New Year's Eve Eve

 

Tracy hosted last night in their new extended kitchen. Wing & Johnson family gathering. There was so much food that I forgot to even take a photo of it! She put on a really good spread and cooked loads of food

Nearly all great and grandkids.. Missing Laura, Gavin and baby Billy!

Tracy did really well hosting for so many people!

Thanks for hosting and all the great food.

2023 surprisingly has ended pretty well for me which is always a positive. Let's hope 2024 is even better!

Happy New Year!

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Christmas Eve Eve

Christmas Eve Eve - gym session in the morning then home and showered to go to nanny Wing's for the Wing's Christmas gathering. Think I'm fully roasted out already as my mum and dad made roast lamb on Tuesday night then did a trial run on Thursday night with a turkey leg to see how it would go for Christmas day and ended up having turkey and pork at grandma's! Too much roast going on don't even want a roast on Christmas day no more.

Annual cousin Christmas photo!

Baby Billy's first Christmas

Was nice to see all the kids even if they didn't appreciate the food and hate roasts

After I went into town to meet Kelly, Danielle, David, Josh and Matt for our annual Christmas gathering. They went bottomless brunch in the afternoon and I just met them at The Old Bank pub. Danielle was only there for a bit when I got there. 

We then went to Woolton Village - Liberty Tavern. I stayed till 11:30am as I needed to get up early to get a gym session in. On shift in the gym 12-4pm 

David got Kelly these creepy little hands and glasses off Temu for their Tenner on Temu secret santa.

Been saying this for a few years but even more so this year it just doesn't feel like Christmas at all. I guess working 2 jobs now is making it less Christmassy. The gym was so busy that we couldn't even do the close we wanted. People getting their last minute workouts to eat what they want and it's shut tomorrow but back open 8am Boxing Day.

Merry Christmas!

Hope you have a good one!

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Beijing

Day 3 in Beijing - Different breakfast this morning from what we've been having

Noodles from a place next to the hotel. Was a bit heavy and much for breakfast but this normal to have.

We walked back to the hotel and got them to book us a taxi to the tube station. The taxi was already paid for through the app when it was booked. When we got to the station the driver said we hadn't paid. Mum said the girl at the hotel paid when she booked and he was like no. So mum told him to ring the hotel then and the guy said he didn't have her number (he did have it through the booking on the app) so my mum got the hotel business card out for him to ring and he told my mum to but she said she couldn't so here's the number if you want to ring it. He went to put the number in then was like oh I can't get through you can get out now. He tried to rip us off for another ¥10 (Just over £1) thinking we were stupid! Which is a contrast compared to the girl the night before who paid for our taxi back to the hotel. It's really hit and miss. Taxi drivers are really bad in Beijing so you have to be careful.

We got the tube to the Temple of Heaven. But it was shut and only the park was open and we had to pay to go in the park. It was a big park which had people just strolling and people running which was weird if people had to pay. Pensioners got to go in for free think we had to pay ¥10 (Just over £1) but the people running weren't pensioners so not sure if they had to pay to get it. Surely they did if we had to..

It's a nice park to walk around and the weather was a lot better than the day before. It was a cold crisp day with clear blue skies.

Was disappointing that we couldn't go the temple but then again don't know how close you can go after the day before when we went to the Summer Palace and couldn't actually go in any of the buildings.

After we go the tube to Tiananmen Square

Well as close as we could get to Tiananmen Square... Security is so strict. Coming out of the tube station you had to provide ID - we had our passports. They had foreign visitors, we seen police convoys driving down the road.

After we walked to Wangfujing Street

Wangfujing Street is a famous street with both expensive designer shops as well as high street shops. In the night it has a lot of street food stalls. As we went in November not tourist season on a random Monday afternoon it was dead. Not much happening or people around. When it's tourist it does get packed where you can't move because there's that many people.

We go the tube back to the hotel and went for dinner in the same place where we had breakfast on the first day we landed in Beijing.

Stopped off at a bakery on the way to the restaurant - not as good as pastel de natas. This was was shortcrust pastry.

Black chicken feet (the chicken is actually black)

Deep fried lamb bones to go with baos - was really dry and didn't come with sauce but you eat it with a whole clove of garlic? Weird. Beijing food really isn't for us!

The last breakfast in Beijing we went to our usual place got gyozas and got some wontons for something different.

No holiday is complete without a visit to the supermarket. Not sure if these were banana flavour

The strangest flavours of crisp which I sadly didn't try

Streets by the hotel

Final lunch in Beijing before flying down south to Shenzhen to my grandma's.

Fresh noodles

This sign is very much needed as people don't actually know how to lock the door when they're in the toilet! The amount of times I pushed a door and there was someone already in there.

One more post from Beijing - Forbidden City

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