Sarah Grace: Leah and her 'Rents Visit - Part V: Back in the Jing

After returning to Beijing, Leah and her parents had a day to explore on their own while I was at work. They checked out the Forbidden City and Tian'anmen Square - which still had all the pillars and floats from the National Day celebration.

I had a car pick them up in the afternoon to bring them up to see my school before taking a cab back home. Dinner and acrobats finished off our Friday evening. The acrobat show was the same one that I took my dad and sister to in June, but this time there was a bit more excitement. At one point in the show, two acrobats were inside giant wheels. They secured the contraption (two large wheels rotating on an axis) to the stage while they did their stunts inside and outside the wheels. At one point, I noticed that the stunt was not exactly like it was the last time I saw it. The acrobats looked like they finished early and there were more people than necessary to untie the wheels to raise them back up out of the way. The show went to intermission while they took care of the wheels. What is supposed to happen, is that they get the wheels untied and then raised up into the area above the stage. For some reason this was not happening and the wheels were beginning to swing a bit over the audience. Some people in the first few rows got up and moved out from under while others just sat and watched. Finally, some ushers had everyone move from the first few rows and the acrobats were finally able to get the wheels up and out of the way. The show went on.

On Saturday, we went up to the Great Wall at Mutianyu. This was the third time I had been up to this part of the wall. We took the gondola up and rode the toboggans down.

After the Great Wall, we went shopping. Here's Leah with one shop owner.

Sunday was the day reserved for Roger's talk about the regulation of water quality in America at a water research place here in Beijing.

After the talk, we were taken out to lunch and then on a walk in a park in western Beijing. It was the fanciest Chinese lunch I have been to so far and there was a variety of dishes that I have never seen. There were several toasts to Roger and to the rest of us. Luckily, we were not toasting with baijiu.