Summer Palace

Us just inside the Summer Palace.



Some of the over 40,000 DIFFERENT pictures along the longest corridor in the world.


Concrete boat, part of the history of this place.


In the summer palace.
Lady who gifted Julia with the hat. She took quite a liking to our little Jewel!
Mom and Babe, reading together.

Been a bit since I posted. We had a couple of lazy days, Cara caught a 24 flu bug, it has been going around our group and needed some time to recover, so we opted out of the Great Wall visit. The next day we hung around, did a trip to the mall, got a few groceries and did a McDonalds lunch.

Last nite we had a meltdown, Julia was crying HARD in her sleep. We had had a great day with her, and I believe it was just part of her grieving her loses as she continues the process of bonding and attaching to us, it is good to know what the reasons are, but it broke my heart to see her little heart in pain. We will see how tonite goes. She ahs been sleeping in bed with Cara, we have twin beds int he room, and I know that is really comforting for her, and helps the bonding process also.

Today, Monday, was the Summer Palace visit in the afternoon.It would be gorgeous in the summer, when all the plants were in bloom, but I enjoy looking at the trees as they have so much character, as they "train" as well as trim the trees so you get beautiful shapes. I love bonsai trees, and still hoping I can see some before we leave...time will tell.

The street vendors are really pushy here, and it is one of the places where counterfeit money is used, the vendors will give you fake money for change from purchases or switch out your bill and say it is no good and actually give you not good money back. My magician spirit was roused and I so wanted to see if we could find one who would do this as I had a fun trick up my sleeve to change money, in front of their eyes to something else, but alas I never got the opportunity to do it.

We draw a crowd where ever we go in public, and one group of 3 ladies took a shine to Julia and ended up buying her a panda hat from a vendor, very sweet, I make her a balloon teddy bear as a token of thanks.

We misheard instructions and thought we could venture off on our own, so we did, but we were supposed to stay with the group, so they sent Faye off to find us(sorry group, but we had fun exploring...).
It was a lot of fun and so much history. I live that about China they have such interesting history and culture.

We were able to go out with our group for supper together and had hot pot( I have had it a bunch in Canada, I don't know why I didn't think to ask about it here, to see if we could get it, as it would be safe food for us...) so that was fun and I broke out the balloon animals and made some for some of the kids who were in the restaurant and for our travel group. Had a blast, totally my element!

Tomorrow is a visit to the silk factory( I can't wait) and the pearl market(Cara is excited!), we then have a "birthday" party in the evening. They have hired a magician and we will have food, etc, should be fun, interested to see what HE has up his sleeve.

It was really nice to get out of the room and explore, and I love walking through the historical areas of China and soaking in the culture, which we could spend more time and more relaxed time doing that. Julia travels well, and is soooo happy and enjoys soaking everything in.