Touring Beijing

Tian'anmen Square

Male dragon in Forbidden City

Dawn with the daughter of one of the families traveling with us.

Today we toured Tia'anmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tia'anmen Square is the largest square in the world and is where many celebrations and military reviews are held. The Forbidden City was built in 1417 and is where many of the emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties once lived.

Some things we learned today: China has 1.3 billion people. It is around the same size and the US only has 3 times more people. Beijing has 18 million people. In the east 700 people live in 1 sq km. In the west 2 people live in 1 sq km.

There is one family traveling with us that brought their 3 children. The two girls were asked so many times today to have their picture taken. It was unreal. At first it was kind of funny, but after a while they were tired of having their photo taken.

We also found out today that we will get Sarah around 4:30 pm on Sunday. That's just two hours after we land. We are really excited. Tonight we are going to an acrobatics show. I will post more pictures when we get back. Oh, today 3 other families and us went to lunch. We had no idea what we were ordering other than duck. We got Peking duck and fried rice. It was so good. It ended up being under $18 per couple. We didn't think that was too bad considering how much food we got. We are hoping to get to the Hard Rock Cafe, even if only for the t-shirts!

Until later this evening!