Last Day in Beijing

What a whirlwind tour of Beijing we had! Yesterday (Wednesday), we visited Tian An Men Square, The Forbidden City and had a rickshaw ride around a Hutong village. It's hard to understand the scope of the sights just from pictures. The Forbidden City was many rings of buildings and lots and lots of walking until you get to the very center. It was not Lydia's favorite part of the trip. Tian An Men Square is enormous, it can hold one million people in a gathering. Lydia wanted to have her picture taken under the giant picture of Chairman Mao, just like her friend JiaJia (Charlotte) did. Lydia loved the bicycle rickshaw Hutong Tour. She and our guide Angela rode in one rickshaw, mama and baba in the other. We are obviously as much a tourist attraction as the attractions we went to see. Many people touch Lydia, ask us if she is from China, and practice their English, "Hello, how are you? It is nice to meet you." We were then treated to another wonderful lunch feast including Beijing Duck, sliced and wrapped in rice pancakes with special Beijing sauce, slivered scallion and cucumber. It was hao chi (delicious food). Then--off to the airport to catch our 5 pm flight to Changsha. We were sad to leave Angela, who was a wonderful guide and all around warm and wonderful person. Alas, it was not to be . . . many hours of sitting in the Beijing Airport. We had arrived around 2:30 for the 5:00 pm flight, which was late, and we boarded around 6:45. We ended up not arriving at our Changsha hotel until after 10 pm and we were all exhausted--except Lydia, of course. She fell asleep before the flight took off and we had to wake her when we landed. Mama and Baba were trying to sleep in the hotel, and Lydia was wide awake--until almost midnight! The new guide, Christopher, wanted to leave at 7:30 am the next day; we begged off and asked for a 9:00 am start instead.