Venturing Out

Since we arrived 2 days before the rest of our travel group, Nate and I are totally on our own -no guide, no interpreture. How fun!
Our first adventure was to find and buy water. Oh boy. Later we would have more adventures, like crossing the street! It is pretty crazy when the city wakes up.
We sucessfully found the water and bought it at a decent price, $ 4.00 a gallon. We find that we are much more thirsty than normally. Might be all the smog.
Smog aside, we had such a fun and memorable day. The Chinese are celebrating a week long holiday. We were told that it is their Labor Day. The streets of Beijing soon filled with people.
They were so happy and friendly. And we noticed something interesting, the babies and young children are carried in their familie's arms. We only saw about 4 strollers all day among the thousands of families. The families really seem to delight in their children. Monday, we will delight and rejoice in receiving our precious little daughter into our family. Only 2 and a half more days!!!

Before the crowds

Just outside of our holtel.
Early morning in Beijing...the streets are pretty quiet, but not for long.

Across from our hotel

View across the street from our hotel. Bikes are a major mode of transportation.

Split Pants - No Way!

Hmmm, what do you think these are for?
No worry about land fills here.

Chinese Opra Singer

This opra singer was entertaining the crowds of people with a 4 man string instument band from the roof tops of narrow side street. Beautiful!

Crowds celebrating the holiday.

We were told that this has been a holiday week and that many would be in Beijing to celebrate - we think we heard right!
There was music and lanterns and laughter everywhere. The shops were so crowded that people were shoulder to shoulder.

What we found down an ally.

Look what they are serving - starfish, beetles or locust grilled on a stick....yummy!
No - we didn't try it! : )

Off the beaten path

As we ventured off the beaten path and took some side alleys, we found all kinds of interesting sights of life in China!

Among the crowds

We finally asked someone on the street to take a photo of the two of us together! The people are really friendly and they like to speak whatever English they know. We were stared at all day... don't know if we will get used to that!

End of a FUN day

This was taken outside of a beautiful church.
We had so much fun today on the streets and in the shops of Beijing. What a colorful and exciting city!