With great expectations we arose today thinking only of one thing….you guessed it the trip to the Silk Factory…unfortunately it was not the first stop for us.  Ok –  let me tell you the first event of the day was great.

We started off going to the Beijing zoo – The 32 of us and 1 million of our closest Chinese friends.  Feeling a bit tired from the Chinese Torture last night we got off the bus and followed the flag…did I tell you about the flag?  Charlie our tour guide carries this orange flag and for the slow walkers they can see it for miles.  Charlie likes to walk or almost run, while the group usually tends to walk or almost crawl.  Charlie carries the flag and as we depart the bus – he yells…”Don’t forget to follow the flag”.  We’ve got it now…

We make our way thru the crowds and Charlie decides we will only see the Panda’s or at least try to see the Panda’s.  We enter the first building and there is a sea of people, wall to wall and guards on their megaphone’s screeching something in Chinese….people seem to ignore the guard.  We later learned that it meant to keep moving, and get the kids off the edges.  So no Panda’s in sight so far, we go to the end of that building and there he is – the saddest looking Panda….but wait, he sees the crowd and gets up to do a dance, ok it wasn’t a dance but him scratching his butt on the back wall…I prefer to think he was entertaining us.. Charlie yells for us to follow the flag, we go to the next building, where there is one Panda lying on its back outside…can’t see his face but he is there.  Now we have to move to the next section, this is no easy task…I think there are two million people there now…but we get to see the greatest Panda…he is busy eating and not at all interested in us or any of the other people for that matter.  We take some pictures and now its time to go to the souvenir shop.  Of course can you imagine not doing that, at each place everyone must buy a souvenier…you know the kind you take home and nobody wants, but you buy them anyways…We lose one of our group and after about 20 minutes we find out she went back to the bus…so much for the buddy system, her buddy had no idea where she was…

We arrive at our next stop – the silk factory.  We are waiting with baited breath….can’t wait to get inside.  We must first listen to the Silk Factory guide give us a tour, teach us about the silk worm and how it is all made.  Did you know that one little silk worm spits out 1680 meters of a single strand….imagine…but do you know how many of those you need to make a quilt…over 200,000.  We find the whole process truly amazing…so come on we want to get to the silk…but wait, first we must see all the silk comforters…we are quickly thinking there is no fabric here.  Charlie comes to the rescue – knows how much Sharon and I want silk fabric and takes us away from the group into another room.  Well it is Silk heaven, a nice variety of color and different types of silk fabric.  Just like all the other places we get our own personal shopper to follow us around – anything we say they do.  Prices were pretty good ranging from about 22.00 to 60.00 per meter.  We spent the next 45 minutes touching everything – oohing and awing over the silk…there was no bargaining here as it is government regulated.  None-the -less we made our purchases with smiles on our face.

Next stop lunch – and then off to the Olympic Center – not many people wanted to get out of the bus, but those that did returned within minutes.  The whole area was closed off for a private event.  However our bus driver took us around stopping on over passes for everyone to take pictures.  Our bus driver is terrific.

Now we head for the Summer Palace, Charlie lets us know its several kilometers of walking each way and many of the people are too tired, so he decides we will do a short cut, later he said it was good because again our 1 million Chinese friends were all in attendance.  Did I tell you its National Holiday week here, if you come to China avoid this week  – not good for tourists especially in a city with 19 million people all on vacation….The Summer Palace was nice, more of the same type of structure but surrounded by beautiful temples and lake..

We go back to the bus and head for dinner.  This is our farewell dinner from Beijing and we went to a very famous restaurant where this is their specialty.  We arrive an hour too soon so we walk thru a Ming Style Shopping area, its fun to see all the people – remember our million Chinese friends…they like to come where ever we go….we are getting to know each other…especially in the arm areas, where elbows seem to work to get you places….my friends think nothing of pushing me aside.  So now I should tell you we had more people fall today, we are up to 9 out of 32…..no it is not Sharon or I….we’ve done the two step a few times but never fallen….Our dinner was quite interesting…we always get something with a head on it…of course Sharon and I are first in line to try it – NOT….Today the first 4 dishes passed us by on the lazy susan…we just laughed and knew the rice was coming soon.  Then some really cool dishes arrived – we actually ventured out of our comfort zones and tried them and to our delight wanted more…We learned how to eat authentic Peking Duck….its like making a mini burritto….duck, sauce, onion and cucumber….Did I tell you in the other blogs what we get to drink….did you guess Beer – you would be correct – no I have not had any but Sharon enjoys a glass or two….then comes the finale…..same dessert as everynight….yup Watermelon…..I think we should make this a new tradition in our house….I asked Charlie if he could take us to a bakery and his answer was there are none in China….they eat fruit….their idea of dessert for Americans is a variety of breads…funny eh!

Well back at the hotel now, needed to pack and give all our luggage to concierge before going to bed….we have to awake at 4:45 for departure at 5:45….so we are off to try and get some sleep – we fly to XI’AN (pronounced Seean) tomorrow where we will get to see the Terra Cotta Warriors….I wonder if our 1 million Chinese friends are coming?