Saturdays Adventure

We spent today touring The Forbidden City, took a Huotong Tour, and went to a traditional tea party! All very neat things and so glad we did each of them.  The forbidden city was so intriguing because our guide was so knowledgeable and really liked to go into detail about each stopping point! We learned that the city was no longer used for emperors after 1911.  The last emperor was allowed to live there until 1923.  That was the end of the Ming Dynasty! Now I need to freshen up on my Chinese History to confirm these neat details, haha later! As we left the city we walked down a public path in order to get to our driver.  Charlotte warned us that we would encounter begging along the way, and to ignore them.  It sounds so harsh, but it is for the best.  These people often times have disabilities and they are used as pawns to beg for money.  Then their earnings are stripped from them, only allowing them a small amount.  It was heart wrenching walking by an elderly lady with no leg, huge crutches holding her up.  Also a man with no left arm and burns on 50% of his body, including his face.  He was signing a song with a microphone that echoed for a very long way. The list goes on, and it was hard to walk by. I have heard stories about these types of scenarios in Guangzhou and it being very evident that they are being monitored by a man close by, the head of the trafficking ring probably.  My kids were quiet, sad realities of this dark world.  Your heart wants to help them, but helping them is not what you think.  It would only go to enabling this disgusting scheme that is played daily by perfectly "healthy" human beings that are using these innocent souls as a means for their income.  It is just inhumane.  It is hard to move on from there...

I had to walk away from writing this for a little while to regroup my thoughts!

We went for lunch at a very teeny, hole in the wall, place.  Jason insisted quietly that the driver stopped too early? haha It was a dumpling restaurant that our guide raved about.  She was right, the dumplings were good, but when it comes to food it is hard to get past that visual exterior of the building that holds the food! We survived and then went on to tour the Huotong district, homes, and daily life of the people in the city. It was a very impoverished area, which ironically use to be the place to live hundreds of years ago! Today, there is no central heat or air, and in case you didn't know it gets COLD in Beijing!!!  These people work hard though! They also have a joyful happiness about them.  A memory I will cherish from Huotong is the simplicity of the people. They are very content pulling up a broken chair to join a card game in the middle of the street, hang laundry from a line that connects to their neighbors door, decorate their doorways for spring with paper lanterns.  They are just neat people!

We finished our day with a traditional tea party.  It was a cute little shop where they told us about the different kinds of tea, the healing benefits of each, it was a neat end to our day.  I told them that their tea tasted much better than my tea bags do at home, they laughed at me! Apparently, the left over leaves are used for the bag kind, aka bottom of the barrel tea, HA!!

Tomorrow we will see the Summer Palace and Tienanmen Square! Then we will hop on a bullet train and head to Tianjin, AKA JESSA!!! We will get her on Monday morning, early! I can not believe the nerves that are fluttering around inside of me for that meeting! Just praying for her heart, that she knows us, likes us, doesn't grieve too hard for the life she knew.... This is BIG!

 Breakfast like this,every morning!

 Karate Kid - must see it again now that we have been!

 The dumpling spot....