DAY TWO:  Beijing

Today was a sightseeing day.

Jet lag doesn't seem to have killed us too much as we took in quite a bit, but hope to get to bed early tonight because tomorrow is THE BIG DAY -- when we meet our reason for coming here, Shane Fu Horton.

After a nice breakfast buffet, we hopped our bus for the day's trip.  Wong Li, our tour guide in Beijing, did a great job of explaining all of the amazing things we saw.  We started with the Forbidden City.  Anyone that has seen the movie "The Last Emperor" (early 90's?) will appreciate what we got to see.  Temple after temple plus some interesting gardens and lots of open space within the walls of the city.  It was very cold today with a strong wind in most places so we were bundled warmly.  Kevin bought a pair of gloves from a street vendor after we realized we only packed one pair.  We agreed on 15 yuan (the chinese monetary unit), but when Kevin pulled both Chinese money and American money out of his pocket, the vendor said he would prefer two American dollars for them, so that's what we paid.  Speaking of street vendors, they are quite aggressive here.  Especially when a group is getting out of a tour bus, we were pretty much ambushed by people selling postcards, books, hats, gloves, etc. -- and they don't seem to know how to take "no" or "boo" for an answer.

One of many "throne rooms" in the Forbidden City

Next we headed toward the Great Wall, but first stopped at a "freshwater pearl factory" which was interesting, but most of the group was less than focused as Helen, our adoption coordinator that is and will be with us for our entire time in China, whipped out BABY PHOTOS of our soon-to-be-adopted children -- most of them updated photos that none of us had seen before!  After the pearl tour, we went to a large "Friendship Store" which had a restaurant in back, where we enjoyed lunch.  We are starting to realize that we are in for a long spell of continuous food that is very different from that which we get in America!

Lots of food - but only some that we could identify!

Next up was the Great Wall.  We spent a couple hours climbing up, up and up.  We visited a section which was not at all flat, but had lots of STEEP steps.  Some of our party went all the way to the top, while others, like us, satisfied ourselves with something more like halfway.  Again, it was plenty cold, which made for a different experience here, we suspect, than if we came at a warmer time of year.

Cold, but fascinating!

Then, as a bonus, we kind of talked our bus driver into stopping at Tiananmen Square on the way back to the hotel, and, still freezing, got to take a quick jaunt (while brushing off more street vendors) for some photo opportunities.  We ended the day with dinner at a Peking Duck restaurant.  In our opinion, this was much better food than at lunch, and very satisfying.

So there you have it -- Day 2 in the books.  Sorry that there aren't more photos with faces in them.  Tomorrow at this time, this trip will have taken a significant turn from the vacation feel so far, to the real mission at hand, as we will be in the constant care of our new son!  Depending on how the day goes, I hope to have photos of Shane here tomorrow!  Thanks for reading...

More photos from today:

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