Taxis, tennis, and talking chicken heads

Friday was another packed day in China. We started out the morning by taking a taxi to the Summer Palace. I think I may shift my Beijing commentary from the bathroom situation to the taxi and map situation. We think something is funky with Chinese maps because our journeys to new spots in the city never seem to go well. The Chinese a) don't understand our requests in English (which is understandable) b) don't understand us when we try to say the word in Chinese c) don't seem to understand what we want when we point on the map and d) take us in what appear to be roundabout crazy ways on the roads. Then there is the actual ride. Last night we were in a taxi and I closed my eyes, covered my head and/or made funny noises every two minutes or so. There is no rhyme or reason when it comes to the lanes, turns, right of way, or pedestrians.

Okay, sorry, back to the day.....we spent the morning walking around the Summer Palace. There is a huge man made lake in the middle that took over 100,000 workers to widen and deepen. This giant parklike area is filled with pavillions, temples, and halls and was a place where the empress would stay instead of the Forbidden City. After climbing a ginormous hill with a bazillion steps, we wound our way down and took a ferry across the lake. It was nice to see water again.

Shane line dancing with some locals.

One of the pavillions (or is it a temple?) with the lake down below.

Our dragonboat ferry

Randy sitting next to Tracy and Terry and responding to my request to smile

The view from the lake of where we had just been (yes, at the top)

The next adventure was to buy Randy a new camera. After his photo card froze, his camera shutter broke and he was out of commission. Needless to say, this was not acceptable before Dave's matches. We went to a CRAZY electronics mall and after Randy chose a vendor, they took us up to the 14th floor to a small room with couches. Negotiating with someone who speaks broken English is not as fun as you might think. Then we had to deal with the payment part of the adventure which included long hallways with closed doors and crowded hot elevators. Finally, after what seemed like the entire day, Randy walked away with his new camera and he is very happy. This led to another taxi adventure of which I will not bore you.

Later in the day, we finally ended up back at the Tennis Center. Dave played in the Quads Singles Semifinals and in the flavor of the 2005 Seahawks-Steelers Superbowl, things did not go as planned.

Dave will be playing for the bronze medal today against his doubles partner, Nick Taylor. We will be there cheering as loud as we can and then will spend the rest of the day watching other matches before Dave and Nick's doubles gold medal match against the Israelis.

After we got back to the hotel (this was the taxi ride that scared me the most), we wandered our neighborhood and had some authentic Chinese food.

There are some alleyways around here that would be fun to explore, but no eating mystery meat for this girl!