part 1


Since we knew the younger kids wouldn't be able to walk very fast, Jeff headed out with them and Alyssa while Taylor and I ran over to the other store. We also ducked into a music store to buy a few Chinese CD's and DVD's since it would be our last opportunity to find them inexpensively. Why we weren't thinking "taxi" by this point escapes me, but we just assumed it would be a short jaunt.

Taylor and I started walking down the street where you could plainly see the Forbidden City and it seemed as if we walked forever. We arrived and realized we would have to take a roadway that went completely around it and I was not amused because I needed a bathroom. After walking at least another 10-15 minutes while watching the time, we finally breathlessly arrived at the front where we had agreed to meet at the flagpole at Tiananmen Square. This entailed going underground to cross the very busy road that separates Tiananmen Square from the Forbidden City. There are fences on both sides of the street, so you couldn't just dart across even if you wanted to. While underground we saw this blind beggar who was playing some sort of musical instrument.



We had initially hoped to take a tour, but were rapidly running out of time. We also hoped that Jeff and the kids would have been able to see a little bit more than we did since they left 10-15 minutes ahead of us. We didn't anticipate how slow the kids would walk, however, and when we met up, they too had just arrived. We only had a short time to look around the square, snap a couple of photos, and start to head back or we would miss our ride to the airport. Had we been smart, we would have taken taxis on the way there and had much more time to look around. Jeff and I had already toured and visited the Forbidden City 6 years ago, but we wanted Caleb to have a chance to see more of it. The other kids were pretty much done with being tourists in China by this point, so they didn't really care that they missed most of it.



continued...