Our Time in Beijing

Today was our tour day, and we had loads of fun in Beijing! What a beautiful city (except for the smog)! We started our day with 21 other adoptive parents in our travel group. We watched snowflakes drift down, while we ate our breakfast. Our first tour was of Tian'an Men Square, the largest public square in the world, enough space to accommodate one million people! From there, we walked to the Forbidden City, home of the former emperors of China. Before lunch we toured a Jade factory. We purchased a special jade pendant for our daughter with a carving of her zodiac symbol,a pig, to represent the Year of the Pig, the year in which she was born (2007). The pig is supposedly the luckiest of all the zodiac signs. Anyway, we'll give it to her as a special gift on her 18th birthday. After lunch, we went to the Great Wall of China. I now understand why this is one of the wonders of the world. It's magnificent! It's unbelievable that it was built thousands of years ago and stretches 6000 kilometers. Though it was snowy and steep, we had a lot of fun hiking part of it (tomorrow my legs probably won't think it was so fun)and watching folks slide down it. We were able to get some beautiful pictures from a few of the towers along the way. Later, we went to a Pearl Factory and then to dinner.

Tomorrow morning, we, along with other adoptive families in our group, fly to Nanchung in the Jiang Xi Province in preparation to meet our babies on the following morning! This is the city in which we will have the longest stay.

We're having a wonderful time in China!