Day 2 - A day of learning about Chinese heritage and electricity!

I'm writing quickly, as I have blown another voltage converter. This time though, when it blew, it blew a fuse in our room. So now, for the second time today, we have no electricity, and it's very difficult to get the concierge to understand what we're saying. So...I have no idea how long my computer battery will last. For now, I'm just giving the basics, and hopefully, pictures will come tomorrow.

Today was a wonderful, yet exhausting day. We began our day at 8:30 in the morning heading out to Tianemen Square. We walked around that for a bit, and then headed into the Forbidden City. It was unbelieveably overwhelming. So huge. I won't get into it, but the history of it is definitely worth looking into. We were stunned at how old and original so many parts of it were. The tiles on the roofs were 600 years old!! Unbelieveable. We know that part of this tour is to inform us of the Chinese heritage of our daughters, and we have certainly learned alot. After that, (which was hours of walking), we went and had a traditional Chinese lunch at a local restaurant. I must say it was quite good. There were a couple of items I wasn't brave enough to try, but that is the way it is for me at Peking in Louisiana. After lunch, we headed out for the Summer Palace. This is a place that isn't a palace at all . It's where the emperor recreated his favorite parts of China, all in one place. Again, I would bore you with meaningless details, but it is worth the time to google it I'm sure. We then headed to the silk factory to find out how they spin their traditional silk outfits. It is truly an art. After that, we headed out to another traditional Chinese dinner. The Peking Duck dinner. Not my favorite, but still ok.

My battery is bleeping at me that it's about to die. So that's it for now. More later!!

Note from the sister: This is truly a whirlwind tour they were on today. When we were in Beijing, we spent a day and a half at the Forbidden City which is just off Tianemen Square, and a day at the Summer Palace which is quite a drive from there (I don't remember how long, but it's outside of Beijing which is a huge city). The traditional meals also take 1-2 hours each. I can't believe how much they were able to cram into their day. They must be exhausted. I agree with her that the history of these places is really interesting and worth looking up, you can probably also find pictures of them online.

Let's pray they get the computer glitches worked out. I'm worried that if they are having trouble with it in Beijing, it might be a much bigger problem when they get to the smaller cities. I know a lot of us will be disappointed if they can't send updates!