July 22, Beijing to Nanchang

To say today was a long day is like saying Brooke likes clothes. We combined a day of touring Beijing with a day of traveling to Nanchang. To do it all you get up at 6:00am and you get to bed about 1:00am in a new hotel. But what a great hotel we are in, The Galactic but more about that later. We had a tour of Tiananmen Square followed by a walk through the Forbidden City. I don't recommend to do either on the weekend unless you like lots of people. There are so many people everywhere you go. The culture is so different here than anywhere I have ever experienced. They have absolutely no manners. I wouldn't say that they

don't like Americans they are just very curious. Our group has gotten a lot of stares, if you are tall or blond they think your a novelty. We have a set of twin boys traveling in our group that are 7 years old and you would think they are Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen from the attention and request for pictures they receive. Some of the things we saw yesterday were the split pants they put on the toddlers they are potty training. They just go potty whenever they feel like it. So we learned to avoid any puddles. It was very hot yesterday while we were at the Forbidden City and our group stopped to by ice cream. One of the women bought what she thought was a lime popscicle and it turned out to be a green pea flavored popscicle. We visited a neighborhood where the Hontung chinese group lives. We took a rickshaw ride and got to visit an actual family living quarters. We also had to ride a bus out to board our airplane to leave for Nanchung and it was like how many people can we fit on a bus game. We have tried to look at everything as just part of the experience when things have not been as they would at home. Thank goodness for real toilets and toilet paper! They say that's just a western thing so I carry my paper with me whenever we are outside the hotel.