Beijing

Chinese saying: It is destiny for everyone to be together.

And so, here we are in China!

We have been busy, from sunrise to sunset. The last couple of days have been spent in Beijing. We have seen all the highlights of Beijing:
--the Temple of Heaven, where the emperor would pray for the harvest (hmm... we call that "church," right Joetta? :-) )
-- the Ming Tombs, where we saw amazing examples of artifacts from the Ming dynasty
-- The Great Wall, STEEP, LONG, one of those "I really can hardly believe that I'm standing here right now" moments
-- the Summer Palace (seen in the photo above), where the emperors would vacation
-- the Forbidden City- though only a small fraction of the 9999 rooms...
--Tian'anmen Square- with no absolutely no comment from our guide on the scene that enters all of our minds when thinking of the site

We've shopped at:
-- a Jade Factory
-- a Cloisonne Factory
-- a Pearl Market
-- street vendors (though only a couple of the many that have approached us!)

We've eaten:
--Chinese food and more Chinese food, including Peking roast duck

We've been diagnosed by:
-- TCM- a professor of Traditional Chinese Medicine (my kidney is not in yinyang and taking two herbal supplements for $163 American dollars would have helped...)

Highlights:
--surviving trip over! so very long!
--meeting the Chinese folks
--James playing with older man at park outside Temple of Heaven
--Keilah and James interacting with others, both the Chinese we meet and others on the tour
--driving by Olympic venues, still under construction
--walking the Wall
--lunch in family home

The internet connection here is iffy, at best. I can receive email but not send it. grrrr. Right now I can't download any other photos. I'll figure out some sort of slide show when we are back home.

Tomorrow we are off to Shanghai and surrounding areas, including Suzhou and Hangzhou.

Blessings!