We had quite the touring day in Beijing today. I'm tired, but wanted to share a few of the hundreds of photos I took today. It was hard to choose which ones to share - it was an amazing day. Our guide, Lily, has been wonderful, and we've been having many terrific adventures. Our driver, Mr. Su, has impressed us no end with his ability to deftly navigate the smallest gaps in the most congested city traffic we've ever seen. The food in particular has been good, but I'm wanting to eat a little less of it tomorrow - our guides love to pour on the fancy multicourse meals, and we've all been stuffed, with food left over on our plates and serving bowls. We all loved the soup we had tonight with bok choy and seafood, even though the prawns still had their feelery bits and eyeballs (it was a little disconcerting that our food was still looking at us, but we laughed about it and were glad we tried it anyway)!

Tomorrow we visit the Great Wall, tour the hutongs of Beijing (ancient commoner homes), and watch an acrobat show in the evening. The next day we fly to Hefei, and then meet our new daughter on the 19th, which makes me emotional to even think about at this point, so I'm just trying to enjoy the days as they come. I've been in awe of this place and its people, and we are combining the most amazing tours of our lives with an amazing life-changing addition to our family. It is truly overwhelming. I feel that China is gifting our family in so many loving ways; we are blessed to be here.

Anyway, here's our day in pictures:

Gennie begins the day with some made-to-order eggs at the hotel's breakfast buffet.

We smile in front of Chairman Mao's mauseoleum. Possibly because we're glad to be on the outside of the mauseoleum, rather than preserved inside of a crystal coffin being displayed to morbidly curious tourists. And that whole being dead part would stink, too.

Genevieve and her Daddy grin in front of an ancient watch tower - perhaps glad not to have been mistaken for invading barbarians, although it was a close call for the guards to have to make.

We were not allowed on Tiananmen Square today, and could only view it from the outside, since there is a large congressional meeting in Beijing today and security had been stepped up significantly. I decided it was probably bad form to attempt to tickle one of these guys to see if they are capable of smiling. I did keep smiling at them anyway, just to see if one of them would smile back. They are very well trained fellows, and look wonderfully sharp in their green uniforms.

This would be the second city in which I've experienced Olympic games preparations. (Salt Lake being the first). Beijing has the fun construction, too, guys (this is aimed towards those family members who also lived in SLC during Olympic prep and know what I'm talking about)! Our tour guide, Lily, was fantastic and very knowledgeable during all of our tours during the day, and also was interested in hearing about what aspects of SLC had improved as a result of the games. We tried to give her hope, but they already have light rail, and their housing prices have gone sky high.

The stares continued today, and the requests for photo ops began. The girls made some very cute little friends this way. The Chinese people are friendly and curious, and once we became used to the unsolicited attention, we had some fun (if somewhat language-barrier bound) conversations.

Dave-man and Chairman Mao.

Our family smiles in front of the Forbidden City.

Genevieve and Di check out some water urns and some beautiful architecture.

Another friend made in the Forbidden City

I think the U.S. needs some help in this area - we, too, should consider having mystical animals on our rooflines. I think they're lovely (and rather cute)!
The emperor had some very pleasant living areas. One would hope something would suit him in the thousands of rooms available in the Forbidden City (the legend holds that the emperor had 9,999 1/2 rooms, so as to fall just short of the God of Heaven's home of 10,000 rooms, and thus not appear prideful or presumptuous). In actuality, he had less than 9,000 - which surely would put him at the top of the humble list, right?
The Forbidden City really is that - a city! This place is huge!

A statue in the imperial gardens.
We visited a tea shop after our tour of the Forbidden City. I bought a jasmine flower tea that actually blooms into a flower in hot water when it is used - it tastes as heavenly as it looks, too.
After lunch, we visited a silk factory and the Summer Palace. The silk factory was very interesting, and we got to see where the silk was made and spun. The gift shop was a bit of a tourist trap, and the salespeople follow you around everywhere trying to get you to buy things, but I didn't mind too terribly since the store had lovely items. I settled on a silk table runner for our dining room.

This is a view of the long corridor in the Summer Palace. The entire length was handpainted with detailed small murals that were amazing in terms of their depth of color and their sheer number!
Near the Marble Boat in Kunming Lake, Summer Palace, Beijing.
I loved how this building looked with the trees in the background; so many of these places were gorgeous beyond belief.