We had a great hot pot dinner! We went to a place called “Gold Mountain Hotpot” in the New World Center, and it was delicious. The surroundings were elegant and the dinner was perfect. 
Our friends were studying for an English oral examination, so they brought a list of exam questions. We asked them the questions and discussed the answers. Nick and Carol were assigned to be the “examiners.” We hope it was useful to help them prepare for their exam, and it was certainly a fun way to help our family know them better.
The New World Center is a very shiny, fancy shopping center near the middle of Beijing. To get to the restaurant, we threaded our way through the stores for a long time. We later realized that we entered the building on the wrong end - the subway stop is at the north end, and the restaurant is all the way on the south end. We were a little surprised at the way the mall is laid out. Instead of having big hallways where you can browse the shop windows, everyone walks right through the stores. It’s probably a good marketing technique, since you’re actually inside the stores instead of looking through a window, but it’s definitely a challenge to navigate.
Julia thinks the dinner looks like it has a bunch of water in it. She’s glad that she doesn’t have to eat raw fish.