Leaving Beijing

July 30, 12:30pm CT 

This morning we were able to sleep in until 9am. Even though we cancelled our 4am wake up call, they still called. 😑 We went back to sleep though, or at least I did! Then we woke up to another call at 9 from Debbie. I think she was bored and wanted us to be up 😂 We had breakfast down on the first floor. I wish hotel breakfast in the US was like they are in China. They have so much food of all sorts. This morning I skipped the congee, had so ham, fruit, bread, tea, coffee and some other stuff. I've eaten every meal with chopsticks here.

After breakfast we went back up to our rooms and packed up our stuff to be airplane ready. We bought so much yesterday that we're having a little trouble stuffing everything in already! Since we had so much time before our flight, we took a walk down the street of our hotel. Our final destination was a shopping mall called "the place." We were looking for the bathroom but the signs kept telling us to go upstairs. We took 3 or 4 escalators until we finally found it. I nabbed a western toilet but it still didn't have TP. They keep one holder on the wall outside the stalls by the hand dryer. I think I've used 3 or 4 squatty pottys during our trip so far. (If you don't know what that is, google it. I've meant to take a picture, but they're all so gross that I just can't get myself to do it 😂) When we were leaving, we found the bathroom on the first floor... lol oh well. Before we had made it to the place, we went into several little shops along the way. One was a fabric store with a little pregnant lady running it. The walls were lined with the most beautiful silk rolls. We went into one store with a boy a little younger than me running it. The front had a handwritten sign that said "fair prices, no negotiating." That was fine by us, we had had plenty of that yesterday. His sign was right! He had really really great prices. Debbie and I had a hay day in there! She finally got her umbrellas she had been looking for. I got 4 six packs of off brand command hooks for ¥4 each ($2.37 all together!), 2 apple brand lightning cords for ¥15 each ($4.45 all together). I also got a bunch of other things too. That was our major jackpot for the day! When we were leaving "the place" afterwards, a man on a motorized rickshaw (an enclosed motorcar thing) waved us down. I had been really wanting to ride in a rickshaw so me and Alice went with him. He didn't speak any English so we weren't for sure where he was taking us but he seemed to know what he was doing 😂 Just like everywhere in Beijing, the motor vehicles have the right of way above any bikes of or pedestrians. He drove really fast and on the sidewalks. Most everyone was coming towards us and he layed on his horn basically the whole ride! He stopped in front of the subway stations just a few blocks from our hotel. We payed and thanked him and went back to the hotel lobby to wait for Shyla and Debbie who opted to walk. 

3:20pm

We're at the airport now waiting for our flight to Fuzhou. The security is a lot tighter here than all the other places we've gone through. We all got frisked, had things we needed to take out and even took away. We said goodbye to LiLi before going through security. Me and Debbie bought some peaches at the Great Wall (it's peach season here) So we're eating our peaches and waiting for the flight. 

Goodbye Beijing!

This is a squatty potty

We just got to Hidden Treasures in Fuzhou! It was a really nice flight. We were the only non-asians on the plane lol. The plane was a lot bigger than I expected. All the seats had the TVs in the back of the seats like from Dallas to Hong Kong. We had a surprisingly good meal on the plane for Asian airlines. The flights that we have taken in-country have had a strict no phone policy. They want it turned all the way off for the whole flight. I didn't understand when we flew from HK to Beijing and got in trouble lol. So I watched Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and then played some games on the tv. Kyler Temple picked us up at the airport in Fuzhou and we drove an hour to the village. It's very dark so it was hard to see the village today. We met some of the workers who helped showed us to our rooms. We stay in the guest building. It's 4 stories and our floor has 3 guest rooms with 2 bunk beds in each room. There's another typhoon coming through tonight so it's very muggy and humid! We've all gotten settled in and I'm headed to take a shower and go to sleep. We're going to breakfast in the village tomorrow morning then we'll meet the kids and get started! Good night from Fuzhou!

... "here's some bonus pics of our snacks in the Beijing airport. The chips were MUCH better tasting than original chips in the US and the packaging is so smart! Also, we took a bus from the airport to where the plane was parked to board.