I’ll start of by saying that my friends will understand my reasoning and obsession behind this.
When I heard from Harry, my local mate in the hutongs, that the CCTV tower was the tallest building in Beijing with an observation deck where you could view the whole city, and had a really good revolving Japanese buffet (did you say Japanese buffet?), I made it a personal mission to check it out.
So I had Eileen, my favourite girl who works at the Hutong Inn, (she’s really cute and always friendly) write down in Chinese where I needed to go, and confidently hailed a cab and agreed with whatever he said about directions.
Ten minutes later, the cabbie got excited as we neared a strangely angular shaped building, which was an interesting, beautiful, structure, and I’m no engineer, but all my revolving restaurant eating experience (and I’ve had my share) and instinct, was telling me that no, this was not where I needed to be.
The cabbie and I motioned back and forth, which in english would have gone like this:
Cabbie – ‘This IS the CCTV tower’
T – ‘No, it can’t be, a revolving restaurant can’t have edges’
And so on..
We even called over an innocent bystander to ask his opinion. He was a young man, kicking it on the curb with his 3 mates, who knew a tiny bit of english.
T – ‘Excuse me, where is the CCTV tower restaurant, where there is food’ (hand to mouth eating motion)
Guy – ‘erm’ (looks back at his friends, looks at me), ‘I am having lunch with my friends now, maybe later?’ takes out his phone.
T – No no no no no (crossing arms, shaking head) I am not asking you on a date! I want to eat. Not with you. Where is the CCTV tower??’
Guy – ‘Eat with me?’
T – To the cabbie ‘GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!’ frantic forward motioning.
Tiara in Transit 