Beijing, Day Two

Today we woke up bright and early and go hot on sightseeing.  We went to Tienanmen Square and The Forbidden City.  It was incredible, but incredibly hot.  By the photos you will see that there are thousands of people there as well as our measly little group of 33 people (including 6 darling little girls adopted from China, waiting to meet their new brothers and sisters!).  At one point I thought I could have had a full blown panic attack with the amount of people just trying to get into The Forbidden City.  The Chinese don't really follow the standard line procedure and tend to forget a little thing called personal space.  Just imagine thousands of sheeple taking tiny steps all at the same time going the same way.  It's comedy.  Despite the mere panic attack it was an amazing sight to see.

We then went to a yummy lunch at a traditional Chinese restaurant for Peking Duck.  We were super hungry so when they came out with dish after dish of many kinds of food we all had big smiles on our faces.  There were about 7 different dishes and all of them very good.  I have to say that I have yet to have a bad meal.  The food is SO good here!

Next we headed up to the Great Wall.  You just can't imagine the beauty of it without seeing it in person.  I ventured about a quarter of the way, but with the heat, smog, and altitude I decided to park it and watch people.  Mark kept going and made it to the top.  So yes, Mark climbed the Great Wall!  All along the way he got stopped by Chinese tourists wanting to take pictures with him.  I think that people think he is Fabio with his blonde hair.  I have re-named him Flabio.

Tonight we are packing up and are heading out on an early flight to Hangzhou where we will call home for 5 days.  The time to Mali is getting closer, only two more days until we meet our girl!