My Old Age Dream

Yesterday, our first “real” day in China (the other first day, we checked into the hotel and slept), we walked our butts off, from 9am to 5 pm, touring what seemed like every square inch of Beijing.  We visited Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum, and the Temple of Heaven. 


We toured some pearl factory, where we laughed about the fact that Yoshi “sold us out”.  He got to sit at a table and wait for us while the sales girl tried to talk us into buying everything in the store. In the end, I did end up buying a cute bracelet for Eyann for when she is a little bit older.  We finished off the night with an acrobatics show at dinner time: I kept thinking that September would have loved all of their really cool “Barbie dresses “, and the boys would have loved the EIGHT motorcycles (the crazy blurs of color) in the wheel.  I miss our naughty kids!  

It was pretty cool to see all the historical bits of China, and I’ll be glad to tell Eyann that we got to experience such important parts of her country.  Yet, my absolute favorite part, besides the authentic (really yummy) Chinese food, was the park that was crawling with old people really early in the morning.  Our guide, Yoshi, (I wondered how many people asked him about Mario and Luigi) said these old people all go to the park and exercise and hang out together every day. 

 Tons of them. 

                  Chatting it up.

Doing aerobics and Tai Ji, hacky sack (see Keith playing with the guys?)



and some weird badminton game….

                                Talking some more….

Singing some songs together….

Playing chess…

I took the chess picture, because there was only two really cute old guys playing this game, but another ten guys yelling out advice to them both. 

LOVED it! 

I thought about some older people I know, and I remembered how bored and lonely they get…

And I decided that I want to be like a Chinese old person when I am that age.  Chinese older people have ALL the fun! 

Wish I would have taken more pictures of how cute they were together. 

 We go to climb the Great Wall today.  Yoshi said it will be WAY colder there than it was yesterday. 

 Yesterday, I froze my BUTT off, and poor Keith had to lend me his hat.  I guess we’ll be hat shopping this morning before we go climbing the wall, huh, Keith? :)    

I love seeing all of these things, and I am so glad that we get to experience some of the Chinese culture, and yet my mind can’t stop racing as I wonder about our precious girl we will finally get to meet tomorrow. 

Can’t wait.