China, Day 11: City Exploring, Acrobats, & Flight Home

Sadly, The Forbidden City is closed on Mondays, something we were not aware of until we were ready to go visit. The kids were okay with that because it meant going to the water park at the Olympic cube a bit early. When we got to the cube, it was closed, too. 
Then, while trying to flag down a taxi, Jodi fell into a manhole. Jodi wouldn't let me take a picture of her leg but her bruise looks like she was kicked by an elephant. I did take a picture of the manhole, though (below). 
We ended the day, and trip, going to a Chinese acrobatics show -- it was pretty awesome. 

The Nest (from the Olympics) is right next to the Cube.  

Fun, little game the kids played during taxi trips.  

The Cube -- so excited to go to the water park! 


...searching, searching, where is the dang water park?!? 

...Sadie getting sick of walking everywhere.  

We thought we found it. Nope. Oh, well.  

Our least favorite manhole on the planet. 

Downtown Beijing 

Outside the theater for the Chinese acrobats


In the theater 

 Getting ready for the show

One quick pic of the show (photography was NOT permitted) 


None of the taxis we tried to flag down outside the theater would stop for us (most were already full). So I went back into the theater to ask a lady we met, while waiting for the show, if she could call a taxi for us. She said there isn't a number to call for that. Yeah, right. But she did give us some very helpful advice to take the subway (note the sarcasm). Her instructions took us only one stop and we then had to try to find a taxi from that location. 

We made it onto the subway and thought it was full... until what felt like 100 more people smashed in behind us. It was so packed that I told Tessa to lift up her hands (she was on my back) and she didn't slide down. Nice and cozy. 



We finally found a taxi to take us back to the hotel. After the driver said (nodded) that he knew the location, I told all the kids to smash in. The driver kind of paused, looked around at us, and then just starting chuckling. I gave him a good tip at the end. :)


Our last meal in China. Notice how little Chinese food is on the plates. We became less-and-less adventurous as time went on.  

Taxi to the airport 

Typical view of us in a single-line, lugging our bags all over China. 

Sadie and I watched the bags while everyone else went to Starbucks. They got back from Starbucks just in time to start boarding. Then we found out there is another security checkpoint right before boarding the plane and all the hot chocolate had to be thrown away.  

Back home!

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