Feb. 12, 2012 Nanjing

Feb. 12 2012

1 day until JACK DAY!!!

Today we flew from Beijing to Nanjing.
Tomorrow my oldest baby turns 15. I can't believe it!

The flight went well. It was a little bumpy in places but overall pretty good, and pretty fast. They served a snack on the plane, some kind of bun with meat inside. It was HOT! We had to wait for it to cool down. The bun was kind of like an english muffin or biscuit,but very dense, I think it had cinnamon or something swirled inside? The meat was corned beef or ham or something. Bubba loved it, so I took the meat out of his and mine and tore it into pieces for him.

It was raining when we landed in Nanjing. Our guide, Jin, met us at the airport and took us back to our hotel, Nanjing Aqua City Holiday Inn. I couldn't believe the lack of traffic on the way from the airport to the hotel. It was amazing! Jin told us that the expressway we were on would be converted to 8 lanes very soon as Nanjing will host the Olympics in 2014. We saw the City Wall and City Moat on the way to our hotel, and the girls found a Walmart! Can't get away from them anywhere, I guess.

Our hotel is nice, very fancy. The bathroom (with a deep tub) is wonderful, especially after no tub in Beijing. The hotel is attached to a fancy mall. We ate at a noodle restaurant there for supper. It was pretty good! Then we went to the grocery store in the bottom floor of the mall for water and snacks. I got lost coming back, good thing Richard was with me!

Forbidden City

Forbidden City

Forbidden City

Silk Factory

Tiananmen Square

Feb. 11, 2012 Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City

Feb. 11, 2012

2 days until JACK DAY!
2 years ago today we arrived home to Illinois with our sweet Andy.

Big breakfast at the buffet. Small, late lunch of starbucks sandwiches. Dinner at the hotel restaurant downstairs. I stayed up in bed resting after all the walking the last couple days.

Today we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was very cold, I wish I would have brought scarves and maybe warmer coats!

Tiananmen Square is very impressive, it is so big and full of people. There were lots of soldiers in their green winter coats and hats standing at attention all over. They looked so young.

The Forbidden City is so beautiful and you can feel the history all around you there. We took lots of pictures, Evie took a lot, too. There were lots of women in beautiful ornate hats. We asked Minan about it, and she said that they were from a Southern ethnic group. I guess it is tradition to try to take a big trip to Beijing at least once during your life, and many times a group of people will arrange a trip and will wear their traditional ethnic clothes while doing the touring. Evie was enchanted by the hats, and we followed these women all over the Forbidden City so she could snap pictures of their hats! I wonder if they are from the ethnic minority that live where Evie is from?

On the way home from the Forbidden City we stopped at a silk factory. It was a very interesting tour. Evie was especially happy since she had just read a book about silk worms at school! We ended up buying a silk quilt for our bed - they have them here at the hotel and they are awesome. I was hoping to buy some small silk scarves for the girls, but every thing was very expensive. We got them each a small panda painting instead.