Day 34: Visiting the Summer Palace, and Snafus at the Airport

So on Day 34, we got to sleep in late, because we weren't going to leave until we checked out around noon. So I got up around 9:30, worked on blog posts from the previous days, chatted with friends and worked on various other things. We packed up, making sure that we had everything and checked out.

But before I go on, I wanted to mention a couple stories from the Great Wall that I forgot to put in yesterday's post. When we were at the top of the Wall, we were going to take a selfie, but then a Chinese grandfather who was with his grandson offered to take it for us. He knew a little bit of English (enough to tell Dom to stand up rather than squat down), but when we said "Xīnnián kuàilè" (which is pronounced Xin-yen, quai-le), which means "Happy New Year", and "xie xie" (pronounced shea shea and means "thank you"), he thought we knew more Chinese that we actually did, and tried to hold a conversation with Dom in Chinese, to which he shyly said he didn't speak Chinese. We also ran into a British lady who said that she was there with several other people who stayed at the bottom, but she needed to go to the top since she came all the way here. We told her about our program, and she was impressed to hear it. Before we left, she told us that if we ran into a man in a puffy black jacket at the bottom (who was 70 that day, she had said before), that was her husband and to tell him that she had reached the top.

We commissioned a shuttle from the hotel to the subway station, having to transfer between three different subways to get to the Summer Palace area. I was also doing the Snapchat takeover for UC International (using Jessica's American phone because mine is a pain to use even in America, let alone here), and I was having lots of fun doing it. Once we got there, it was around 2 o clock, and we decided to get food since none of us had had breakfast other than granola bars or cookies.

We walked down the street to a restaurant, but realized that the line was too long (especially because the Summer Palace closed at 5). So we went to the convenience store next door and got some snacks to tide us over until we got to the airport. We ate what we wanted of them (with me not able to eat more than half of my small loaf of bread with my milk, since I had eaten some Oreos earlier) and saved the rest for later.

We got there, realizing that there were blue skies (a rare sight in Beijing) and got in line for tickets. Dom went to the ticket counter first, and paid for all of our tickets, and we quickly paid him back.

 Going in, at first it seemed really similar to the Forbidden City, in terms of architecture. But as we went on, it had a lot of differences as well. There were a lot of steps, but there were also a lot of unique little winding paths that took people to various places that were really intriguing. (And I was getting lots of great pictures for Snapchat! )

As we walked around, we found a bookstore, several gift shops, vendor stalls outside, and a couple jewelry shops as well. Dom got a map of the Summer Palace grounds (which, if you couldn't tell, used to be the summer home for the royal family) at the bookstore, I got a few gifts at different places, and Jessica got one of the same things that I got...a tiger's eye opal bracelet. There was also a huge frozen pond that dozens, if not hundreds of people were ice skating on.

There was a building at the top of the hill that we decided that we had to go see. It turned out it was extra money to get in, but we thought that it was really worth it. As we hiked up there, the view kept getting more and more spectacular, and the view at the top was breathtaking!

As we exited, we stopped at another gift shop, and then headed out. We asked the taxi drivers how much the ride to the airport would be. At first they said 300 quai, and eventually we haggled it down to 200, but we realized that the subway would only be about 7 quai, so we opted to take the subway. We walked back to the station, and bought a ticket for the station where we would transfer to the airport express. On the way there, a lady stood directly behind me, and according to the others, was obsessed with my hair, staring at it, and even touching it without my knowledge like it was a strange creature.

At the stop, we realized that you have to buy the airport express shuttle tickets directly at the airport, and they were more expensive, at 25 quai. But there was only one stop in between before the airport, and they had different types of seats for this train (and enough for everyone). We took a few more Snaps on the way.

Getting to the airport, Nick found out that our flight had had issues of some sort according to his email. We tried to check in, only to find that there were no tickets for some reason. Looking into it further, it turned out our flight had been moved by the company we had booked it through because it had been overbooked. We had been moved to a different airline, and the flight had left hours before... So we tried over the course of a couple hours to try to decide what to do.... Since Nick couldn't get a refund and we had already booked the hotel, Nick and Dom decided to bear the expense of the business class flight (which was double the price) in order to get the hotel ready for the next day. Jessica and I decided to catch the first flight in the morning which was a lot cheaper and stay overnight at the airport. Additionally, to add to my problems, none of the Snaps I was taking for UC International were uploading....

After Nick and Dom left, we found out that since they had to buy business class, they also got access to business class, which had a buffet dinner. We were still starving, but we had to make our way to the other terminal, which had our new airline. It turned out that ticket counter was closed for the night, but we were still able to get something to eat. We went to Pizza Hut and got a bit of food to tide us over (the fruit tea did put me in a slightly better mood though). After that, I went to the charging station to work on things (including Snapchat, which I thought I fixed, but I apparently didn't....probably because the wifi is iffy here) for a few hours while she rested. I came back over a bit before my time to sleep at her request, and stayed over until I decided to sleep too.

At the time of this posting, we're still at the airport.....

-Zoe