Forbidden City, noodle lunch

Well it certainly is nice to be connected again - I have alot to catch up on. It is now 9:30 pm on Tuesday night and we are in Chendu, which if you didn't know is the largest Panda reserve in China. We will be visiting this tomorrow and I will not say another word until we do. Let me go back to Beijing now, before I tell you about the past few days. If by the way, you hadn't seen the news, it was 125 degrees in Beijing today - a record breaker and I am so happy to tell you that we missed this by 3 days - it was only 98 when we were there (about) and it has been an easy 95-100 for the past 3 days.



So the flower above is the famous lotus flower - a real one that was growing in a lovely planter in the Forbidden City.

I can't begin to share how many amusing signs there are in China. I am not sure who they have doing the translating, but it is clear that it is not someone who is interested in providing the essence, but is interested only in literal translations. There was an area for meditation in the forbidden City. There are 9,999 areas of the forbidden City - we only saw a few (thank goodness). We walked about 4 hours all in the morning and although it was not record breaking, there was no shade and it was amazingly hot.

To the left here is the restaurant where we stopped for lunch. It was a famous noodle restaurant, where they brought you a bowl of noodles and a plate of vegetables and an array of sauces that you mix in until it tasted good to you. It was fun and nice. We have all started rating bathrooms. For those who have never visited a city where you have "squat" toilets - it is a bit of a shock - for the children I can tell you they just hated it. For Ben, it is remotely smelled bad he wasn't going in. Hannah had to do her first squat with Mom holding her up. So....when there is a location with "western" toilets, it immediately gets over 3 stars - if it has toilet paper in the stalls it is up to a 3.5, if it doesn' t smell and is clean it is over a 4 and if it has hot water and soap with everything else it is a 5. This restaurant's restrooms were about a 2.5. The airports are typically a 3 at best.

One of the many buildings in the forbidden City.

This was our group, trying not too move too quickly as we made our way around.

Herb posing with Chairman Mao inthe background.

This is a cute group picture of all the kids. If you are not aware, you can click on each picture and see them full size!

Family shot - my hair is going back to curly in the amazing humidity - it is pulled back every day now.

I thought I had uploaded the pictures of the Olympic Village, but they are not here so I will now do a seperate post and tell you about the property management nightmar there!