Free day

Emmy and I weren’t entirely sure how to spend our free day, but knew from the start that it had to involve some delicious food. We also wanted to find more local places to visit as it was starting to feel like much of our adventures revolved around tourist hot spots and incredibly historical spaces. Since we both slept through breakfast, we knew we needed something resembling breakfast or lunch, or better yet, both! After a lot of time spent surfing the web, we decided to visit a place that was rated as being affordable and delicious. It was called The Green Cow Cafe. Of course, since Beijing is so large and this was our first experience going on an outing on our own, we didn’t even think to look at how far away the restaurant was from the dorms. Instead, we just hopped in a cab and showed the driver the cafe’s address. After a lot of confusion, the cafe was on a busy street, but was set-back from the rest of the road behind a bit of a courtyard, we finally found the place. We stepped in and were immediately struck by how cute and cozy the cafe looked. In addition, we were surprised by the huge emphasis on local and organic foods. Emmy ordered a bagel with cream cheese and I had ricotta pancakes. Both were delicious. After our meal we spoke to the owner who announced that his wife was from New Jersey and she’d given him all of his recipes. Following the meal we visited a local market that had a wonderfully huge section for stuffed animals. Here, I felt moved to buy a very ugly red monkey. My monkey traveled back to the US with me, and got lots of comments from playful customs agents and bored crew-members. That is all.