Beijing

This was our first official document that we got for Charlotte. We're getting excited about meeting her on Monday!

Charles with some "Man Art" at the Great Wall.

Our knees were shaking by the time we made it back down from the second tower! It's quite a climb and the stairs are all uneven.

The air was always hazy in China but you can see some of the Great Wall across the ravine.

Climbing the Great Wall of China. Those ancient soldiers must have been super fit.

The Emperor's throne. Only he was allowed to use the colors red and yellow. It was against the law for anyone else in the country to use these colors.

This was the first courtyard of the Forbidden City. It was a truly massive palace.

Here we are in Tienamen Square outside the entrance to the Forbidden City. The photo of Mao is always the same although replaced every year with a fresh copy.

Tienamen Square - the largest town square in the world. We were here on a Saturday and it was packed with people.

We took the Bullet Train from Tianjin to Beijing last night. It took exactly one hour which was must faster than driving and very clean and organized. Josh said that it had just opened for the Olympics. We managed to catch a taxi to our hotel no problem. We feel like "old pros" with taxis now after all the rides we took in Tianjin. The first thing we noticed was that the city was much newer looking with tall modern buildings everywhere and the traffic was much more orderly...hardly any horns and people stayed in their lanes.

Today we met up with our group from Great Wall China Adoption. Evidently there are 30 families here with our agency to get their children! We were split into three tour buses and visited Tienamen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall. Our guide Grace was really nice. The common theme of all of these sites was "BIG"!