Touring Beijing

We have spent the past two days touring the beautiful city of Beijing. On Sunday we went to the Beijing Zoo, along with 5 million of our closest Chinese friends! We found out that the Chinese government shut down domestic tourism for four months prior to the Olympics. As a result, any tourist spot in Beijing is PACKED on the weekends!

In spite of the crowds, we had a lot of fun at the zoo. The weather was perfect (sunny and in the 70s) and it was good to get outside in the fresh air (relatively speaking).

The zoo has a really cool aquarium with a Sea World like dolphin show. Even though we couldn't understand what was being said, we all had fun watching the dolphins and seals.
Brennen's favorite part was going to the underground tunnel in the aquarium. He felt like he was swimming with the sharks! We all also enjoyed seeing the Great Pandas. This was the first time the boys had seen pandas in "real life".

Yesterday we went to the "Dirt Market." It is a market place where all of the locals go. You don't see many tourists there, so it was quite the experience. Even the kids walked around in awe, looking at the rows and rows of artwork, furniture, ceramics, etc. The highlight for them, was coming across a stand run by an elderly gentleman who had a pet cricket. It was the biggest cricket any of us had ever seen, and it was in a tiny cage!

Today we are heading to a remote part of the Great Wall. The boys have waited for this day since before Maeve came home, so they are very excited! We'll take lots of pictures and post again when we get back!