Forbidden City/Tienanmen Square

Today was our last day of touring. We visited Tienanmen Square - lots of history and vast - it seems to go on and on - it's hard to get a perspective from the picture - there are soldiers walking around everywhere but you are not allowed to take their picture - if you ask - it's a definite No. Across the street is the Forbidden City - so today we were warned that there would be lots of walking and they were right.

The Forbidden City is very large and consists of a number of buildings and courtyards as does most of the Chinese architecture seems to have - what we have seen anyway - lots of stairs up and down and walking from court yard to court yard - not very stroller friendly but everyone in our group seems to have they system down - one takes the front of the stroller and one takes the back and up and down you go - everyone is now watching that everyone has their stroller buddy - if one parent is carrying the baby - a free parent or traveling friend/grandparent will grab the other end of the stroller - seems to have been working well.

Sarah even tried to do some of the walking herself - she seemed to really enjoy it - not something she would have tried just a few days away but she seems to become more and more confident and show more of her adorable personality. She still is very shy if someone else tries to talk to her or touch her - then it's right back to shy Sarah, but she seemed to enjoy walking with Daddy today.

She even did some stairs and was very pleased with herself when she got to the top.

It was a very warm day today and very humid - the pollution is also still quite high and noticeable in Beijing and we could really feel it today - still it was a nice day to see everything.

Sarah didn't quite make it through the entire Forbidden City and decided to have a nap before the gardens - she had a good 45 mins before we had to get back on the bus - it was enough to re-charge her as she was full of energy for the ride home and when we got back to the hotel.

Tonight we have a final dinner with the travel group - kind of farewell party - then we have one more sleep then we fly home tomorrow - we have enjoyed China but are ready to come home and see all our family and friends.

When we were getting our passport pictures done for the Canadian Embasy they had brought some clothing in and offered a photo package for the children - we got six pictures and a CD done - Sarah did not like getting her picture taken at all - she still didn't feel comfortable out of our room without being carried or in the stroller so posing by herself even though we were right there did not go over well but we did get some cute photo's - this is one of them - they photoshopped the backgrounds in.