Journey Toward Home 9/3/2009

You might be in China if.....
-- you'll willingly pay for internet just to talk to your kids for a few minutes....
-- your cab driver sees nothing wrong with speeding up when there's only 20 feet until there's a car that's not moving....
-- your bus driver drives like he's in a sports car even with 4 lanes of grid lock traffic....
-- a hamburger at McDonald's hasn't tasted so good since you were 7 years old....
-- you can't see very far in front of you from all the pollution.....
-- it seems like the sun is setting at 3:00 pm because of the pollution...
-- you can't get enough cold water and ice cream to help survive the humidity....
-- you see some amazing parks with lily ponds, flowers beds and rock creations (walls, sidewalks, decor)...
-- you automatically divide 7 into every price you're told to convert from RMB....
-- everywhere you look are extremely tall apartment buildings that look like they are inches apart from the next one....
-- the guy at the table next to you at dinner lights a cigarette while sitting under the "no smoking" sign....
Wow, it's really down to our last day here tomorrow. We flew to Beijing very early this morning and arrived at our hotel about 1 pm. We are located close to the airport but we are tired enough we probably won't even hear all the planes flying over us. We walked down a couple of streets looking for restaurants they suggested at the hotel. You feel mentally challenged trying to match up Chinese characters from a paper to the sign on the front of the stores. We finally found the place we were looking for and went inside. It was like someone pushed the mute button when we entered, and this place was packed. They wouldn't have stared harder had we been aliens from mars. I'm sure it was our stunning beauty that just left them speechless. We worked our way through ordering by pointing and a handful of Chinese words, and a kind waitress who let us know which dishes would be too hot for our wimpy western mouths! The chicken dish looked good, even after we discovered the foot that was in it, much to FuJiao Sadie's delight. Two weeks ago I probably wouldn't have touched this dish with a 10 foot pole, but today I slicked it right up, chopsticks and all.

On the way back to our hotel we passed a shoe store. Apparently the luck was just beginning with the chicken foot in our lunch, because FuJiao Sadie tried on and WANTED a pair of closed toed shoes. Of course they are silver and light up, so what girl would pass them up. We just really wanted her to have something comfy for hiking the great wall tomorrow. I bet she's never owned a pair a socks, seeing as how she'd never have needed them.

Todd couldn't face another day in a hotel so we took the shuttle downtown, followed by a cab ride. This is where the luck ran out and the carsickness began. I guess the luck returned since we had a plastic bag that was highly needed! Poor girl, drug all over China by her rotten parents. We visited Tie'animan Square from a distance of across the street. After all, it's a large cement square, so the picture from afar was fine, safer, and less walking. We tried to go in the Forbidden City, but found out it was named correctly......it's was closed by the time we got there. But we can say we were there and took a few pictures. We visited a beautiful park next door and all together walked at least 50 miles! Again, rotten parents! We didn't improve any and chose McD's for dinner. Needless to say, we had a very happy girl once we got back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we check out of our hotel at 9 am and will go to the Great Wall. Seems like the perfect culmination for a China adventure. Our flight leaves at 9 pm, so we will have another full day. FuJiao Sadie should sleep most of the way the America--we hope! So......15 days, 100's of pictures, countless cab rides, 3 Chinese guides, and 1 new Snyder later, we are coming home! See you soon!