Saturday September 2nd: Olympics and Peking Duck

Woke up and had a lazy start to the day. Around 11am we took the subway over to the Olympic Park area. It was very busy, but the buildings were just amazing!

The Water Cube

Being a tourist outside of the cube:

Water all around the outside:

The ceiling inside, amazing:

The water park ceiling:

Diving pool:

Main racing pool:

Heather and Katie on the top floor:

The Birds Nest:

Climbing up to the top:

So many seats:

Peking Duck:

After relaxing at Rachel's hotel - her bed is literally a cloud! We took a cab over to the duck restaurant. It's in the Wangfujing area- known for it's strange street food. The restaurant was huge! 5 floors, each with 2 massive rooms. There were so many people waiting! There was literally a room with chairs just lined up for waiting. Luckily we had a reservation so didn't have to wait a long time.

The duck was delicious. Absolutely amazing. Roast duck + plum sauce + pancakes= HEAVEN. They cut these pieces that were just skin and fat. It just melted in your mouth. It was so good. I was so full but the duck was just amazing. It's just ahhhhhhh. 

The man at the table behind us was getting a little tipsy, actually majorly tipsy. In China they Ganbei, as you probably know- it's just like 'Cheers!' but you have to finish whatever you are drinking. A popular drink to do this with is Baijiu. The most disgusting alcohol ever. It's basically the Chinese everclear, except, unlike America, they don't have billions of types of liquor. It's pretty much just Baijiu, and it is disgusting. So this dude was just ganbeing constantly. His wife and friends were trying to grab the alcohol from him, he was standing up and shouting (apparently not saying very nice stuff!), he was on his knees at points and needed help being lifted up. Everyone in the restaurant was staring. It really was extremely entertaining. So eventually the group decided to leave. This cute little old lady, who was at the loud man's table, walked past us and told us he was too drunk. I asked if he'd had a little too much baijiu, she said he drank two bottles! THAT IS CRAZY! 

So our entertainment for the evening left, and shortly after we did too. We managed to catch the subway before it closed- it closes at 10:30 here. It doesn't even go to the end of the line, whichever stop it's at when it reaches 10:30, is where the train stops running.