Back in Beijing!

We left Yangzhou early today via bus to the Nanjing airport. We really did not leave early enough and Karen, Emi, Diana and I were afraid we were going to miss our flight. As we left security they were already boarding our flight. We had to walk quite a bit to reach the gate, but we arrived on time, and the first people from our group. They actually held the plane for the rest of the group. A couple of families had to go to "late baggage check" because they were at the end of our line and were checking their bags with less than 30 minutes. Everyone made the flight, but we will be interested to see if everyone's bags arrived. Karen and I had arranged for a minivan to pick us up, it was quite a bit more than a taxi, but we were hoping the conveneince would be worth it. We were thrilled when the driver was waiting for us with a sign and had a car across the steet. We were on our way to the center of Beijing in five minutes. We think it was the best money we spent on the trip! We decided to arrange for the same transportation tomorrow back to the airport. After we dropped our bags off in our room we decided to walk to The Temple of Heaven, since it was just about a mile or so from the hotel. We made a brief stop along the way for Starbucks and McDonalds. I asked for decaf and they said I was getting decaf, but decaf in China must have a kick because it is 11 PM and this is the first night I have not been exhausted. Hopefully I will get some sleep :). We got a lot of exercise walking there and back and all around the grounds. We saw some interesting sights on the grounds of the Temple of Heaven including hundreds of people in various groups playing cards, rehearsing music, singing, and other activities. We were told that this takes place every Saturday. Of course we also saw the ballroom dancing, but this time it appeared to be square dancing! Since we wil be returning to Beijing in December, I located our JW Marriot hotel on the map and got my bearings. I am little worried about walking these streets for a full week. Even when the "green person" is lighted for pedestrians to cross the street, no one really follows the rules. Crossing the street is a dangerous task. Karen almost lost her mind when we walked to the Temple of Heaven and she saw that the Pearl Market, where we were shopping and being attacked by clerks, was directly across the street from the Temple of Heaven. We really were "wasting" time in the Pearl Market because we did not want to shop any longer, if we had only known we were so close we might have tried to escape.
After a quick dinner, we took a taxi to the Night Market. This is like a "food court" Chinese style with vendors displaying their uncooked food items, many on a stick, but also dumplings, pineapples filled with rice, soup and some unidentifiable offerings. We thought Karen was going to eat a scorpion on a stick, but instead Emi ate strawberries dipped in melted sugar on a stick! We had fun trying to guess what the food items were...hearts, kidneys, testicles, as well as octopus, scorpions, sea horses etc. The final vendor we saw had scorpions that were still alive on the sticks! We ended up at a pedestrian mall with many US shops like Nike and Adidas so we strolled for a few minutes until we found a taxi to take us back to the hotel. Karen and I had sore feet from our long walk today so we decided to try a foot massage at the "health center." For $8 US dollars we had twenty minutes of bliss! So now we are getting organized for the long trip home. We will look forward to our "extra day" since we leave here at 12:40 PM Sunday and arrive home at 9:00 AM Sunday! I told Mark that we were getting Pizza for dinner Sunday night :)
We are all planning to put our whole picture files up on Shutterfly, so if anyone is interested in seeing more photos just let me know!
Thanks for following our journey!
We are ready to come home and see the boys and Dad and the cats!