Starbucks Guide

Before I left for my vacation, my friends teased me how am I going to survive with no Starbucks in China. There was a 2 second panic and then I remembered reading something about Starbucks opened in Forbidden City. So I am sure there is Beijing at least have Starbucks. Today started off with me waking up at 4am because of the stoopid jet lag. After trying for an hour to go back to sleep, I gave up and did some reading and MSN. Then my coffee addiction kicked in. It was 6am in the morning. I didn't know if the Starbucks in Beijing open that early. I made use of my free Internet to find the closet store open at 9am! (why can't they open at 6am like Vancouver!) I figured I would go for a walk anyway cause I was starving already and I really didn't feel like eating another granola bar (Note to self, always bring granola bar to travel from now on. It saved me twice already on this trip :P) When I opened the hostel door to go out, there was a guy, Ryan standing wanting to stay at the hostel. But all the receptionist were still asleep at that hour. So he just dropped off his bag inside and walked with me. He happened to come back from a trip to Dalian and knew where the Starbucks around the hostel is!! My friend said I always have a weird instinct to find all the Starbucks. But never before that when I opened the door and boom, a Starbucks guide :p So we chatted a bit and apparently he is from St Louisiana and came to work in Shanghai for couple months. And now wanting to move to Beijing. He looked abit like my friend Wes but I didn't say that out loud. (sound too much like a pick up line). He studied architecture (I was going to say my cousin is doing that here too! but found that sound a bit weird too) and just trying out to live a different life. I found that quite interesting cause he apparently doesn't know a word of Chinese and not having any friends or relatives here and decided to just come and see. I guess he is still young to do that.