Beijing in a Whirlwind Tour

Today we began our day early.  After falling into bed after midnight, we were up and getting showers at 6:00am.

We started with an authentic Chinese breakfast consisting of boiled egg, steamed rolls, sausage and (something), some kind of vegetable in some kind of sauce(that was actually quite yummy).  To top it off we had grits soup.  I am NOT making this up!

Then we began our whirlwind tour.  Shopping(actually bartering) at the market.  Getting more pearls for our newest girls strung at LingLings.

Next, we headed to Old Beijing and had a tea ceremony at the Hutong Tea Shop.  Wonderful tea–would have loved to be able to buy everything we tasted.  Zach made the best slurping sounds once he was told that was customary practice.

We then took the most interesting driving trip to the Great Wall.  (words fail me–get Zach and Leighanne to describe it for you)  But before we went to the Great Wall, we had lunch at a farmer’s house.
Very good food.  We fed 6 people for 15 U.S dollars.

We went on part of the Great Wall that we had not visited before and were amazed at the difference in heights.   We decided to take the “easy” path because I swear we would have fallen off of the “hard” path.

On our way home from the Great Wall we got stuck in a 2 hour traffic jam.  So we saw part of the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square in the dark.  Still beautiful to look at with Beijing Lights.

A fabulous beginning to our trip.  Tomorrow we fly to Changsha and we are only 1 day away from getting Hannah.

Here are a few pictures from our day.