Day 12

There was a big rain storm last night.  This morning Carrie and I walked to find some breakfast.  There were a lot of tree limbs down.  There were even a few trees ripped out by the roots.  There was a tree blocking our walk and we had to walk over it.  The woman behind me was pushing a stroller with a baby about 12 months old.  I picked up the front of her stroller and helped her carry it over the tree.  We ended up at Starbucks and I ordered a raspberry tea with a whole wheat walnut muffin.  It hit the spot for "normal" food for me.

We went to the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square in the afternoon.  The leaders and I were the only ones who remembered the Tienanmen Square Massacre in 1989.  The other students were just little kids when it happened.  Forbidden City, aka the emperor's palace,  was huge!  It started raining so we weren't able to go into Tienanmen Square as we intended.

While in the Forbidden City a Chinese young man approached me and held out his phone for me to read.  It said, "May I take a picture with you?"  We've had a lot of Chinese people take pictures of us and with us.  We have such a diverse population in the U.S. but in China all they see are other Chinese people.  We are so unusual that people want pictures of us!

Julie, Cara, Carrie, and I climbed a bell tower while the others went to a coffee shop.  It was only a 10 minute climb to the top and seems so easy compared to the Great Wall yesterday.  It was an awesome view from the top.

I really enjoyed exploring Beijing this morning with Carrie and seeing the palace this afternoon.  We ate at the restaurant near our hotel that we like so much.  The food was great as on previous nights, but we tried a dish that we weren't familiar with and discovered it was octopus legs with tentacles visible on it.  I ate a bite, but found it too chewy and no distinct taste so I chose not to eat any more.