last bit on Summer Palace

We then spent some time checking out several exhibits in the ‘treasures’ section which, while intriguing, couldn’t really hold us because we were cold and feeling ready to wrap up our day. So after spending about 30-50 minutes looking around in that area, we finally made the way out to the main gate enterance to start our trip back home. As we were walking out to find a taxi, we saw one that was flashing its lights at us, so we went over and pointed out the station name we wanted to go to; this guy also gave us the no answer. Another taxi was pulling up, and we pointed it out to him as well, and received yet another awesome ‘no’. Sigh. We started walking around trying to find out where one of the buses we could take back to the station or just somewhere (but we really didn’t have any idea.) One more taxi was pulling up, so we asked this guy as well, and to our relief received a yes answer. We hopped in, took the taxi to the station, and took the station to our stop. After getting off at Dongsi, we spotted the restaurant that we wanted to stop and have dinner at (we had noticed it the day before). Since it was barely 5 when we came in, we pretty much had the place to ourself. This place also had an english menu (but a chinese one w/ pix as well, so either would have been fine :P) and got a huge selection of stuff since this was our one big meal of the day. We had sweet and sour pork, shredded pork w/ beijing sauce, a soup, and drinks. Grand total was like, 15$ (including drinks). We couldn’t believe we were able to stomache all the food we had!
We got home (after stopping at a grocery store and picking up oreos, dove chocolate, juice, and wine made from some chinese fruit. We had grand plans of having a great evening to celebrate our last night of 2008. Instead, by the time I settled on watching Speed Racer, Bethany had already fallen asleep; it was 9 (or just before :P). I watched the movie while Bethany napped, and I woke her up to ring in the New Year. Whee.