Last Day in China....

By the time 4 August came, we were ready to leave.  We felt thoroughly disappointed in the treatment we had received.  Each time we tried to ask a question, our guide responded rudely, as though we were pestering her, so we just stopped asking or really talking to her at all.  We were aggravated by all the comments mirroring preconceived notions that just because we were American, we must be rich.  Starting the trip out by having to buy a plane ticket to Hong Kong because we were unable to get a train ticket did not help much.  Most of all, we were disappointed by the lack of time we had been able to spend at the places we most wanted to visit.  

I felt sad because I felt that there had not been enough time, but I was also very anxious to leave.  Our last destination before catching our plane was the Summer Palace.  Built as a get-away, one of the emperors expanded the small, natural pond into a large reservoir as a gift to his mother for her birthday.

 
The area was huge.  When we refused to spend any more money to go to a zoo, Daisy left us to explore the Summer Palace on our own.  It was really beautiful.  We spent our last ten minutes of freedom sitting on the rocks near the shore and overlooking the lake.  It was peaceful, and really nice with the traditional Chinese music being played behind us.

We did not want to leave that spot, but were also excited for the next leg in our journey.  When we exited the Summer Palace, our driver was no where to be found.  Fifteen minutes later, he finally called Daisy to tell her where he was located.  When we got into the car, she ripped him a new one.  Our last moments with them were highly uncomfortable.

Since we were extra early for our flight, Daisy talked to the people behind the counter and they changed us to the earlier flight for free (we were really grateful to her for this).  It meant that we had to run for our plane, though.  At security we became delayed because they didn't like something in Nikki's carry on, but we made it to our gate in time only to find out that the gate had been changed.  Luckily, it was just the next one over, about a hundred feet away, so we ran there and got on the last tram to our plane.  Big sigh of relief.  We arrived in Shanghai really early for our flight to Hong Kong, which ended up being a little bit of a blessing because we had to take a bus to the international terminal.  Sat around playing cards and enjoying the lightening storm that started just before our flight was due to take off.  This resulted in our flight being delayed for about two hours.