Saturday September 4

Saturday morning, we got to sleep in a little bit.  We weren't being picked up until 8:30.  We actually got to go downstairs and enjoy our breakfast buffet.  The other two mornings, we rushed through it because we had to get picked up early and we were getting in late and so forth. We saw a glimpse of the blue sky otherwise it was overcast (smog). We were the last one to be picked up.  There were two sets of young couples with us.  Our first stop was the Panda Garden.  We got to watch a couple of them get fed fruit, so they were awake and eating, other ones were sleeping away.  Once we finishing awing over the Pandas, we made our way to the Lama Temple also named Yonghe Temple.  It was  palatial residence builit in 1694 by Qing Emperor Kangxi for his fouth son.  It was very crowded with a lot of people giving respect to the Buddhas and lighting incensents.  We then drove to the Hutong Ricksaw Tour.  I was really excited for this, when we did it 5 years ago, it was like 2-3 hours long, we stopped at the bell/ drum towers, a person home and some other places and got to ride a long time on the ricksaw.  This time, we didn't get to see anything but a proclein factory.  We got to watch one gentlemen making a vase and another making a female head bust.  We again decline to buy anything.  After the factory they took us to a local person house in the hutong and we had a good lunch there.  Then the tour was over with.  We then head to the Olypmic area and got to walk around between the bird nest and the water cube.  The girls had a blast running around and they got stopped more then once to have their pictures taken.  People stop us frequently to ask about the girls or wanting their child picture taken with our girls.  It was so cool to be so close to the bird nest and water cube.  We got done with the day tour by 4 and had 2 1/2 hours before our Kung Fu show.  This was a first for us to having time between the day tour and the evening tour.  We decided to be adventurous and walking around outside of our hotel in search of a shopping mall/silk factory.  I am guessing we walked a good mile or so, and found a shopping mall, but didn't buy anything.  So we stopped at Basket Robbin and had a bowl of ice cream and then started to make our way back.  We decided that we needed to eat supper and picked a resturant called Hong Kong.  The food was good and we enjoyed our first buying food since arriving in Beijing.  We got back to the hotel in plenty of time.  Our Kung Fu show started at 7:30....the driver got caught in another tour and traffic, that they didn't pick us up until 7:10.  I told Cindy and Dave if we were late or missed this show, I was going to be very mad.  We made it just a minute before it started and we sat in the 2nd row.  It was an amazing show and we all enjoyed it.  Jenny fell asleep towards the end.  Monika was so glue to the show.  I took a couple second nap, but Dave woke me up, thankfully.    We arrived back to the hotel shortly after 10.  I spend the next hour packing and then headed to bed.  We had to get up by 4:30 in the morning.  I am a little sad we are leaving Beijing, but very excited to be going to Erin's provience.  Be sure to look at the previous post for more picture from September 4