Beijing!

* Disclaimer: There are going to be way too many pictures in this post for a good blog entry.  However, this is a book for Vivi, and we want to document it as fully as we can. You have been warned!

 
Dear Vivi -

We made it!  Wow, are you far away.  It's one thing to write about you being on the other side of the world and a whole other thing to get on a plane and take our bodies there!  We already miss your brothers terribly, but we are so excited to be in the land of your birth.

Daddy has pictures of the plane on his phone so we'll get those in later.  Mommy would rather forget the plane and the anxiety that came when we realized that we had just boarded our last flight for the trip - but our camera was still on the plane from the flight before.  The flight attendants and workers at the Tokyo airport were amazing, though, and somehow got us our camera back before we even took off. Mommy had a minor meltdown, but all is good now.

We were exhausted after little sleep for 24 hours, but we were up early due to jet lag and a very noisy jackhammer at 4:00 a.m.  We finally turned on the TV at 5:00, and to our surprise we found the Raiders/Cowboys football game!  Since it was only 4:00 p.m. on Thursday for Americans, we realized many had still not sat down for Thanksgiving dinner yet. We gave thanks for a bit of home on our first morning in China. 

The view from our hotel room.

Vivi, we're seeing that your homeland is just rich with history and so beautiful.  Our two-day tour of Beijing began with a visit to Tiananmen Square.  As with most landmarks that have a significant place in history, it was fascinating to see it in person.  Everything is just huge and the structures are very imposing.  The scale of the place is incredible - it was designed to hold more than 1,000,000 people at the same time!  Thankfully, we are here during the low-tourism time so we didn't see anywhere close to that number.

We saw the railway museum and know your brothers back home would have been thrilled!

 There were soldiers everywhere.

This is Alice, one of our tour guides.  She is extremely intelligent and her English is incredible. We were grateful to have such a knowledgeable person with us.

Where Chairman Mao would make his proclamations to the people.

Daddy and Mommy in the square.

Two ginormous TVs installed in the Square for the Olympics.

Americans are treated as celebrities, and Chinese tourists who are visiting Beijing from other parts of the country often want their pictures taken with us, even though they have no idea who we are.  Here's one of our families getting their picture taken with lots of different people!

We'd heard about the split pants, but it's a whole other thing to see them in person.

Inside the Forbidden City.

The toilets in the Forbidden City were 4-star.  Seriously.  And it was B.Y.O.T.P. (Bring Your Own Toilet Paper), which left us wondering if including that feature may have bumped it up to five stars...

The Forbidden City was really stunning.

 Daddy taking pictures in the City.

The Imperial Garden, which is just outside the Forbidden City.

Two trees that have grown together, and marriages were held here because of the romanticism of it.

 

A picture of the wall surrounding the Forbidden City, and just how long it is.

Travelling to our lunch via Rickshaw.

All of the families in our group had lunch together, family style, prepared by some local families.  Quite a delicious spread of food!

And to counteract that, here's how they build McDonald's in China!

The big beautiful Christmas tree in our hotel lobby.  Even though China is not a Christian state, they have clearly embraced the holiday.  

Dinner tonight was at the noodle restaurant next door to the hotel.  Daddy had Crispy Chicken.  Mommy had a bowl of Hot and Sour Soup.  Note the size of the bowl.  That serving could have fed me for at least half a dozen more meals!  Sooo delicious and spicy.

After dinner, we walked around with another couple from our group, and got to see some of the sights just around our hotel.  Here's the Apple Store.  It's three stories high, and you can't really tell from the picture, but it is packed full of people.

The market that sold all kinds of delicacies, 

 

like squid (far left) and silkworms (middle right) on sticks.

Oh, and not to mention the scorpions, grasshoppers, spiders, and snakes, all on sticks for easy chomping.

Our hotel, all lit up at night.

This is the beautiful church next to our hotel.  We're not sure about the denomination because the signs are all in Chinese, but it looks Orthodox.  Regardless, it was stunning all lit up against the night sky.

Tomorrow we get to walk on the Great Wall.  Amazing!  And even more amazing is that the countdown to you is now so short: Only one more day until you turn 2, and two more days until we hold you. The Great Wall may be one of the seven wonders of the world, but to us, it pales in comparison to getting you.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy