching Wisconsin beer flights.

Hello lover.

After having our fill of cheese, meats and beer, we headed to the Brat House to try some WI sausages. The Brat House did not live up to its name, but it did provide an opportunity to same some Schlitz and Pabst. After finishing up on Old World 3rd Street, we headed to the bus stop. Getting to and from the game was so easy on the dedicated ball park bus line. We took our seats behind home plate and really enjoyed the game. We even got to see Bernie head down the slide after the homeruns. We really enjoyed our time in Milwaukee and will definitely be headed back.

Chicago

Friday morning, we got up and headed to the Amtrak station at the airport. Riding the train from the Milwaukee airport to Union Station was fantastic – definitely the way to travel. Glenn even got a seat side Bloody Mary made to his specifics – Worchester sauce, hot sauce and extra fresh ground pepper. It was a kick. After getting into Chicago, we headed to M’s house and decided our next stop had to be Hot Doug’s. The line around the corner demonstrated we weren’t the only ones who had seen one of the many TV specials that has featured this gem of a restaurant. The sausage list was amazing and it worked like a well-oiled machine. Glenn had the duck sausage with foie gras and an Italian sausage. I had the special smoked pork and whiskey sausage and a traditional polish. We topped it off with duck fat fries. Yum!!



After Doug’s, we headed to Map Room – a bar with too many craft beers to count. We sampled a couple beers and then headed back to M’s to get ready for dinner. Some of our dear Chicago friends had agreed to meet us for dinner at Café Iberio – one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago. In fact, it’s a running joke that if I am coming to town, we are all going to Iberico. We drank sangria and sampled plate after plate of delicious tapas. So good to be back in Chicago!

Saturday, we headed to Valparaiso for VU’s homecoming. It was great catching up with good friends. I can’t believe it has been 10 years already. Glenn got to see campus and experience the dive bar we hung out every week. Good to know the wood paneling and skunky taps haven’t changed. (Well, actually that is kind of gross.)

Sunday, we headed back to Chicago for Glenn’s first visit to Wrigley Field.



The sun peaked out every once in a while and we had a great time with three of our good friends. After the game, we headed to Sheffield’s to have some local beers and BBQ. Sunday night, I believe we were all asleep on one of M’s couches by 8:30 pm.

Monday – We enjoyed breakfast at Wishbone – cheese grits, black bean cakes, and the omelet of the day. We dropped M off at home and we headed out to check into our hotel near Midway and then check out downtown. We both got to see Millennium Park and the Bean for the first time.


 Then we headed out on a food tour of our making. We sampled;

The double cheezburger at Billy Goat Tavern



The great cheese plate the Purple Pig: Truffle Tremor, Bleu di Bufalo, and Prairie Breeze



The Italian Beef at Al’s Italian Beef



Goose Island beers and Poncho Wings at Jake Melnick’s





After our tour, we headed down to US Cellular Field to meet back up with M and see the Red Sox beat the White Sox.


After the game, we headed back to our hotel because we had a 5:15 am flight home. It was brutal getting up that early, but totally worth it when we had the whole afternoon to chill on the couch and catch up on DVR.

Another great adventure!! Special thanks to M for your great hospitality and to everyone who made the time to meet up with us while we were in town.

Mystery Trip : Savannah and Amelia Island September 3 - 6, 2010

Overview of the Trip


Savannah had a lot more to see and do than we though. We will definitely be spending many more three day weekends there. Here’s the best of the trip:

Best beer: Bourbon Barrel Ale by Kentucky Ale

Best cocktail: Tanquery Ten Gin Martini at Salt

Best signature cocktail: Pinojito at Salt- A hyped up sangria with rum, mint, lemon and lime, Pinot noir and club soda

Best appetizer -Smoked tuna tartare – It arrived on top of a tube filled with smoke so the smoky aroma tricked your palate into thinking the tartare had a slight smoky flavor.

Second place - Crab Cakes by Chef Joe Randall

Best entree - This was a tough one because we weren't really blown away by any of the entrees we had at Elizabeth on 37th or at Chef Joe Randall’s cooking class. They both suffered from putting too many competing flavors on the plate so the prize had to go to Lady and Sons cheesy meatloaf- even though we had just a taste.

Best dessert - We have a split decision. Glenn's favorite was the angel food cake dessert from Elizabeth on 37th. They took pieces of angel food cake, added custard and then let it set up into a load pan and topped it with whipped cream. It was a successful twist on angel food cake. Angie's favorite was the rum bisque ice from Leopold's. It was creamy, flavorful with a bit of crunch.

Best bar- The bar at our hotel – Holiday Inn Express. The chairs were comfortable, the bartenders were friendly and the drinks were strong.

Most Unexpected Moment- Glenn saw a woman who had lined up four kids to pee in the bushes - just steps from the actual bathroom at the Ritz Carlton in Amelia Island.

Tied for second place - The fire alarm at 5 am and when another tour bus hit our tour bus.

Best store – The Peanut Shop, River Walk, Savannah. Hands down the best snack shop ever!


Mystery Trip Day 1

Glenn opened the first envelope and revealed that we were going to Savannah for the mystery trip. He wasn’t too surprised as Savannah was one of his guesses. We hopped in the car and headed out on the six hour drive. We stumbled across the Burger Barn for lunch. It delivered delicious burgers, tator tots and onion rings. We drove thru and then grabbed a spot on the nearest picnic table.

After another quick stop at the gas station to pick up the trifecta of snack foods – Arizona Iced Tea, Munchos and cheesy peanut butter crackers, we pulled into the Holiday Inn Express – Savannah Historic District. The location is awesome – right across the street from the River Walk. It is a gorgeous hotel with a beautiful lobby and bar. We had a great King Corner room with a couch, two really nice arm chairs, a desk and a wet bar. The Front Desk was really friendly and helpful. The only negative was that the Valet Parking was a little slow.

Elizabeth on 37th

After a quick clean up, we headed to Envelope #2: Elizabeth on 37th. The restaurant is in a historic mansion. The décor inside was appropriate to the period. We ordered the seven course tasting menu. The service was impeccable. The wine list was a bit on the high side. The wine list was a bit on the high side for the price point of the entrees. As for the tasting menu:

Glenn’s thoughts – All the food was prepared properly and executed according to the chef’s vision. The flavors in the dishes were a little unsettling. The appetizer was tuna tartare on top of the scallop. The tuna tartare was amazing and the overcooked scallop took away from it. It would be better served by itself with the wasabi aioli.

Angie’s thoughts – The menu attempted to innovative and really pushed toward interesting new flavor combinations. The crab cake was really good. The scallop was dried out. For most of the entrees, it did end up being too much on the plate.

River Walk
Saturday, we started the day with a walk on River Walk. The River Walk was super cute with a good mix of restaurants and shops. The Peanut Shop was a fantastic snack shop. They live up to their name with more types of flavored peanuts, peanut brittle and peanut butter than we have ever seen. The River Walk also had a nice little market with local crafts, sunglasses and purses as well as an Art Fair.

Foody Tour

After our walk – it was time for Mystery Envelope #3: The Foody Tour. Savannah Movie Tours hosts a Foody Tour that visits and samples food from six different Savannah restaurants:

Distillery – A great bar with over 20 craft beers on tap. We sampled their slider with French fries and a remoulade dipping sauce and a couple beers.

Harris Bakery – It was a little weird to go from burgers and beer to pastry but the apple tart was very good. It lived up to our pastry expectations: flaky, sweet and sticky.

Farmers’ Market – It was a small market with a good selection of local produce. Due to a miscommunication, the much hyped tomato sandwich was replaced by a disappointing piece of watermelon.

Angel’s BBQ – This was a really cool spot because we would have never found it on our own. It was a tiny hole in the wall in an alley behind a church. The pulled pork was great.

Lady and Sons – This is Paula Dean’s restaurant. This was the perfect way to experience it. We were in and out in a matter of minutes with no need to wait for hours in the morning for a reservation. We sampled the fried chicken and cheesy meatloaf. The meatloaf was the real star due to it spicy cheese sauce.

Leopold’s Ice Cream Parlor – We ended the tour with a sweet treat. We tried the signature flavors: Rum Bisque and Lemon Custard. The lemon custard flavor was good. The flavor would have been more custard-like. It was not as good as Glenn was hoping. Angie found the Rum Bisque to be outstanding. It was smooth and sweet with a little bit of crunch. Fantastic!

Savannah Craft Beer Festival
After the Foody Tour, we moved on to Envelope #4: Savannah Craft Beer Festival. The festival featured thirty four breweries. It was well organized. Each brewery had at least two brews to sample. We got a small glass and went from tent to tent sampling beers. We never had to wait long and every one was really friendly. The best beer we tasted was the Bourbon Barrel Ale from Kentucky Ale. It was surprising how much of the whiskey flavor was imparted into the ale. We loved it!


Chef Joe Randall’s Cooking School

After a little nap, we headed out to Envelope #5: Chef Joe Randall’s Cooking School. This cooking school had been featured in Rachel Ray magazine. We pulled up. It was a small house and we walked right into the kitchen that had about twenty seats around a counter. Chef Randall had a great personality. It was interesting because nothing was pre-made so he made a four course meal for 20 people right in front of us. Because of that, we waited an hour and a half for the first course. Good thing we had a big lunch. The courses were good. The crab cakes were great and the best that Angie had ever had. The second course was fried green tomatoes over Bibb lettuce with a buttermilk dressing. The buttermilk dressing was really good. Third course was baked chicken with fried corn and red rice. We were both surprised to find that red rice is very similar to jambalaya as neither of us had had it before. Dessert was a pecan and peach tart. Overall it was a really fun experience. We ended the night hanging out at the hotel bar.

Sunday – Ritz Carlton, Amelia Island

Glenn was finally surprised when he opened Envelope #6: Ritz Carlton Amelia Island. We hit the road again. We were really impressed with the property. They had a great room ready for us at noon. We had our own balcony. We immediately headed down to the pool. The pool was great. It had tiered seating with rows of plants in between the tiers. Each set of chairs had its own umbrella. It really gave a sense of privacy. We could also see the ocean from the upper tiers. We had some great snacks and drinks by the pool. Then we headed up and changed for dinner. We decided to go the bar at the fine dining restaurant Salt. We ordered drinks and appetizers. We were blown away. The Gin Martini was the best Glenn had ever had. The tuna tartare appetizer was amazing. It came on top of a tube filled with smoke. We also had the scallop and foie gras. It was just awesome. Monday morning, we enjoyed the buffet breakfast and then hung out by the pool. It was sad to leave.


It was another great adventure.

Ritz Carlton Cooking School - Grande Lakes Orlando

We have had the privilege of attending the the Cooking School at Ritz Carlton Grande Lakes Orlando twice. The first time, the theme was barbeque. The most recent experience as focuses on South American cuisine and this is the one I am going to review here. This experience was a package and included:

• 2 nights in a Garden View room

• Continental Breakfast Saturday morning

• Cooking class Saturday Morning to prepare lunch

• Special Argentinean Wine Dinner Saturday night

• Brunch Sunday

• Late check out Sunday

• Valet parking

• Gift from the Chef – a cutting board, dessert cookbook and apron in our case

• All the recipes



The Class

The class is fantastic. Executive Chef Sean Woods leads the class. He selects 3-4 other chefs to help teach and prepare the meal. Since the class is limited to 20 participants, this means that we ended up in groups no larger than 4 per chef. After our continental breakfast we dig in to preparing a long list of buffet items. Each group takes a set of dishes off the lunch menu and works with the chef to prepare the dishes. The menu for this class was:

• Appetizers: Empanadas, Potato Puffs

• Salad: King Crab on Baby Greens with Hearts of Palm, Heirloom Tomato and Onion Salad with Bay Scallops

• Main Selection: Chi lean Turbot, Pork and Shellfish Stew, Hot and Spicy Chicken, Grilled Hanger Steak

• Sides: Grilled Cauliflower in Almond Sauce, Chilean Hot Pepper Sauce, Parsley Sauce

• Desserts: Churros, plus an assortment of the chef’s choosing



This is definitely hands on! It’s so fun to be working right alongside these chefs and learning all their little techniques. Here is Chef Woods showing Glenn how to filet the Chilean Turbot:

The Property

The Grande Lakes property is gorgeous. The campus includes a JW Marriot, a golf course, a pool, a spa, a ropes course and a creek. They offer a lot of different excursions depending on what you like to do: kayak, fish, golf, spa, etc. It is always clean and well kept. We really enjoy it there.

The rooms are also very nice and include huge bathrooms with two sinks and a separate shower and tub. All the rooms have these cute little balconies where you can relax with your in-room coffee in the morning.

The Service

The front desk service is impressive. Once we checked in, we were greeted by name every time we came across each person again. A chef we had met at the last cooking class even sent us a glass of champagne by the pool. We really appreciate small touches like that.

The Restaurants/Bars
This is our only complaint with this property. While the food at our brunch at the Vineyard Grille was fantastic, the service was not. We waited an unacceptable amount of time for drink refills and for dirty dishes to be cleared away. They forgot about our table for over 40 minutes. Not so great. In addition, we have been unable during the course of two visits to secure a drink by the pool. This most recent visit, Glenn was finally able to find a poolside waiter after 5 minutes of walking around. The waiter said he would get back to us and never mind. At this level of hotel, it is sure annoying to be denied the opportunity to spend money.

Overall
As our repeat visit indicates, we love this cooking school program. We learn something new each time and it always feels like a vacation. If they continue to offer it, we will continue to attend.

Glenn's Hotel Reviews - China

Xi’an - Aurum International
My wife and I toured China with Friendly Planet from 1/27 - 2/5 and stayed here for one night while visiting Xi’an and the Terra Cota Army museum. I think I saw this hotel rated as four star, however that must be in relative terms to other hotels in the area. We had a suite with separate living area and bedroom. Bed was a double which was VERY firm (aka “hard”). Was challenging for the two of us (both over 6 feet tall) but it worked out since we were both tired from the day of touring. Breakfast (included for our stay) was not memorable. Combination of Western and Chinese dishes – nothing particularly amazing but you could find something to satisfy. The hotel is close to downtown and within walking distance of the Bell Tower and many restuarants and shops. If your plans extend to more than a couple of days, I would stay somewhere else. It was perfect for us for the one night.

Beijing - The Beijing International Hotel
My wife and I toured China with Friendly Planet and stayed here for three nights. Is one of the nicest hotels I have stayed. Had a beautiful room room with a fantastic bathroom and bed with great view of the city. Robes and slippers provided. Breakfast (included in our stay) was really great. Nice mixture of Western and Chinese selections. Really good dumplings, noodles, steamed buns and fruit. Also had omelettes made to order. Only issue we had was a sewer odor on day 2. We went down to the hotel manager and we were moved to another floor and didn't have any the problem again. We were told that floors 16 and 17 had the "issue" - so you may want to avoid those floors when staying here. It didn't detract from our stay since the matter was handled promptly and professionally. The fitness center, pool and spa were closed for renovations during our stay (exepcted to open in October 2010), so can't review those. Although the "artist's renderings" looked like it would be nice.

Shanghai - Broadway Mansions Hotel
My wife and I toured China with Friendly Planet and stayed here for 3 nights. This is an old 1930's era art deco style hotel. Very nice lobby. Rooms were small but nicely laid out with a desk area in the bedroom. Internet access was reasonably priced (US 8 cents a minute or US$20/day). Beds were extremely hard - which is common in China. Got a backache after the first night which made it tough to sleep except for the nights when we were really tired (at least one). We had what was called a smoking room on the 6th floor, but there was no odor of smoke to our surprise. The hall area of the floor smelled of smoke, but the room was fine. Had a great bathroom with glassed in tub and separate shower. Breakfast (included in our stay) was average but you could find something to satisfy. Best choices were fruit (delicious watermelon) and made to order eggs. The Chinese and Western "steam table" selections were lacking.
It is hard to recommend the hotel, purely based on the comfort of the beds. Maybe if you brought an inflatable mattress it would help.

Day 9 - The Journey Home

About noon we headed to the Shanghai airport for our 2 and a half hour flight to Beijing. Everything went according to plan and we took off at 3:00 pm, landed in Beijing at 5:15 pm. We had a 3 hour layover so we spent the last of our yuan on Pizza hut, water and caramels. Our flight boarded at 9:00 pm on Friday. This flight, Glenn and I decided to request aisle seats for both of us. We ended up 4 rows apart with empty middle seats so we both had a really pleasant flight – sleeping away most of it. We landed in LA at 4:15 pm on Friday – more than 4 hours BEFORE we departed. The international dateline does weird things. We had previously decided to spend the night in LA so we didn’t have to worry about immigration or customs. I quickly texted some good friends from college. Lucky for us, they were free. They came and picked us from the hotel and we headed to Rush Street in Culver City for an awesome dinner! It was nice not to have to worry about the ice in my drink or if the bathroom would have toilets. After a quick sleep tonight, we’ll be headed back to LA.

Day 8 – Our own private tour of Shanghai

We met our guide, Eee yore, this morning at 9:00 am. She just finished university last year. Her major was foreign trade, but she can make more money being a tour guide as few as 7 days a month than the salary for a starting position in her field of study. There was a slightly awkward moment when Sam, our Friendly Planet tour guide came down and saw us with her, but oh well. We jumped into a taxi and headed for the French Concession. Our first stop was Fuxing Park. It is an amazing park. It was so great. There were so many there doing their “morning exercises.” This means people were out practicing revolution songs of their youth, practicing calligraphy using water on the sidewalk, practicing tai chi, ballroom dancing, line dancing to “Santa Claus is coming to town”, playing badminton and practicing kung fu. It was just so cool. We walked around. A man who was drawing calligraphy on the sidewalk stopped us and wanted to write a special message for us. He wrote “Happy New Year” and “Wishing you Happy Travels”.

We walked down the street to a many set of alleys filled with shops and restaurants called Tianzi Fang. It was tiny little shops where the owners lived upstairs. It is also the home to many artists and their galleries. After that, we headed to Jade Buddha Temple. It’s the first Buddha temple we visited. The smell of incense hung in the air. We first visited the Hall of Kings – where the four kings reside. Together, each of the characters of their names forms the phrase “Everything will be alright.” Then off to see many different Buddha with the final Buddha – the jade Buddha in the reclining position. It was a little disconcerting to see such a relic smack dab in the middle of a gift shop.

Feeling hungry, we headed to Old Town – the location of the Yu Garden we saw the first day. We tried stinky tofu from a street vendor. It tastes a lot like regular fried tofu except it smells terrible as it cooks. Then we went to a Shanghai restaurant for lunch. We tried soup dumplings. These tiny dumplings magically hold liquid so it’s a burst of soup when you bite into them. We also had fried noodles and regular dumplings. Feeling fortified, we walked around Old Town. Glenn bargained with a street vendor to get a New Year’s decoration. The vendor started at 160 RMB, but Glenn quickly got him down to 25 RMB just by walking away. Yay! We walked down “Food Street” which was filled with street vendors. It was fine because it was winter, but with all the raw food out, I definitely would have been squeamish if it was summer.

We hopped on the ferry to go to the other side of the river to visit the Oriental Pearl Tower. We took the local ferry since it was only 8 cents a person. However, this was also the ferry all the motorbikes so we had to dodge the bikes and the gas fumes getting off the ferry. We walked over to the Oriental Pearl Tower – one of the tallest TV towers in the world. We headed up to the observation deck. It was a pretty good view even with the pollution. One of the coolest parts was one floor down where they have a skywalk – an observation deck with a see through floor. It was really cool and a little scary. Back down on ground level, we wandered through the museum. It had stamps from the Communist regime where people were paid with stamps instead of currency. For instance, you could get a stamp for food, furniture, bus pass, a bike, etc. Then we walked through the depictions of Shanghai over the years. It really is incredible the influence the international community had on the development of this city. After this excursion, we decided to call it a day and headed back to the hotel. All said and done, hiring a private guide and paying for all our transportation and admissions cost us only $44 more than if we had taken the optional tour offered through Friendly Planet plus we got to see more, eat better food, and do it all at our own pace. Tonight we are going out to dinner and drinks with our Friendly Planet tour guide Sam. We are pretty excited to get to just hang out with him.

Dinner with Sam was great. He had heard of a street with bars and restaurants in the French Concession so we hopped in a cab and headed there. Our cab quickly came to a dead stop because a dump truck was blocking the entire road as the demolition crew was using a front loader to fill it – right in the middle of the street. Finally after five minutes of non-stop honking the dump truck took a loop around the block to clear traffic. WE arrived at the street which was just outside a shopping mall. We perused all the restaurants and the busiest restaurant was a German Beer Hall so we ended up there. We think it was Sam’s first time with German food and beer. We ordered a cold cut and cheese platter and pretzels. It was really good. We had a really nice time with Sam just chatting about his family and our life back in the States. We called it an early night because he had to be up early to see some of the tour off on their flights to Hong Kong. This morning we had a leisurely breakfast and finishing getting packed. We have a flight from Shanghai to Beijing, a three hour layover and then our 12 hour flight from Beijing to Los Angeles. We have definitely loved China and will put it on our list of places to visit again.