{China #2} Beijing Tour

Today was a PACKED day!  We started at 8:30/9am and went to the Temple of Heaven.  It was huge and despite the snow from yesterday, it still seemed busy.  It was fun to see some couples dancing to music in the park and other people playing…something like hacky sack.

{Temple of Heaven}

{Chase, Chelby & Angela}

From there, we went to a Chinese restaurant and again tried several new dishes, such as: a shrimp and walnut dish, Chinese cabbage, meat pie and some other dishes. 

{Eating lunch with Angela, her husband and our faithful driver}

Afterwards, we headed to the Tien Mien square and to the Palace Museum (aka the Forbidden Palace). 

{Tein Mien Sqaure}

The Palace Museum was incredible and seemed to never end (in a good way).  The architecture was simply amazing.  It made the Capitol project I (Jeff) just finished seem small & plain in comparison.  Our tour guide, Angela, said that there were 9, 999 rooms in the Palace.  If a new born were to sleep in a different room every night, he would be 27 years old by the time he slept in all the rooms.  Needless to say, it was amazing to see.

{Forbidden City}

From there, we hopped back into our van.  Next stop, a rickshaw ride.  It was a bit cold at times, when the wind was against us, but worth the experience.  The driver took us to a local Chinese home, where our tour guide explained how the Chinese used to live, while we got to look inside the rooms.  Then the rickshaw driver took us around some of the back roads for a bit.  I loved observing all the people….riding past a lake, iced over, with people ice skating and ice skiing (a chair on skis with ski poles to push across the ice). 

{Rickshaw Ride}

Throughout the day as we’ve ridden in our van, we’ve been able to talk with Angela and ask her lots of questions.  She used to work for All God’s Children (an adoption agency), so she knows a lot about the process and the orphanages and how they are run.  We’ve also been able to ask her some language questions like how do we tell Emerson it’s time for bed?  She also informed us how important tones are as similar words said with a different tone can mean VERY different things.  Baba can mean Dad or it can mean poop depending on the tone you use!!  Chase thought this was hilarious.  ☺  

Our last stop was the Chinese acrobats.  This was simply incredible!  We were in awe most of the performance.  Chase absolutely LOVED this, especially when they had 8 motorcycles riding around in one spherical type cage (that was not very big).  Several of the stunts literally took our breath away as it seemed for sure they were going to fall or hurt themselves.  

{Chinese Acrobats}

{Motorcyclist in Cage} 

We went out to eat again for supper sampling din sum/pot stickers, egg plant, a very spicy beef dish, sweet potato & mushroom dish, etc.  

Chase crashed as soon as we got back to our hotel room (around 8:30pm).  He did fantastic for as many things as we did today.  He told me tonight before bed that he can’t wait to meet his little sister tomorrow.  It’s hard to believe that Gotcha Day for Emerson is nearly here!  Please pray for her and her foster mom knowing the pain & grieving that lie ahead for both of them.

We are looking forward to traveling to a warmer climate tomorrow where we don’t have to wear 2 pairs of pants! ☺

Jeff, Chelby & Chase