Day 2- Tian'anmen Square, Forbidden City and Silk Factory

Well, it’s 2:53 am and all three of us are wide awake! We’re supposed to meet Mr. Zhou in the lobby at 9:00 am so we had some spare time. :) There are 11 families here with our agency and we met some of them at breakfast this morning. Breakfast was pretty good with lots to choose from. There was everything from pancakes, eggs, cereal and fruit to congee (like grits), fried rice, dumplings, wonton soup and preserved eggs (looks likes a translucent egg white with a blueish-grey yolk - yummy!)

We boarded the bus and Mr. Zhou informed us that our plans have changed, we will be going to the Great Wall and Olympic Village tomorrow because he needs to stop at CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) for 10 minutes and they are not open tomorrow. He informed us that we will be the first group ever to go to CCAA - this is where all the paperwork and adoption placements are handled. So instead we will be touring around Beijing today.

First stop is the Tian'anmen Square where everyone got their first taste of the many peddlers selling their Chinese souvenirs. Once Dad and Fred got the hang of this, there was no stopping them - they were bartering fools! From here we crossed under the street to The Forbidden City which is massive! The architectural detail is amazing! There are 999 buildings in this complex and as Mr. Zhou says, “You see one, you see them all”. He is definitely a mover - trying to keep up with him was quite a challenge- it was like going on a drive by sight-seeing tour! When I was in Beijing in 1995, I remember taking all day to see these two sites that we saw in 2 hours! Needless to say, we just got a taste of them!

From there we boarded the bus and headed to one of the better preserved old parts of town where we rode in rickshaws to someone’s home in a Hutong where we had lunch. (Mom and Dad got the deal of the century as we were riding in the rickshaws - (4) 2008 Olympic hats for $5 - the peddlers are persistent to say the least) The chef who cooked for us used to be the chef to one of the Chinese Communist Generals. The food was delicious and very plentiful! There were three large square tables set up for us to sit and enjoy a family style meal. We had bean paste spring rolls, spicy stir fried beans, snow peas with mushrooms, lotus root, dumplings, shrimp (heads and shells included!), stir fried celery, broccoli and sticky white rice. Oh and the catch -only chopsticks were provided - it was a challenge for some in our group. :) Zachary actually did alright - the sticky rice made it easier for him to be able to pick it up.

From there the rickshaw drivers peddled us back to our bus. Exhausted, we thought we were heading back to the hotel to relax, but no!! We were headed to a Silk Factory to see how silk is harvested into the beautiful silk fabrics and comforters. Silk worms feed on mulberry leaves continuously eating 24 hours a day for 22 days until they spin a cocoon around themselves. It is this cocoon which is pulled and the silk is harvested by a machine which winds them into skeins of silk thread.

Now it was finally time to head back to the hotel to relax. There are six children on this trip, four of which are five years old - and they all were real troopers today! Zachary finally passed out on my lap around 5:30 and never woke up for dinner. Truth be told, we passed out for a couple hours when we got back to our rooms. Big day ahead of us tomorrow!