We were a little late to the 8 am reservation to Dunkin' Donuts, but made it to the train station with plenty of time to spare. Our train ride was a bit shorter than the first outward leg and while it is amazing to seen the Chinese scenery zip by - large apartment building rising in what seems like the middle of nowhere - the only interesting tidbits was that Ryan's spades losing streak came to a halt. We had played quite a few games and everyone had at least two notches in the win column except for Ryan, he had even successfully halted Dad Stiens winning streak on the ride out to Xi'an. Well the two games that were played on the way back weren't even close!
We had taken a trip on the Xi'an subway and once we got back into Beijing we were brought back to reality. They have a joke about Beijing public transportation. It is said that once you get on you are turned into a picture as you are squashed flat. Our ride from the train station to the hotel epitomized that sentiment. Upon arriving to the hotel our day got even more interesting.
While Julie and Ryan have been here for over seven months it's still a learning process, especially with regard to being patient when communicating. Our greeting upon entering the hotel was news that the room type we had reserved wasn't available and we'd have to take two rooms. It was further explained that the second room would cost X. Upon getting this news Ryan's rip-off sensor went off and he began to question why we were having to pay for the second room when it was the hotel's fault that we needed two rooms. About this same time a European gentleman came in and shouted, "where is my rabbit!" (No, I'm not kidding.) This proceeded for a few minutes with the European man insulting anyone, everyone and everything associated with the hotel.
Witnessing this mans display was enough to changes Ryan's state-of-mind regarding the situation with the rooms. Cooler heads usually prevail and in that vein, we proceeded to discuss. It turns out that we had used a different website that has a different policy and doesn't charge the card but just holds the room. The hotel was giving us two rooms for the price of the room we had booked but the language barrier had made the details a little fuzzy. We never did find out the details with the rabbit but after our first encounter with the European man we weren't really pushing for a chance to chat him up. We grabbed dinner and did one last souvenir run before calling it a night.
On Saturday morning we had enough time for one quick final visit. We elected to visit the National Museum of China. This was much better than anticipated. Unfortunately we only had enough time to breeze through one exhibit - Ancient China. It did cover a little over 3,000 years and would be well worth another visit. Our hour was quickly up and headed out in the masses through the thronges of visitors and were back on the subway toward the hotel to pick-up our luggage and head to the airport. We managed all this without a hitch and had Mom and Dad Stiens safely delivered to the airport with time to spare. Their flight (DL 188) took off just before 5pm local time and they should be landing in Detroit just about 5pm (either Eastern or Central time, who can keep up with all these different times).
Pictures are coming soon.
-Ryan
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