Day Three

Today is the day for the parade. We squeezed in a little extra sleep, had breakfast and then headed over to the parade. We had no idea what to expect. The guide had us walk behind our dancers to our VIP seating and we found ourselves walking the parade route! It was quite exciting with people waving at us and taking our pictures. We got some idea of what it would be like for our dancers.


Our seats were in a covered area next to the judges seating and we had a great view of where the groups would stop and perform for the judges. It was so much fun to see all the other performers and of course, we were extremely proud of our dancers.

One of our girls twisted her ankle during the performance and had to take an ambulance to the hospital and have it x-rayed. It was nerve wracking for us all but more so for her mom, who spent two hours in a foreign hospital.
The rest of us took the bus to Tienanmen Square. On the way to the restaurant we saw two of the buildings built for next year's Olympic games, the bird's nest, where they will hold cycling events and the water cube for some of the water sports.



Outside the restaurant were many sellers. Everything was "One dalla, One dalla". My husband bought two chairman Mao watches for our sons at home.
When we approached the square, a guard stopped our guides who carried large American flags for us to follow. They weren't going to allow us on the square until they explained we were tourists. They still had to roll the flags up!

Once we were on the square there were many more sellers who were incredibly persistent. Many of our folks had great fun bargaining and shopping. My husband and I walked down to the far gate away from the crowd and a young Chinese couple approached us and asked us where we were from. They attended the Beijing University and were delighted to practice their English with us. They offered to give us a tour of the gate, but our time was up and we had to board the buses again.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a shopping store "like a Wal-mart" our guides told us. It was very crowded and had everything from cameras and TVs to buckets of fish and whole chickens hanging. We had a hard time finding snack foods that were recognizable but our family did get Snicker bars and diet cokes.
After our arrival back to the hotel and after the hotel dinner, many went over to the Pizza Hut nearby. I was exhausted and went straight to bed but my husband and two girls ventured out. My hubby brought me a piece of pepperoni pizza. Yummy.