Day 2 in Beijing

Today we did some more exploring in Beijing.  We started our morning at Tiananmen Square before heading into the Forbidden City.

Here we are outside the gates with a little photo bomb by Chairman Mao. He is everywhere...including watches and fans and any other souvenir item you can imagine.

This is our travel group right before we went in the first of several gates.

The Forbidden City was enormous. We got a brief history lesson from our guide as we moved through each section. It was really interesting and I learned a lot....but I couldn't get the Mulan soundtrack out of my head as we came to these steps leading up to the emperors throne room.

Once our tour was complete, we jumped in to these bad boys.

I had to close my eyes because our driver had that rickshaw weaving in and out of traffic like crazy.  I'm thankful we survived!

Our driver dropped us off at this little alley way so we could go have a traditional meal in the home of a family who lives "under the shadow of the emperor" because it is located so close to the palace.  These homes may not look like much but they have been around for 600 years and would cost $10 million to purchase!  Only 10% of the people living in this area own their homes.  The rest are owned by the government.

They had a man painting with the traditional calligraphy so we had him paint Emma's name. Beautiful.

After lunch and another thrilling rickshaw ride, we went to a tea room for a Chinese tea ceremony.  We are not tea drinkers but we enjoyed tasting and learning about different teas.

This was my favorite tea because it didn't have any tea leaves and was just hot water and dried fruit.  It would have been super yummy cold!

We learned the proper way to drink our tea.  I'm so fancy.

After our tea ceremony, we got to watch an acrobatic show.  It was amazing! The performers were 10-18 years old and it was unbelievable to see the things they could do.  We were not allowed to take pictures which was a bummer but it was awesome!!! We are off to bed now because we have a flight to catch at 8:30 am (6:30 pm in Mississippi) as we head to Emma's province.  We are not sure if we will get her tomorrow afternoon or the next morning, but we are so excited to be this close to her! It is almost (FINALLY) time to meet our girl!!!