Heritage Tour
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Wednesday, July 1, 2015 FORBIDDEN CITY AND HUTONG When we came to China 9 years ago we had a lot of down time because we had babies with nap schedules. This made writing the blog easy because it gave us something to do to pass the time. This trip is quite different - they have jam packed our itinerary every day. We come back to the hotel in the evenings totally wiped out from the day of walking the massive Chinese national treasures. Today We spent the day at the Forbidden City which is awesome beyond description. It is the size of a full city inside a walled compound. If you have ever seen the movie The Last Emperor, this is the setting of the movie. We were with the whole group of families so there were many photo opportunities for us to act like paparazzi when the girls posed in front of a statue of a lion. Speaking of paparazzi, the local Chinese people spent a great deal of time taking pictures of our group. I think it was because they could not figure out why all these American adults were hanging around with all these cute Chinese girls. We then drove rickshaws through the Hutong (the traditional Beijing neighborhoods) and had lunch at a local family house. We ended the day at a tea ceremony. We tasted a variety of teas and we got a lesson in tea etiquette. Andrea thought this was a pretty decent way to spend her birthday. The night ended with a theatrical Kung Fu show at the Red Theater in Beijing. The performance was a great finish to a great Birthday / tour day for everyone and we learned a lot about Chinese culture and the history of Kung Fu. More to come tomorrow!