Beijing Day 5

National Holiday. Zach and I decided to go to Summer Palace for the day to check out what it was like. We should have stayed home. Not that it wasn't beautiful and we didn't enjoy the scenery, temples, and buildings, it was just waaaaaaaaaay too crowded. National Holiday is not the day to go to a national tourist spot. Everybody and their aunt was there. Out of the 100 or so pictures I took, two did not have a mass of people in them. And I thought the Forbidden City was crowded! And to top it off, when we got tired and decided to leave, the exit gate does not tell you how to get back to where your bus drops you off! So Zach and I wandered around for a half hour trying to find the front gate. When we got there, there was a HUGE line for the bus. The best part was that when a bus would come, all the people in the front would shove their way onto the bus, and all the people from the back would run to the front to try and get on. We were stuck in the middle. When we tried going to the front, we were told to get back in line. And to make it better, I was starting to come down with a really bad head cold. I was not in a good mood.

To console ourselves after we got back, we decided to go to Papa John's for dinner. Papa John's! It was awesome pizza for being in China, and it even had garlic sauce. Zach and I joked that we got Cheese Pizza and Cheesy Bread, which is cheese pizza without sauce. Way to have a variety... We also had this little drink that was Sprite with a scoop of strawberry ice cream on top. It was pretty good.

After dinner, we met up with some of the people from Shijiajuang (also known as The Shizz). We met Willie, Kara, Billie, and Alyssa at Suzy Q's on bar street in Beijing. We didn't actually go in because they don't allow flip-flops and two of the girls were wearing them. We decided to go to a random bar and have a drink. Once inside, we were excited to find they had a hookah! So we ordered a hookah and sat around shooting the breeze for an hour or so while we smoked it. Once it was finished, we decided to get some beers at a market. Lo and behold, the market was a western one and had all western food in it! And everything was in English, too! They had cheese, cereal, avocados, mexican food, chips, cream cheese, mac and cheese, alcohol, coke, gummy bears, and a host of other things. Of course it was all MONDO expensive. A box of cereal was 60 qui (10 USD). I satisfied myself with a cheap Chinese beer and a box of mac and cheese. After we drank our beer, we headed over to teh area by the Shizz kids' hostel and tried to find another bar to go to. We kind of lost interest though, and I was really starting to feel sick by this time. Kara had already left because she wasn't feeling well, and we decided to part ways after making plans for the next day.