Beijing Day 2 with the Crew!

Here the boys and their new friends pose for a quick picture, from left to right, Nate, Drew, ?, and Bethany. Bethany and her parents are also adopting a daughter from China and we have had a great time getting to know them. You can view their blog on our links at: Gray Adoption. You might just catch a photo or two of us. Nate and Drew are ready for tomorrow, where all photo opportunities will be charged 1 Yuan!

We had an opportunity to hear the drum show at the Ming Dynasty Drum Tower. The tower is over 600 years old and very tall, 69 very steep steps to be exact! We were just practicing for the Great Wall!

This is the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Countdown clock, as you can see there is a little traffic, but our guide, Peter, assured us this was not bad at all. Beijing just instituted the rule that private vehicles with odd numbered license plates can only drive on odd days and vice versa with even plates.

We are in the courtyard of a Hutong District resident. The gentleman's family has lived in this quadrangle for over 90 years! The family was gracious and served us tea in their common room. Our guide Alice did a great job showing us this area to include a roundtrip on a rickshaw!

This is the Temple of Heaven and we spent a great deal of our day visiting this great site. We enjoyed learning about culture and viewing the Chinese people in their "downtime". We were amazed at all of the retired population, just relaxing and enjoying each others friendship. Lunch was at the Dai Jia Cun Restaurant and it was excellent. The lunch even included a nice dance/music show that the boys participated in on stage.

Tomorrow we will be visiting TianAnMen Square and the Forbidden City. We will also climb a small portion of the Great Wall (probably all we can handle). 

On a final note, the elusive converter and battery charger were both purchased today at the local Carrefour and a souvenir shop. I would have never guessed a gift shop would have a high tech Sony charger, but I am after all in China! We also finished the day off in "O" fashion by eating at Pizza Hut again, good stuff. 

Summer Palace

The Bird's Nest!  Site for many of the upcoming Olympic events. (Don't forget you can click on each of the photos for an enlarged view.)  Scott was impressed with how well his new camera worked at 55mph. 

Jean and the boys nearing the end of the tour.

We are in the gardens with one of the elephants covered in flowers.  The elephant symbolizes happiness in the Chinese culture.  We stopped to take this picture while walking the Long Corridor~2,277 feet long.  Every beam is painted with original artwork~8,000 miniature works of art in all.

Scott and the boys just inside the entrance to the Summer Palace.  The buildings were beautifully painted.
The photos are out of order but the internet is slow and we haven't purchased a power adapter so our battery is slowly draining.  Today was a great day thanks to our guide, Vicki.  Tomorrow we will tour the Temple of Heaven; take the Hutong tour, and watch the Acrobat Show.  

Just to clear Drew's name; he didn't get sick on the plane, just Nate.