Beijing

So to finish my previous post Cole never went back to sleep. Kysle and I did as he watched a video. I wasn't sure how he woould do on a whole day of touring. He was great! He had so much fun and then fell asleep on the bus on the way back to our hotel. Kysle carried him to our room and he kept sleeping from3:30 p.m until midnight. I slept a good portion of that time too. I kept asking Kysle if we should wake him. At midnight he woke, had a snack and went back to bed at 1:30 a.m and is still sleeping (it's 5:30 a.m here). I think he will now be adjusted to the time.

Yesterday was our first day of touring in Beijing. We went to the Summer Palace, rode a dragon boat, had lunch at a wonderful Chinese restaurant, visited Hutong (oldest city in Beijing) where the roads are small alleys, road on rickshaws through this area, visited with a local family that lived in Hutong, and visited the belltower. Rickshaws are bikes that pull 2 people on the back. Cole thought this was very cool. We had such a wonderful experience visiting with a local woman and her niece and seeing how they live. Cole was able to paint with her niece - she paints beautiful glass bottles but with a tiny brush from the inside of the bottle. It's amazing to watch what she does. Very intricate paintings. The trip to the top of the belltower was about 100 extremely steep stone steps. I kept telling Cole he could stop and take a rest but he persevered to the top. Once he made it he said "Mommy that was pretty tough!"

At lunch Cole had his first experience with the bathrooms in China. If you are not familiar with them it is basically a whole in the ground that you squat over. When he saw this he wasn't too happy but I explained that this is what they were in China. He decided he didn't have to go to the bathroom right now. He proceeded to say "Why can't they bring my baby sister to me in Sharon?"

Other than the bathroom incident we had such a great day! Cole had a lot of fun with his new pal Tess. She is adopitng a babysister from the same province as us. The 2 of them are very cute together.

Well today we have a free day so Cole can go swimming and we can walk around the area at our leisure. Then tomorrow we are off to the Great Wall. Sunday is the Forbidden City & Tianamen Square, then we fly to Lexie's province.

I will post pictures shortly!