The Blue Zoo

Well our last full day in Beijing. We are very happy to have only one more sleep until we leave. Don't get us wrong we have had a great time , but like everything there is nothing like home. I just want some homemade food.

The Blue Zoo was on the agenda for this morning. It was a great call for the kids, and hey the adults really enjoyed it also. We started off and a rough note when Darryn was fooling around with Lolah outside the Zoo(aquarium). He was pretending to throw her in the mouth of this big model shark. She is always such a card and D thought she would laugh. The poor thing was frightened and started to cry. D felt so terrible.

She stopped fairly quickly and was laughing in no time. Once inside we saw all kinds of cool fish, sharks, turtles and mermaids. The mermaids were the highlight for Lolah. There was a huge fish tank with a tunnel underneath. The mermaids jumped in and swam around. The tunnel underneath had a moving sidewalk and well as a walk path. The glass was approximately 2 inches thick. It was also magnifying. So all the fish appeared larger although the mermaids did not look bigger. Oh well it was just really cool. It was here while looking at a large tank of goldfish that Lily told us that was the fish we ate yesterday. I was grossed out because I actually tried a piece of fish yesterday. D said not to worry it is just like carp. Oh, that really helped.

We had a free afternoon to rest up for our "Last Supper". The guide agency took us out for a nice dinner. It was the best Chinese food I have had. I ate more in one meal than I think I ate the entire time in Xi'an.

Lolah was struggling to stay awake after a huge meal. She ate lots of Peking Duck and dumplings. We had walked to the restaurant so we had to walk back and D was going to have to carry her. It was a fair distance so we decided to take a rickshaw. For 10 yuan, $2.50 CAD we hopped in ready to have our first rickshaw ride. You have to picture two large North American people hopping into a cab. It looked funny and I felt bad for the driver. Well I did not feel bad for long because he started up his gas powered 3 wheeled moped.

We were off and 20 seconds later the motor stopped and he started pedalling. We had no idea why as we could not see out of the cab. I just figured it was so he could weave through traffic easily at a slower speed. A few seconds later after trying to pedal us he stopped. The door was opened and we were directed to another rickshaw by a smiling lady. Turns out he ran out of gas. I don't blame him for not wanting to pedal two large people who had just ate a huge dinner. The lady took over and we were off again. We all really enjoyed it.

Now it's off to bed for a good night sleep for the big day ahead of us. Not at all worried about the flight. I think Lolah will be fine as she will have her own tv with childrens channels. We are really hoping she sleep a good portion of the trip only because this may help with the transition. We asked Lily to prep her a bit for tomorrow. The mention of the boys only brought about a solemn, non expressive look. This could very well be because she was tired. Time will tell. We decided not to mention it again. She knows. Everthing will be as it should be. Thank goodness Hannah Sun-Reid will be there. For those who do not know her she is our chinese speaking child development worker. We appreciate you Hannah.

See you tomorrow.
D,J and L