Some people you meet while traveling disappear from your life as soon as the trip ends.
And occasionally, someone reappears 12 years later.
When Elaine first visited Beijing as an eight-year-old, Dad & Elaine joined a tour group.
One of the people we met on that trip was our Beijing tour guide.
Elaine was eight.
China was still very new to her.
And none of us could possibly have known how many times Dad & Elaine would eventually return.
Twelve Years Later…
Before our recent Beijing trip, we managed to get back in touch with her.
Twelve years after that first journey.
So this time there was no tour group.
No sightseeing schedule.
No attraction to rush to.
We simply met for dinner in Beijing.
There was something quietly special about sitting around the same table again.
The little eight-year-old traveler she once knew had grown up.
And Dad & Elaine were still traveling around China. 😂
And Dinner Was Very Beijing… and Very Chinese 😂
Of course, a reunion in China needs food.
Lots of it.
There were dishes filling the table, conversation catching up on the missing years, and memories of that much earlier Beijing trip.
But for Dad, the most memorable thing wasn’t really what we ate.
It was who was sitting across the table.
☕ ChinaTravelBUG’s Take
Travel gives us photographs of places.
Sometimes it gives us something better:
people who become part of the memory of a place.
Twelve years earlier, she was the tour guide helping an eight-year-old Elaine discover Beijing.
This time, she was an old friend meeting us for dinner.
Perhaps that’s another reason Dad & Elaine’s repeated journeys through China feel different now.
We aren’t always arriving somewhere completely new.
Sometimes we’re returning to places.
Sometimes we’re returning to memories.
And occasionally…
we’re returning to people.
