It's been a whirlwind 48 hrs!

Let's start back where we left off. We had just visited the great wall. The next day was a free day where we decided to go to the zoo. We were planning on going on the Monday, but then we were delayed so moved it to Friday.
The zoo wasn't as impressive as we'd imagined. First you pay an admission fee, then you had to pay again to see some of the other exhibits. We did get to see the giant pandas which was our main mission, the elephants, bears and giraffes. Again we were seen as a tourist attraction ourselves so we posed for a photo. I can't believe the amount of people who just take sly pictures of us and think we won't notice.
It was boiling hot in Beijing on Friday so after trudging around the zoo we called it quits and went to the airport. Albeit 5 hrs earlier than necessary. Our plane was due to arrive at 5:20. We were waiting at the gate, then without notice they change our gate number and didn't announce it! We had to bolt to another gate half an airport away. We made it only to find out the plane was delayed an hour.
Finally we got on the plane only to be delayed on the Tarmac for 6 hrs meaning we missed our connecting flight to Paris. We were the only westerners on this plane so thankfully the lady we were sitting next to spoke English and translated the announcements for us because the staff would give up mid sentence.
At 2:30am Beijing time we finally made it to Guangzhou. Our Paris flight left at midnight meaning we had another hotel stay ahead of us. Unfortunately when we got to the transfer desk the only flight available with our carrier was a whole day away.
So off to the Good East Hotel to spend an entire day. Much like the last hotel we were put in, none of the staff spoke english so it was very unnerving to be in the middle of nowhere. The room was nice yet dirty. We got a phone call at 8:30am requesting something, thinking we were supposed to be checking out or something we went downstairs only to receive breakfast. A plastic bag with a hot milk popper and a tonne of sweet bread.
We managed to get some sleep before going down to lunch, determined by the hotel, which consisted of a whole fish, corn, vegetables and chickens feet. Mmmmm. Chris made a friend with an old Chinese gentleman who could speak a little English. He kept showing Chris, what appeared to be his license, and offering him tea and smokes. We met another couple who had children in Australia and New Zealand so they knew a little English too. We now come from Perth.
Finally we are on the plane, on our way to Paris! 42hrs after we started our journey to Paris we will finally get there :) bring on Europe!

Ps. I can now safely say that pure exhaustion is a great way to forget your fear of flying :)
Oh and boiling water doesn't necessarily mean that it will kill the bad bugs...