I made it back from Beijing safe and sound and just in time to teach again! It was a close one, let me tell ya! We weren't able to get tickets coming back on the 6th right away and almost ended up staying to the 10th, which would've been just fine with me, but a little hard on the pocket book. But we found tickets the day we had to leave and now we're back. So here's the run-down of my trip:

Tuesday night we get on the train in Changzhou and 11 and a half hours later we make it to Beijing. Then after trying to get tickets Adam and I split up and went to our respective hotels to settle in, and later we met up again to tour the Summer Palace. It's a beautiful place; the Garden of Harmonious Pleasure was definitely my favorite place there (go check out the pics!). That same night I got in touch with Jacob and Ken, two LDS guys teaching in Anqing in the Anhui province. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and Jacob was in hog heaven with all the memorabilia there.

Then the next day Jacob, Ken and I started out early for the Forbidden City in search of the Emporer. We never found him. But the gardens there were beautiful, too, and I got some really good pictures. After 5 hours in the Forbidden City we caught a taxi to the American Embassy, where the red tape of beaurocracy made us feel right at home ;o). The man helping us to register gave us directions to an American restaurant close by, so after that we had lunch at T.G.I. Friday's. Oh so GOOD!!! I'm making myself hungry just thinking about it....
So after lunch we went to the bank and then Jacob went to take a nap while Ken and I checked out the Silk Market. Ken's Chinese is much better than mine, so I let him bargain for me when I bought a fan and some throwing stars. And it was so funny watching him bargain for the Oriental carpet he wanted really bad with this Chinese girl with a funky looking mullet. Afterwards he shook his fist and said "She won this round!"
Dinner that night was at this quaint little Italian restaurant we found in search of a larger pizza place, but they had pizza there, and the pasta was akin to what you can find at the Olive Garden. I would recommend Elisa's to anybody in Beijing. We found it by accident, but it was a good place to eat; wonderful atmosphere.

Friday I was on my own, so I went to see the Temple of Heaven, Tian An Men Square, and the Pearl Market. One thing I didn't like about the markets was when the girls in the stalls would grab my arm and try to pull me in to see their stuff. That made me mad and I wouldn't even look at them; just jerk my arm away and say "Don't touch me." I mean, honestly! If I want to look at your stuff I'll stop and take a look. If I'm walking by it's because I'd rather not buy anything you have to sell. The stalls I would stop and look at were the ones that didn't yell "Lady, you need bag? You like Dolce and Gabbana? Lady, what you like? How about jade, you like jade?" as I passed by. At least they had the decency to wait until I was actually looking at their wares before trying to sell it to me.
Anywho, I did buy a watch at the Pearl Market because I needed one, and I probably could've gotten it for a bit cheaper than what I paid for it, but I was tired and didn't want to haggle all that much. But still, it was a pretty good price for a decent watch, by American standards.

After a late lunch at T.G.I. Friday's, I went to the Red Square and walked around and took some pictures. At one point this Chinese lady wanted to get a picture with me, but I didn't know it and thought I was in the shot, so I started moving, but then she started following me and then I realized that she wanted a picture with me. It was random, but funny. SO I finally got on a train with Adam at 7:30, and we arrived in Wu Xi on Saturday at 8:30am, and then got tickets to Changzhou for 8RMB in the standing room car. But when we got into the car we pushed our way into the dining car, but this lady started talking to us in Chinese like we would know what she was saying, and after about 5 minutes some college kids translated to us that she was saying we had to pay 30RMB more to sit there, but Adam said "Who's gonna make me?" So everybody just went back to their own thing and we sat there and talked for awhile. Then the lady came back, this time with pen and paper, so we thought she'd be writing something down that we could read...and she writes a question down in Chinese. I started laughing because it just seemed so unreal! So we can't speak Chinese, but she assumes we can read it? Hilarious.
So the kids translated for us again, and it was either a question asking us if we were going to get off at Changzhou, or telling us we had to. Either way, we beat the system and sat in the dining car for the standing room car price, and got off at the right stop.

I never thought I'd say this, but it's almost good to be back in Changzhou.