Happy Easter - Beijing Trip Part 3 (Test Drive, Forbidden City, Peking Duck)

And now for the final part of our trip! For our last full day in Beijing, we went to Li Auto to test drive their newest MPV.  It is a scarily "advanced" car with AI and all the features, many of which we were barely scratching the surface with our understanding. Motion activated commands, personalized voice recognition, an HUD personalized driver 3D experience that I didn't (and still don't) really understand, and Michael's explanations to me didn’t really help (he couldn't seem to get past, "WHOA!  This is crazy! This is so cool!  Are you seeing this? You sure you can't see this?" Etc.)  

The salespersons were sure we could drive the car into Hong Kong, but I am not sure of the practicalities of that.  We don't have a Chinese license or ID which would make purchasing difficult, not to mention the car probably charges with Chinese style adapters and the driver sits on the left side of the car.  Alas, sad, because the car was very reasonably priced for all the features it contains - a far cry from what is on offer in Hong Kong.  (Backstory: After a fruitless search to upgrade or trade in our current vehicle, we decided to keep our current beloved Mercedes people mover.  It is not electric, but it is the only 8 seater model that still allows bench seats to face each other - a beloved feature for us.)  What was really amazing about cars in China was the sheer variety - we couldn't get over how many different types of cars there were, and some very strange models we had never seen or heard of, which must have been developed for the China market.

We ate a casual lunch in a food hall of a shopping mall, drawing lots of eyes as we were definitely the only foreigners there.  I struggled a little bit to find shops that would take Alipay, as I never really succeeded in setting up my WeChat pay.  That helped me make the determination on where to order, though - all the spicy hotpots I wanted to try were off limits!  This cashless society of China's can be a real pain.

After lunch we rushed to the Forbidden City, or 故宮.  Along the way we were asked by a local family if their kids could take pictures with our kids.  That was slightly odd but flattering, and we acquiesced.  That was at least slightly better than another grandma that we met while inside, who stealthily told her daughter to take pictures while she was chatting us up.

Michael also got approached by a group of giggling teenagers from a local school, who asked if they could practice their English with him by giving him a tour / reading off of a script.  That was also fascinating - both by virtue of how bad the English was but also how sweet and awed the kids were, leading me to think that this was like a close ecounter with the third kind.

After our long day at the Forbidden City, we went home to shower, change, and headed to dinner with our friends.  There, the kids were fascinated by the robot that delivered dishes and took away dirty plates. We stuffed ourselves silly, then went to a nearby 7-Eleven, before heading home. 

The next morning, we were packed and headed back to the airport for our flight home. Unsurprisingly, our flight was delayed nearly 2 hours.  Lola was adorably aghast that she had enough time to finish an entire movie, Wish, before we took off.  Par for the course, Beijing, par for the course.  I think we would have been more surprised if our flight had departed on time!