Tienanmen square and The Forbidden City

I need to back up. We had crystal clear blue sky this morning. We were thrilled. Apparently yesterday was more than just typical smog, we actually were seeing the effects of a huge sandstorm sweeping across China. I did not learn this until I watched CNN tonight! We walked briefly through Tienanmen square on our way to The Forbidden City. The square was massive and we enjoyed taking photos and appreciating some of the history. There were more police officers than yesterday, many large groups marching around the square together. Last week Diana and I watched The Last Emperor, so she quickly remembered the sights from the movie. We only had 90 minutes (seems to be a theme of the trip :)) so all we had time to do was walk the length of the buildings. We, of course, took many photos along the way and just took in the views. The first several buildings had been recently restored in preparation for the Olympics so the colors were bright, vibrant and indescribable. We did not realize how amazing these buildings looked until we were about half way through the complex and we saw the un-restored sections. The colors almost looked brown and were very dull. We really appreciated the restoration project. I will post a photo album of our walk through the Forbidden City. Of course we found some time to shop on our way out. We headed off to lunch before our first "adoption" event.

Monday morning

Wow, what a day, I have so much to write about and so many photos to share. It is late and we are exhausted, so we will see how much we get accomplished tonight. We will post multiple entries for today so I can keep everything straight. We started the morning very early with a 7 am walk to a local park to watch "morning exercises." We saw some Tai Chi, badminton, and several ping pong games. The most interesting event though was the exercise "equipment." There were many people using the equipment, like you might see in a health club, but here it was outside, and not quite as intense. All of the kids enjoyed playing on the equipment and the people seemed to enjoy watching us as well. Ballroom dancing was starting at 8 am but we needed to head back for breakfast and the bus, so we only saw two dancers. We also saw people practicing caligraphy on the street. The park was next to a "boarding" pre-school. Children ages 3-5 live at this school Monday through Friday and then with their parents on the weekend. The school allows the children to "get ahead" with their education. Since it was Monday morning, we were able to see the parents with their children as they arrived at school for the week.

Beijing Photo Albumn

http://picasaweb.google.com/Greenwoodfamily6/Beijing2009?feat=directlink

The Great Wall and Olympic Venues!

We are in the "Green group" for our trip. Today we loaded our bus for our visit to the Great Wall. We had a 90 minute drive on a windy mountain road until we arrived at the Cable Car. We took a brief cable car ride to the top entrance to the wall. Although not sunny, the weather was warm and there was no wind so we were able to really enjoy our 90 minute walk. We could have made it to the top of the hill, but we were having so much fun taking photos that we ran out of time. We noticed that many Chinese groups were taking "Silly" photos, so the girls have a silly Great Wall photo too! We have seen photos of the Great Wall so crowded that you would think you were in a train station. We were very lucky that were very few people there today. We took the cable car back down to the bottom and had to "walk the gauntlet" of shops to get back to the bus. We wanted to buy a few souvenirs, but I am not very good at "bargaining" and the vendors were very aggressive. We did purchase a few things, but Diana was ready to head back to the bus when our path was blocked by several aggressive business owners. We laughed at the end because all of us purchased similar items and we all paid different prices...we think we all paid too much! We had lunch at a Cloisonne factory store and really enjoyed shopping there since the prices were fixed :). We found some fun ornaments and teapots. After lunch we briefly walking around the Olympic venues and toured The Bird's nest! The square is immense! They only recently opened these venues for public tours. We were surprised that there were no English instructions at these venues. They also did not take credit cards! The other thing that surprised us was how many police officers are in the streets! We are getting ready to go out to dinner with our group soon.

We are here!

We got an early start Friday morning and took a hotel shuttle to the International terminal at SFO. Since we were leaving at 11:00 am the terminal was empty, no lines at security and very easy. Our friends Karen and Emi arrived from Salt Lake about 9 am and met us at our gate. We also met two other families that were traveling on our flight. Although long, 12 hours, the flight was easy. I think I watched four movies, did some reading and took about an hour nap. Diana unfortunately had a queazy stomach most of the flight, but she did sleep quite a bit. We landed a few minutes early, had an short line to get through customs and found our group when we exited. We took a bus to our hotel and are now relaxing and getting organized. Diana wanted to relax and rest her stomach, so we passed on the walk to the nearby grocery store. We are not in a "tourist" area, so there are no sights to walk to. We have a meeting at 7:30 tonight to meet everyone (about 100 people) and review our schedule for tomorrow.
We are so excited that Emi, Diana and Hannah are back together in China, and can't wait until Marissa joins us in Yangzhou in a few days.

We begin our journey tomorrow!

Diana and I will spend the night near the San Francisco airport tomorrow night, then take the shuttle to the airport Friday morning to fly to Beijing! We arrive at 2:30 PM on Saturday March 14th. Our friends Karen and Emi are on the same flight with us, so we are very excited. Our friends Mindy, Hannah and Lilly land just five minutes after we do, so we should all be traveling to our Beijing hotel together. Saturday we are having dinner and an orientation meeting and hopefully a good night sleep. Sunday is our trip to the Great Wall and Monday we visit The Forbidden City. I am glad we will be returning again in December because our visit in Beijing will be quick. Hopefully our next entry will include photos of the excited but weary travelers!

One Week to go!

We are finishing our packing today and making all of our final plans.
Be on the lookout for our first photos and posts next weekend!
Diana and I are going to watch The Last Emperor to view the Forbidden City in preparation.