Chairman Mao Rules, Merry Christmas

This is it, the final day of this epic excursion from the opulent sights in St. Petersburg to the chaos of Beijing. It is has been a long journey with a slew of fantastic experiences, unbelievable sights and, as usual, amazing people. Exhausted from it all, Tricia and I decided to spend our final day in China having a girl’s day. No more tourist attractions or extreme adventures – we elected to spend our final day shopping. An early start gave me a chance to try some of China McDonald’s contributions to global breakfast cuisine…taro pies and grilled chicken McMuffins.

The remainder of our shopping day was a relaxing experience of wandering through small shops, modern malls and massive markets. This gave me a fantastic opportunity to purchase another thousand or so pairs of chopsticks to store in my closet and a personalized stamp with my name written in Chinese (or at least they tell me it’s my name, I may be signing my Christmas cards this year with “Chairman Mao Rules”).

Thoroughly sickend by the thought of another noodle meal, we elected to spend our last meal at a Pizza Hut. As we ate an interesting version of this classic dish in an eerily familiar setting we reflected over the past few weeks …the grandeur of the Hermitage Museum…having to stage a covert operation to escape from the drunk Russian…the babushka that made me change my clothes…setting off an alarm in the Kremlin…food covered in dill…endless hours on the train… Russian/English language lessons on the train…the British gas key…the sauna where we were repeatedly struck with branches…banana smuggling...cake at the train station…the women in the green blouse…camel riding…yak birth…Mongolian BarBq…ger sleeping…cow milking…border crossings…scorpion snacking…facing Beijing crowds and humidity…the French, the Canadians, the Dutch and the Americans that crossed our path repeatedly…and of course our fellow members of the Commonwealth Team – I look forward to many years of Facebook friendship. Thank you all for reading, your comments and messages mean so much...it feels like you are travelling right there with me...