Day 5

July 1-Sunday
  I was not hungry at all this morning 

when I went down to breakfast, but I 

ate anyway which was dumb because afterwards

 I did not feel good. Our first stop 

today was the Beijing zoo. We saw Lions 

and tigers and bears oh my! No really....

we also saw giraffes, elephants, zebras,

 monkeys, pheasants, rhinos, birds, pandas,

 and probably more. It was extremely hot.

 Some girls wanted pictures with me and 

then a family asked for pictures with me

 too. After walking around for an hour 

we got ice cream and sat on some benches

 to cool off. On the way back to the bus

 Dominic was leading. We kept coming to 

signs that pointed to the gate and he would

 go the opposite direction, sure that he

 was right. I finally got so pissed off 

that Henry and I turned around. Lo and 

behold... We HAD been going the wrong 

direction and the path henry and I chose

 led us straight to the bus. I am never 

listening to Dom again when trying to find

 the meeting place.
After the zoo we ate a meal in the style

 that Mao ze dung liked. It was probably 

my favorite meal so far. The food was spicy

 which I have missed a lot and it tasted 

more like the Chinese food you find at 

home. Then after lunch we had free time. 

4 hours of free time! I thought it was hot

 yesterday but oh no....today was brutal.

 I could only be outside ten or fifteen 

minutes before walking into a mall or store

 with air conditioning. We started in the 

bargaining market. It was pretty scary! 

Some of the ladies would grab you and pull

 you over to the stall and not let you go.

 I ended up getting quite I bit. I think 

I'm getting better at bargaining but I still

 hate it. A lady sold me a wooden sword...

it started out at like 90 and I got it for

 55 but I realized it was still like of a 

rip off because I could have found it in 

America for like 2 bucks. Most of the stuff

 was pretty cool. One of the girls from the

 other group and I lost the rest of the 

people we were wandering with and we walked

 together for about an hour. We were in 

this huge mall and accidentally exited on 

the wrong side and got pretty lost for a 

while. Afterwards we met up with Jill and 

taryn and the 4 of us wandered. By the end 

I was soooo done with walking. My shoulders

 feel like they have knives in them from 

holding my backpack so long. 
I couldn't remember if we were supposed to eat dinner or not while shopping 

so I only had a blizzard but when we got back to the hotel a bunch of 

people we t to pizza hut and so I sent some money with Emily so she would 

get me food. Packing was interesting...I have an entire bag of souvenirs.

All of my purchasing is done except I need to find something for my grandpa 

since im giving pearls to my grandma. And I'm supposed to find a post card

for mrs.Mckeller but I can only buy packages which I don't want to do.