After Shanghai we flew to Beijing for a quick 3-day visit to walk old paths from 2011. Our plans were really loose. Once we’d made the decision to actually go to Beijing, I think we were mostly just looking for a way to get on with it. To simply be where we had been, as four. To have a look around and see what was real.

It’s true you can’t go “home” again. Or, you can. I sort of I braced myself for it, but there was no need. The Renmin campus was smart and tidy, so fresh, so refreshed in fact, it was one big sigh of relief to see. There were new doors on our old apartment building, fresh paint on a couple of buildings, a fancy new, covered farmer’s market, smooth, clean sidewalks and a newly paved alley to the little market where we used to go for toilet paper and potato chips. There were a slew of grannies watching babies in strollers where the kids used to play after school. Rows of dusty bikes just as they always were. The place looked great, and felt peaceful.

I walked two slow laps around the red track, thinking about my endless morning “training” sessions there, how I would start off with 25 fen (tiny aluminum coins, kind of like micro-pennies, they are roughly 1/6 of a penny) in my left pocket, transferring one to my right pocket every time I completed a lap. A funny thing to do, but I kept losing count of my laps and didn’t have a fitness app in 2011. The track. That was the emotional spot for me. I knew back then that I was deliberately “training,” I just didn’t know for what.

We’d thought we might hang around on campus for a while and have lunch at the Angel Restaurant, but there was nothing left for us at Renmin. It had only been our home for five months–no time at all–but it was the last home, the last “time” we knew together as a healthy, happy family of four on top of the world, and I needed to be there one last time.

When we’d seen enough, we walked to the subway station and rode the now fully completed and much more crowded #10 line out to Beitucheng. We took our time through the park (the blossoms! the yoga ladies!) and down into the Anzhen Xili neighborhood. Parked ourselves on a bench for a while near the public school and the statue of Confucius and sat there for as long as felt right. Then wandered over to beloved BISS, the sweet little school that was such an important part of our lives in Beijing, stalling by the front gates and side playground. In this case, the building itself, the windows and all the international flags flying outside looked grimy. Not so fresh, and not cheerful and vibrant as it is in my memories. Far across the playground there were high school students outside for PE, but right there in front of us, through the fence bars, was the track where Cece won her gold medal in the long jump. She was eight and a half years old then. My God.

That school was an oasis for our family in 2011. All real. As were we.

And that, was it.

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For the rest of our time in Beijing there was sunshine. Not much to say. We were casual and in no hurry. Walked the Forbidden City with the masses, then Art’s favorite hutong Nanluogu Xiang (which we call the Not Too Long Hutong), and lastly, spent our final day on a Viator/Urban Adventures “tour” of the Wall (risky, because we’d bought it randomly online, but it was perfect). Our group consisted of our guide Karen (a chipper, mom of two girls), a young couple from London in their second week of three months traveling the world, a retired-Navy-officer-turned-United-flight-attendant from Chicago, and a petite tax accountant from Kuala Lumpur who was heading that weekend to North Korea to run a marathon. Plus the three of us. Lucky. We were thrilled (relieved!) to have such a pleasant and interesting little group to spend our last day (ever) in Beijing with. This tour took us to the Mutianyu section of the wall, about an hour and 45 minutes outside of the city. Perfect weather, no crowds, and this time, after three hours of walking the wall we all lined up and rode the toboggans to the bottom. No pictures, no ‘proof’ of that, but there was hooting (!) and everyone wanted to do it again.

When our van arrived back in Beijing at 5pm, I told Art: I’m good. Full up. Done with Beijing.

Odd collection here, but for what it’s worth, this was our quick dip back into Beijing (with hardly any of Elle, I know. Not for lack of trying!)