Beijing- Saturday, July 30, 2016

     Today was originally supposed to be a guided tour day for at least the morning, but since John compressed two days into one, this day was left open and we were on our own.  Looking back, that's probably a good thing.

     John  had recommended we use the day to show the girls the pandas at the Beijing Zoo.  We had just seen pandas up close only a few weeks ago at the Atlanta zoo, but since we didn't have any other plans, we decided to take his suggestion.

     The day was slightly cooler, but the humidity was very high and the morning was very foggy.  There was also occasionally misty rain.  We got a cab outside our hotel and went to the zoo.

     The zoo was quite crowded with people who were almost all Chinese families.  Like so many others, we went straight to the pandas.  There was an extra charge to see them.  We saw a few, but they weren't very active.  At least one was eating, munching away on some leaves.

     The Beijing Aquarium is inside the zoo, and we made our way towards that.  The three girls took a ride on a fast little speed boat.  The first guy who was driving it was zigzagging the boat back and forth in the little channel it was in, but a different guy was driving it when it was the girls turn.  He just took them straight out and back, but they still had fun.  Julie said he took them out to where you could see some large ships.  (A ferry could also take you from the zoo to the Summer Palace.  That would have been a fun trip, given a different set of circumstances.)

     The aquarium was a little expensive to get into.  Given that, it was absolutely astonishing to see the overwhelming numbers of people that were packed inside it.  We slowly bumped and jostled our way through a rain forest exhibit, but given the number of people there, it was impossible to see much.  We thought we'd seen crowds at the Toronto and Atlanta aquariums, but this was even worse and absolutely no fun.

     The only bright spot seemed to be the beluga whales.  "Beluga whale" has become a two-word dirty joke for the girls since they saw them in the Atlanta aquarium.  It was somewhat of a relief to see that these two were playing nicely with each other, tugging on a large rope with floaties on it.

     In spite of the crowds, we needed lunch.  We got some decent popcorn chicken and French fries and started eating, but it was about that time that Anna became sick.  She was reluctant to use the Asian style "squatty potties" that were there (though she had yesterday at the Silk Market), but eventually, she felt so bad that she went in anyway.  She found that there were Western style toilets in the back.  She said that she threw up a couple of times, and her color was ashen when she came back out.  Since she'd been  having such trouble, we decided to cut the day at the zoo short, and left the aquarium without seeing any more.  We found the exit nearby, got a taxi, and returned to the hotel for the afternoon.

     After we gave Anna a couple of hours to cool down and rest, she came back to life again.  Everyone felt we could use a fresh start, and we took a cab to do some shopping.

     We went to the Pearl Market, which we had visited back in 2004.  It's similar to the Silk Market that we visited yesterday and was even more fun.  Anna had come to China hoping to by a cheap Michael Kors bag (or something like it) and had passed on a small one yesterday at the Silk Market for ¥650.  Today, she found a bigger one that started out at ¥450.  Anna negotiated this one completely on her own and ended up paying ¥250 (about $37 US) for it today.  She was so proud of herself.

    There was a "Pizza Hut" in the Pearl Market, so we decided to give it another try.  Like before, it seemed like we were missing something because no one seemed to want to serve us.  The menu was the same weird one as it was at the other one, too, with very little pizza on it.  But we were all in good moods and willing to do what we needed and eventually got a cheese pizza.

     We shopped some more and got a few more things.  Then we went back to the hotel to call it an early night.  We've got packing to do because it's our last night in Beijing.  Our visit to Beijing certainly had a lot of ups and downs these last few days, but we seem to have ended on a high note.