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Day 4: China

Day 4 was glorious. We slept in a bit, got ready, mosied downstairs for our delicious breakfast. We connected with some friends to make our day plans. This day was filled with shopping, shopping and more shopping. Now that we had a taste of what China offered, we were ready to return with an agenda. We returned to the same market we stopped in the night before, spent a few hours then enjoyed McDonald's lunch. Yummy. We've never been so excited to see the big golden arches--only after 3 days of authentic Chinese food :) Chris and two other Dads took the four kiddos to the Beijing Zoo while the ladies returned to the stores. We stopped at the Pearl Factory as well as the Silk Street Market. I think I liked the first stop the best, but great deals were to be found all over. It was truly a challenge keeping in mind our baggage weight allowances. I actually purchased 2 additional bags to drag our stuff home! My Mom wishes she'd bought more and already wants to return to China ;) There is nothing like a great bargain!
The kiddos loved the zoo, but sadly it closed at 5:00. They rushed and rushed and rushed, taking in the aquarium and other animals as quickly as they could. Due to the time constraints, they didn't even manage to hit the Panda bears! I am not sure how one can go all the way to Beijing and NOT see the Panda, but they didn't.
We all faced our challenges hailing a taxi for our return trips to the hotel. A couple of taxis drove right on past us as we attempted to flag them down whereas Chris had several drive by him. Frustrating. We were assured by our lovely tour guide that taxi's are friendly to Americans, but we couldn't help but think otherwise.


Evidently the tiger area was pretty smelly!
Anyway, we returned to the hotel, shared stories, examined our loot and packed our bags. It was a good day :)

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