Today was the first tourist day in Beijing. Our agency is really wise; they know it's probably not a good idea to give exhausted jet-lagged parents a new kid on day one. So we're spending two days recovering and doing some sight-seeing in Beijing before flying to Zhengzhou to meet Susan.
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| Forbidden City |
We're traveling with several other families who are also adopting from the same province as us. We went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City in the morning. Tiananmen Square was huge. As our guide says, "It holds one million Chinese, half a million Americans, or two million Japanese." From there it was a short walk to the Forbidden City, a vast complex of buildings and squares forming the Imperial Palace from the early 1400s to early 1900s. We enjoyed the intricate detail of the architecture.
Next came a rickshaw ride down winding streets and alleys to eat lunch at a local house. Yummy food. I have to admit that I was a little nervous to taste authentic Chinese food after enjoying PF Changs. It was really good though.
This evening we went out for a walk near our hotel. There's a food market with some very unusual selections - pretty much anything-on-a-stick - snake, seahorse, silk worms, spiders, bees, scorpions, crickets, grasshoppers, squid, starfish, shark… No, we did not try any of it. But you know the boys would have loved to.
I got a chance to do some bargaining with the locals for a few items. I'm sure I still overpaid but I impressed the boys with my haggling abilities. One item came down from 100 yuan to 30 (about $5).
It was freezing today and very windy. The good news about the wind is that it blows away a lot of the smog.
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| Starfish, Scorpions, Seahorses |
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| Snakes, Spiders, Centipedes, Bees, Silk Worms... |
