Tienanmen square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace and Peking Duck...

Security

We had a big walking day today with Tienanmen Square, across the way to Forbidden City and across the city to the Summer Palace.  the Pollution in Beijing was good at 3 parts per million, yet we could barely see the sun and the sky was grey all day.  Our group wore masks for the pollution.  Tienanmen  square had extra security for an official meeting going on across the street.  Our legs still hurt from our Great Wall climb yesterday.

An important government meeting was happening so we had extra security. 

In the Forbidden city  we could tell how important the building was by the amount of animals on the roof edge.  Nine was the top of the top.  Odd numbers are the lucky ones in China.  We saw a bridge and our guide said "this is the bridge with 18 round arches." I said "very unlucky" he said... "no,9 and 9"  ohhhhhh.

We had quite a few people ask if they could take our picture.  Mostly young adult age.  Some took pictures of themselves and situated themselves so they were just in front of us with our backs turned.  I would turn around and give them a huge smile and usually the photographer would be laughing terribly and show the.

We walked past some girls on a bench and two of them were following me with their phone movie cameras.  I said Hello and Ne-How. They all yelled out hello and giggled.  I asked if I could take their picture.  they were delighted! and all said a very cheery goodbye.

The summer palace was not as busy. We saw the famous Jade boat (Jade dock that looks like a boat)

Our last dinner was Peking duck (Duck taco) They showed us how to fix it.  We liked the chopsticks holders so we bought them from the dining room.

By the way... the food here was terrific, unlike our last trip... Rachael and Frances couldn't eat Chinese food for a whole year!

The Olympics brought in many things, good food, bathrooms in every home, cleaner streets, English signs, English speakers.

We have a better route home so our over the ocean flight will be 11 hours instead of 15. 

The flight that disappeared is pretty freaky, especially since we are flying out of Beijing!  Sounds like a movie to me.... maybe that is they way Enoch's people were lifted up?

 This has been a really nice transition for Janell.  We have not been able to get on Youtube, facebook and blogs.  Censored in China.  So a big Thank you to Frances for posting our emails and pictures to our blogs!

We go backwards so our 15 hours of travel will get us there 2 hours after we leave.  I am hoping for some more good movies.  Some in our group were on China air with the old fashioned one movie on screens that they played twice.  Delta is the way to go and..... I got an email saying I have now earned a free trip.  Where to next?  I will have to look on groupon for some deals. Turkey, India, Thailand?  We traveled again with Gate1 and were very happy with their services and especially the price. we will definitely use them again.