Off with a bang!

What a day!

It feels more like 5 days! Here's how it went:

• 4:30 am: Everybody is up and on the go. No sleep left in any of us.
• 8 am: Breakfast at the hotel cafe, where we had eggs and French toast and a few things we've never seen before - like rice with scrambled eggs (rated "not my favourite, but OK" by Julia, who is normally an egg hater) and stir-fried something with cabbage that was really good. Plus lots of coffee. Bonus. 
• 9 am: We join the throngs on Asians on a bus, where Len got crammed in the door by the bus attendant, just like you see on the movies. 
• 9:30: Arrive at Tian'anmen Square and cross the street to the Forbidden City. Accosted by a man volunteering to be our guide. Hire him, he scams us cheap tickets and off we go. Children get swarme by Asians wanting to take their pictures and touch their heads. They are instant celebrities! And they love it. 
• 12:00: With heads full of Chinese dynasty history and knowledge of the revolution and rising of the People's Republic of China, we say good-bye to our tour guide and head back to Tian-anmen Square....on rickshaws! Four crazy rickshaw drivers transport 10 crazy Canadians on a wild 15-minute ride. We get off at the new Olympic park, where a local young man tells us that's the first time he's seen foreigners hop on rickshaws. 
• 1:00: We hang out at Tian'anmen Square (Gate of Heavenly Peace), where we make friends with two Chinese ladies who offer to take us on a tour of the old area of the city. The women were spending the day in the square because their heat gets turned off on March 15 and their house was too cold to stay home. The perils of living in a Communist country.
• 1-3: we tour Hutong, a maze of old alleys that make up Beijing's ancient city. We saw many sights - vendors of all sorts who chase you down to buy anything plastic or roasted ducks in foil bags, old men playing majong, and public toilets where open squats are the way you have to go, like it or not (which the girls definitely did NOT). Len got harassed big time by one cranky lady selling kites. She actually hit him when he finally said a big no. 
• 4 pm: Back home on another crowded-beyond-capacity bus. Crash for an hour or two.
• 6 pm: Back in a cab, downtown to an acrobatic show, where everyone except Gina and Julia fell sound asleep. Levi even stretched out across a few seats and settled in for a good nap. (Julia and I only managed to stay awake thanks to a good snooze at the apartment). At $40 a ticket, we figure it was the priciest nap in the history of vacations. 

So, everyone is now beat....Julia is in bed, Jo's solid, and Lauren is just back from the sauna and on her way to bed. It's been an exciting day, with a glimpse into celebrity-hood for our very large family of 10. We are taller than everyone; certainly more colourful as our sea of wind jackets (red, yellow, orange, blue, green...) makes its way through the crowds of blacks and browns; with more blond children than they ever see; and, very basically, with more children than they ever see. The law here is one child per family so seeing 6 kids all together as a big family, even with two sets of parents, is unheard of. 

What an adventure. Tomorrow, the Great Wall. And maybe my luggage will arrive. These clothes are getting real old. 

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