A Whirlwind of Tours

This morning, George was ready to go see Beijing, so we headed out early for the Forbidden City. Our hotel hooked us up with an amazing English speaker as a guide. Just to show you that God has his hand all over this adoption, he sent us David. As we started out on our journey, he asked us why we where we were headed after we leave Beijing. When we told him we were going to Hohhot, he was surprised and said he was from Inner Mongolia. When I told him we were waiting for a little girl in Baotou, he smiles and says "that is where I am from, I grew up there." Back to the adventure....We walked to the Forbidden City and when we arrived I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. Take Jordan-Hare Stadium, add about twenty thousand more friends, and then you will get an idea of how many people where there. It is a beautiful area that housed the emperors and the empresses and all their concubines. Our guide talked about the eunuchs too. Instead of picturing Chinese emperors, I found myself picturing Queen Esther as we were walking around and imagining that this place could have been very similar to the palace where she saved the lineage of Jesus.

George forgot to climb out of my backpack when we first entered, so we had to let him have a little rest and get some fresh air before we finished our tour.

After the Forbidden City, we headed to Tiananmen Square. It is the world's largest square and holds one million people. Of course the rest of the world knows of it well because of the college students who were killed there in 1989 for protesting the government.

Then we headed to the silk market to see how they make silk. This was a very interesting tour. It is impressive to see how the silk is made. George was so excited when he saw someone with the same name, so of course he had to have his picture made with him.