Our driver picks us up in 2.5 hours, so we're busy getting ready to go, packing up and cleaning up. There were a few things we never blogged about, such as Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City and our excursion to the Birds Nest/Water Cube/Olympic Park yesterday. I honestly wasn't as impressed as I wanted to be with Tiananmen Square. It was extremely touristy, and you got approached constantly from people who wanted to be your tour guide for a large amount of money or people offering you tours to the Great Wall, etc. Then to even see the big picture of Mao at the front you had to go through this really long line of people, through a mock village, and up to the front. We didn't stay long and we didn't even really go in.
The Olympic Park on the other hand, was awesome! It was so surreal to actually see it in person and be so close you could touch it. We were going to go in, but after seeing the line to get tickets to just get into the Water Cube, we decided against it. It was almost 90 degrees here yesterday (the hottest day the whole trip) and the line was about an hour long. It was kind of funny because Jacob went into the bathroom and I was waiting. This guy came up and pointed to me and to his camera, so I thought he wanted me to take his picture. No problem. So he led me around the little fence so we were in direct shot of the birds nest, and then he started looking around. Jacob came out and saw us, so immediately came over. The guy, seeing that we were together, pulled Jacob over. He wanted his picture taken with Americans! lol. So I took his picture with Jacob, and then he wanted Jacob to take one of me and him. So there we were, getting our pictures taken with this random guy, throwing up the peace sign in front of the birds nest. I should have taken our own pictures with the guy, but I didn't think of it.
Some things that we have learned from this trip were: 1. Buy better luggage. Ours suck and they were on the cheaper end. We need some heavy duty luggage.
2. Lonely Planet guidebooks are the best. I bought Fodor's to begin with, but Lonely Planet is much better.
3. Always bring snacks from home and supplement with snacks from wherever you are going. We brought organic applesauce, graham crackers, clif bars,etc. Those were great for snacks and breakfasts, and then we found a grocery store around here and got drinks and more snacks as we ran out. it's nice not having to go out for every meal.
4. Always get a nice hotel. it's great to have currency exchange and language help when you need it. And if you need tickets to a show and whatnot, they can get them in one phone call.
5. Laundry. We discovered bar laundry soap here and it was great. We did laundry as we went, doing a few pieces every day and hanging them by the window. We are going home with very few pieces of dirty laundry.
6. Pack lighter carry-on. We packed books and our laptops and stuff, but never touched it besides in the airports. It's packed away and hard to get to without disturbing a lot of people, and the planes have tons of movies, music and tv shows to watch, so there wasn't much of a point. Always take your laptop and breakables though.
7. Remember water bottles. We've needed these a couple times.
And that is all for now...we had a blast but are looking forward to coming home. We miss our dogs, and we have lots of cool souvenirs to hand out. I miss my kiddos at the school and of course we miss our buddy Jordan! We will see you all soon!