Saturday- Beijing Day 2

We just wrapped up our sightseeing tour of Beijing. What a fascinating journey into this new culture. First let me say that we have a great tour guide. His name is Tony and he is such a nice person and very knowledgeable of the history. We first went on a Rickshaw ride through the hutongs of Beijing. Hutongs are alleys and side streets. The old part of Beijing have these alleys which are lined with houses called quaddrangles. We were able to tour one of these houses. There were several rooms that surrounded an outdoor courtyard. The owners of the house are artists. The rickshaw tour was an incredible experience to dive head first into old Chinese culture. We then ate a traditional Chinese meal. As you can imagine Lorrie didn't do well with this. We had some type of fish rolls, rice (the only thing Lorrie would eat), pork, fish soup, and steamed vegetables. The pork tasted much like sesame chicken back home. There was a wedding going on in the hotel that we ate, and Lorrie and I enjoyed watching the festivities. Lorrie has only eaten that little bit of rice, a few crackers this morning and a bag of chips that I bought for her at the Great Wall. I am worried about her, but I am planning on finding something she will eat for dinner tonight. Our drive to the great wall was supposed to take an hour, but we caught traffic and we were in the car for over 2 hours. The wall is really impressive and worth the wait. Built 2,000 years ago to keep the Mongols from attacking China, it still stands today and is amazing to just look at. You have to be in good shape to walk up the wall, it is incredibly steep. The smog here is unbelievable. I have yet to see the sky. You can barely make out the sun during the day. We did get a chance to ride by the Olympic sites today and see the "birdsnest" and the "water cube." We are scheduled to fly out of Beijing tomorrow around 1:00 PM and will arrive in Jinan in about an hour. We will pick him up Monday morning, Sunday American time. Thanks for the prayers, keep them coming. We love you all so much.

Lorrie and I standing on the Great Wall

Now you see why Lorrie is not eating anything.

Here is me standing by a quadrangle home. This is the courtyard area.

Here is us on the the rickshaw for our hutong tour.