Beijing Day One

Good morning! It's 8:30 p.m. here in Beijing and we are all very tired after a long day of sight-seeing. Beijing is a big, beautiful city with many, many people. The population of Beijing is almost 17 million, half of which seemed to be at Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City with us today. Tiananmen Square is a vast area of concrete containing many monunments, one of which is the tomb of Chairman Mao, who is cherished by the Chinese people. The line of people waiting to see his tomb was so long that it was estimated to be 2-3 hours. The square was filled with so many people. We then entered The Forbidden City, which housed the Emperor of China from the 1400's to 1925 (over 500 years). The palace is huge with many beautiful buildings. It was hard for us to imagine that people actually had once lived there. After a quick lunch (Chinese food, of course), we visited the Summer Palace, which was a summer home for the Emperor and his family. The palace was built on a mountain at the edge of a lake. Again, there were many beautiful buildings within the palace walls. It was a great (and long) walk to burn off our lunch. We ended the day at a theater to watch the Chinese Acrobats. It was an amazing show, although most of the girls slept through it. After having walked 3-4 miles in the sun, they all were wiped out. Anyway, it was a great day and we enjoyed seeing Beijing. I've posted some pics of today's adventures. Enjoy!