Hitting the highlights

Miracles do happen. I, all by myself, have managed to bath, pajama
and put to bed both kids (Kohji was out looking for diapers). Ok,
sure, it helps that we dragged them all over Beijing in the hot sun,
but hey, don't knock my accomplishment. At this stage, I'm taking my
kudos where I can.

Today was effectively your consolidated tour of the Beijing
highlights - the Forbidden City, Tianenmen Square and the Temple of
Heaven all in one day. We'd been to Tianenmen and the Forbidden City
before, but it felt positively frigid compared to the 35 degree heat
of last time. Not to mention the fact that there were mere thousands
there this time, instead of tens of thousands. All this was a good
thing, given that this time, we also had to chase an exuberate toddler
and try to prevent him from gumming up the Empress Dowagers writings
by introducing cookie dust to the parchments.

The day started at the North Gate of the Forbidden City, which meant
we were effectively moving backwards. The North Gate was the entrance
reserved for the concubines. A bit of a contrast from the last trip,
where we entered at the South Gate under the protrait of Chairman
Mao. Sort of a juxtaposition of Chinese history and traditions. It
was interesting to see the scenes that'd we'd seen last time, but also
have the opportunity to notice more and different angles and areas.
It would take a lifetime of visits to truely take in, and appreciate,
the entire place. However, on the second visit, it was easier to
imagine the would-be concubines lined up along the north wall, waiting
to be chosen to enter the palace, carrying the honour of their family
with them.

We chased Ren through concubine palaces and around stone dragons, up
ancient steps and through glorious archways. At one point, I did find
myself looking longingly at the families with the wee little non-
mobile ones, but then Ren took off down a ramp and there wasn't any
more time to long for immobility. For Ren, the entire place was like
a giant climbing structure and he wasn't wasting any time. If nothing
else, it gave me some new perspectives, such as the fact that stone
dragon scuppers are great for hanging on!

Spilling into Tianenmen Square was eerily similar to last time. Yet
again, we were a bit of a tourist attraction for the Chinese tourists
in Beijing and we had our picture taken by a number of people as we
strolled along. Some were subtle, others were more willing to stand
dead in front of you and snap away. One group asked if they could
have their picture taken with us! I can't help but wonder what it is
they exactly say to their family and friends if they show off their
vacation pictures - "Oh ya, and these were the crazy foreigners we saw
in Tianenmen. They adopted Chinese babies and look at all the stuff
they're dragging around with them!"

We then headed to a 100 year old noodle shop for lunch. The place
itself was interesting, the noodles were good, but the real highlight
for Kiyomi was that she developed her first crush. One of the waiters
took a shine to her and gave her a couple of smiles, and that was it,
she was smitten. She kept coyly looking at him and forced her dad to
walk her down his way. The kicker was when I said to her, "oh, he's
cute" and her response was "no mom, he's handsome"!

After lunch, we visited the Temple of Heaven, which was where the
Emperor would come to pray for good rain and crops. The Temple itself
was appropriately grandiose, but more interesting was the festival
atmosphere in the outer gardens. There were your usual vendors, but
there were also people playing music (including Beijing Opera karaoke-
style), a bunch of older people playing hacky-sac with a feathered
version of the ball, a gentleman signing opera (sounded Italian to me)
and a general feel of merriment and community activity.

Given all that, the kids did surprisingly well. We have a stroller
with a little platform on the back, which was ostensibly supposed to
be for Kiyomi. However, seems our kids like to do things a little
differently - Ren prefers the board and Kiyomi the seat. Whatever
works.

Ren is getting more and more comfortable with Kohji everyday, as well
as will Obaachan and Ojiichan. He still likes me to be in sight and
will come to me for comfort, but I suspect it won't be long before
mommy and daddy are interchangeable. We capped off the evening with a
bath - which is the favourite activity. In fact, when I turned on the
bathtub tab earlier today for another purpose, Ren came tearing into
the bathroom, cars in hand. It took some coaxing to convince him that
bathtime would be later.

Tomorrow - the Great Wall (for real this time, as Kiyomi would say).
Not sure how that will work out, but we'll give it a go. Wish us luck.

Good night, from Beijing.