Today, we continued our tradition of breakfast with Mr. Shi at the fast but good food restaurant. My parents had the wutong soup and we all had boiled eggs and donuts. I was craving a cold drink and the only thing they had was coke. So coke for breakfast it was. I now know what a monkey in a cage feels like - every person that came in looked at us. It was interesting be the odd man out rather than the majority. As I've mentioned, drinking something at breakfast is considered strange and I think the fact that we were drinking cokes confirmed all their American assumptions! Hahaha.
The other unique thing about this restaurant is that they played American music. I heard Joshua Radin's music (he is one of my favorite singers but not really popular or a radio played musician) and the we heard Let It Go.
We then met everyone at the subway so we could head towards Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Today, we had a group of nine - the fab five along with Mr. Shi, his wife, his mother in law, his niece (who has been my favorite person to interact with so far! I hope she gets in to a U.S. College so I can have a little Chinese sister.)
First, we had to go through multiple security checkpoints just to be able to get into the place to purchase tickets. This security checkpoint was also necessary for Tiananmen Square. Leon went to purchase our tickets. This was the first place that was crazy busy - the other places we have visited were busy but not this many people. We found out it was closed on Monday and can only allow 100,000 people per day.
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| Forbidden City Ticket |
Leon tried to buy a student ticket and got caught so he had to go back and pay the difference - karma! He hasn't been a Chinese student for over 7 years!!! We we went on without him and he caught up.
So for this trip, I wish my mom would have worn her fitbit because I firmly believed we have walked a marathon distance so far and the Forbidden City was a key place for accruing that mileage! This place was huge! We went through gate then viewed the hall then through another gate and another hall. I have no idea what we saw - what I can tell you is that it was gigantic and beautiful and old. The majority of it was built around 1420 but some parts burned down and were rebuilt. These emperors really wanted to show off. There were lions and dragons and phoenixes and cranes and turtles but no pandas! I have some nice panoramic pictures too. We spent about 7 hours exploring.
After leaving the Forbidden City, we went to Tiananmen Square. It was also very large. We were too wore out to walk all over it but we did take some pictures there and my dad almost run over by soldiers! No worries he dodged them after I pushed him out of the way!
We took the subway to one station from the end of Line 1 that headed west. Mr. Shi was supposed to get off at his normal stop because he was going to get the car. However, he jumped back in the subway train because he had all of our tickets and you need a ticket to get off the subway.
We were then waiting for Mr. Shi at a bus stop. I told Leon that I needed a cold water. My mom told him she wanted a coke and my dad a water. Leon came back with two cold waters and a coke that he purchased for 5 RMB (less than $1) for all of them. He bargained the person down from 10 RMB.
Our Beijing family treated us to a farewell dinner of noodles. It was yummy! We had collards and fish and grandma brought some boiled peanuts to the restaurant. We all had noodles for dinner - from the picture below, please guess which bowl belongs to which person. The people you can choice from are Ashley, Leon, George, and Ruth.
It was so nice to have dinner with everyone one last time. I sat at the kids table with Wendy, Mr. Shi's son and his girlfriend and then his wife and sister in law (Wendy's mom). They all shared their dishes with me and I got to try a little of everything. As we were leaving the restaurant and saying good be to everyone, Wendy's mom asked us if we would be Wendy's family when she gets to the states and we said we would be honored. I am not sure that it is possible to repay our Beijing family for all the kindness they bestowed upon us.
After dinner, Mr. Shi ran us by Carrefour to buy some special treats that were more specific to Beijing. We also purchased some washcloths because they are not an item that is available in hotels! The grocery store is connected to a mall. It had a Pizza Hut, KFC, Starbucks and many other American stores. I felt like I was back in the states! Outside the mall, the locals were square dancing. I will update on this later as I hope we get to participate in on in Kunming.
As we got out of the van to go into the hotel, Mr. Shi presented us with some nice Beijing treats. My bag is already full and we are only 1/3 through the trip.
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