I only have a few more hours here in Beijing so I'm going to have to finish this later...BUT, the long and short of it was...we basically spent 12 hours aboard a tour bus full of Chinese people. No one spoke English, save for the 11 year old girl and 12 year old boy we met. We spent the day having NO IDEA where we were going, when we had to be back on the bus, etc. We went to the wall first, which was AMAZING. This was also where I got to experience my first real Beijing bathroom (which I'll elaborate on later for those who can handle it). Back on the bus to Chinese jade factory and lunch which consisted of masses of people scarfing down huge amounts of food in record time. Back on the bus to other sites that we honestly don't know what they were. We visited a Hindu/Buddhist temple of sorts...where I was hit on the head and blessed by a monk. We fought against the masses to try to get sodas at the meat-on-a-stick concession line outside the temple doors. And again, a jade factory where we got shooed out of room after room of jade. It was like we were on display the entire day. The workers seemed mesmerized by our presence. They attempted to talk to us in English and we attempted to communicate w/them with our phrase book, but in the end we never got our messages across. We waited and waited and waited. Eventually getting back on the freezing cold bus. While we waited some more to leave...we decided to sing "99 bottles of beer on the wall"...with that everyone went quite and just stared at us. We did end up teaching the little 11 y/o girl the lyrics to "wheels on the bus". When someone lit up a cigarette, Hadas tried her hand at Chinese characters and re-created the "smokeless market" sign we had taken a picture of at the jade factory on the steamed up bus window. We wanted to go to this middle-eastern restaurant which was like finding a needle in a haystack. The tour guide (who was probably just thankful to get rid of us) made us deboard the bus w/a Chinese couple who said they knew where it was. Instead, they took us to the subway. We blindly got on one of the metro lines and ended up meeting a really nice Enligsh speaking guy from ...Lithuania. He helped us the rest of the way and we eventually made it there, 2 hours later. The food was worth it though, as were the Asian and Arabian belly dancers.
All in all, a great 24 hours in Beijing, but now it's time to say goodbye to Asia all together...Have just a few more hours before my flight home! Going to soak up what I can of this city and am really looking forward to coming home! It's been a long, crazy ride, this trip...and I want to thank you all for sharing it with me by reading my blogs. The blogs aren't ending though. This has been a whirlwind of a trip and it's going to take me a few weeks to fully digest everything I've experienced so stay tuned. Also, have a full memory card of photos to share soon! Miss you all, can't wait to get back to the city of brotherly love...Philadelphia! :)
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