Live from China!

I have only been here since Friday and already seen and done so many amazing things! So, as promised, here are some pictures! Now, before you get too jealous of all the fun I'm having, the temperature on this day was about 30 degrees in the city and 25 on the Wall, and that's without wind chill. I couldn't feel my face after a while.Here's the entrance to the Forbidden City. It is unbelievably huge inside. We were there for about three hours and didn't even see half of it. Hubby took lots and lots of video - I will try to post some of the shorter ones later.Then we went to the original restaurant for Peking duck. Seriously, this place has been in business since 1416! This gentleman sliced the duck for us and they served it in those cute little duck dishes. You're supposed to take a "pancake" which is a sort of very thin rice tortilla, place some duck dipped in sauce and a couple of veggies on it, and roll it up fajita-style to eat it. Absolutely delicious! Then they took the rest of the duck and made a soup for us - also delicious. It warmed me up nicely, which was good because after that we headed to the Great Wall.
You can probably tell that I am very cold in this picture. And this was before the sun went down! Notice how steep the wall is behind us? That was nothing! Look at this:I promise you parts of the stairs were at about an 85 degree angle. And we climbed it. Insane, I tell you!And then just as we were leaving, all the lights came on! They only have a small portion of the wall lit, but how beautiful! On the right, you can see the "One World, One Dream" sign, which is still up from the Olympics.

We are now in Tai'an, which is where Hubby works when he's here. You wouldn't even believe the luxury of this hotel. Today or tomorrow I'm going to go around and get some pics of it. Wow is a word I've been using a lot since we got here last night.