Ni hao from Beijing

Thanks to coming a day early to Beijing, we were able to get in a full day of touring today. The day, however, started WAY too early...at 3 AM, when we were all awake from the jet lag. We spent some time organizing our backpack for the day and then went to breakfast around 7:30. It was a buffet at the hotel that was very good.

Next we were off to the Summer Palace, the retreat for the royal family. It was a beautiful day - but a little hot, maybe 90? But there was a nice breeze at the lake, so it didn't seem so bad.

We then enjoyed some authentic Chinese food (not what you get at your local takeout!) and made our way to the zoo. We toured the panda exhibit first and got to see 3 or 4 pandas. They were much bigger than the ones I remembered seeing at Busch Gardens in the early 90s. They were all sitting in the shade near their lodging and munching on bamboo.

EJ had a good time hanging out with some of the other kids on the trip. They enjoyed ice cream and popsicles at the zoo (although EJ picked out a really bright lime green one that had a very strong peach flavor and was kind of jello-like?) And she shared some of her extra American Girl Grin Pins from her collection with a little boy (maybe 5 years old) at the zoo. It is interesting because we had heard that western kids, particularly those with lighter hair attract a lot of attention. I reminded her of that this morning, and luckily I did. A group of three middle-aged Chinese men and one woman came and asked if they could have her in their picture, so she obliged. Then, the little boy that she shared the pin with was practically stopped in his tracks by his mother to look at and chat with us. He was very sweet and practiced his English by saying Thank You to us.

Then we came back to the hotel and relaxed for a while. It wasn't incredibly relaxing, as we were fighting with our USB to USB transfer device to backup our photos. It looks as though we figured it out, but now we just have to make sure we can repeat the process. I'm having trouble uploading photos because they're so big in size. I'll try to get them up there soon.