Last Day in Beijing- off to the airport

So last 1/2 day here and then at 1 pm we’re off to the airport. Maybe I’ll get a chance on the plane to catch up and expand on prior postings. It’s tough to cram in all the thoughts when you’re moving so quickly from stop to stop. I tried to toss in some Wikipedia links to help in the interim. Plus fighting a cold along with most of the group which seems to go along with tours. One person gets sick and boom, it’s off to the races. Despite that, everyone was a trooper and kept on moving on! Does make it a bit difficult to keep up with writing though!

Had an interesting experience last night after browsing computers at an Apple store (screens are hard to move around in when all the characters are in Chinese!). After I left the store, I stepped into a large mall area and noticed some young professional lady eyeing me and my first thought was that she probably wanted to sell me something, but nope she wanted to practice her English so we had a nice conversation for awhile and then she asked me if I would go for coffee with her and at that point I had glimpses of myself disappearing into some Chinese gulag. Thought it was a good time to tell her I was married and that my wife was waiting on me across the street! We talked for a few more moments and then she excused herself and walked away. Thought it was a fun experience, but still felt like perhaps my antenna needed to be up. . All in all, I find the Chinese friendly and if you smile at them, they will smile back, especially if you interact with their children. The language barrier is tough. Google translate can help in a pinch but its translation abilities are a bit sketchy at times so who knows what you could really be saying!! It was really a Godsend that our tour director took his personal time to take us for extra walks and introduce us to Chinese cuisine. Otherwise it can be rather challenging. :).

4:50 pm - boarding flight. Jam packed

Looks like we might get in about 44 mins early. Flight has been very smooth. As usual, slept very little. About 4:18 am for us on China time. Should arrive around 5:40 am (2:40 pm California time). Going to try and do our Global entry interviews as we pass through customs. Looks like the food carts are coming by one last time. Can’t imagine what this delicacy will be. Earlier was chicken and rice which was just fair and after that s ham,cheese,pickle sandwich and dome kind of chocolate wafer thingRead more