We had a wonderful day in Beijing! First, we started with a delicious and bountiful breakfast…Abbie (Beibei) loved having noodles and eggs, along with a croissant. 🙂
Julia and our guide, Lee, collected us at 9am, and we set out in the bustling city streets. Lee said 30 million people live in Beijing, and there are 7 million cars (many of which we’ve observed to be German!). We first went to a hutong, which is an old neighborhood with narrow streets. In the hutong we went for a rickshaw ride which was so much fun! We stopped a couple of times to explore, and we found the lake there to be beautiful. Next we went to the Temple of Heaven and walked among its many gates and temples. It is surrounded by a large park, and it was fun to see the locals gathered to enjoy its beauty. There was dancing, arhu and singing, hacky-sack, and even poker games! It was lunchtime and we were really in for a treat = Peking duck! Abbie loved the whole meal and so did I (who knew fried duck skin dipped in sugar was so delicious?!). Abbie also survived her first squatty potty. 🙂
After lunch, we did some bargaining in a pearl market. No pearls were bought, but Abbie did a good job getting the prices down for her purchases to a range Lee had suggested. She also did well using her Chinese, and she was often complimented by the merchants. Next came an amazing acrobat show where we were often on the edge of our seats! Abbie is so very happy here; it is such a gift to share this with her.
TeamMueller 