Touring Beijing

Today was the first of 2 days of touring Beijing. It's now 2:20 pm here, which means just after midnight for everyone back home. My body is not sure what to think. 

We woke up at 3:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. I ate some M&Ms and twizzlers and watched some shows on my iPad. 

If you're from my adoption groups and reading this, express VPN and Panda Pow are both working fine, able to get on whatever website we want, netflix is working. 

We took showers and Facetimed with the boys. It was so good to see them. Quincy was a little shy but Dex was very happy to see us. Technology is an amazing thing!

Our room is very nice but is was sooo hot that we had to change rooms this morning. The new room is much better. 

We had breakfast at our hotel's buffet. It was great. Chinese and western foods both. Wish I had taken more pictures.

 

After breakfast we met our CCAI guide and the other family we are traveling with, Terry & Vern. We are so lucky to be with them, they are very fun and easy going so perfect travel companions!

We got on the bus and headed to Tianeman Square first. 

Our guide shared a lot about the history of Tianemam Square. I wish I could remember more but you all have Wikipedia....

Gabe in front of China's version of the White House. 

One thing we found very interesting is the response when we asked about the rebellion there. Our guide was a little uncomfortable at the question. She admitted we probably know more about it than she does, the news is controlled by the government so we saw much more than they did. It's so easy to forget how fortunate we are to have the freedoms we do....

There were 2 of these huge TV screens. They were just recently on MSN, the smog is so bad that people would go to watch the sunrise/sunset on these screens. 

We Americans were apparently an interesting sight. This cute couple followed us around for a while until the finally asked to have a picture with us. 

The Forbidden City. You can tell how smoggy it is. This was amazing. Huge, beautiful. I wasn't planning on enjoying this as much as I did. 

 This was called the couples tree. (No clue why this is blue and underlined but I don't know how to fix it on the iPad with no keyboard so I'm leaving it). 

After the Forbidden City we took a Rickshaw ride through the Hutong neighborhood. 

           

          Dad, a cat!,

Todd, a jeep!

Next we were served lunch in a home in the Hutong neighborhood. This was not even a third of the food. 

They have racing pigeons!!

All that food prepare in this tiny kitchen, which is apparently big for the area. 

Gabe and Jason rode together on the way back while I rode with Cecelia. Felt sorry for this poor guy....

Tomorrow we got to the Great Wall of China! 

Again, thank you for all the kind words and prayers. We love it and really do appreciate it!!