more beijing

Today was also pretty incredible.

I don't really feel I can do it justice with my recounting so I'd like to mostly let the pictures do the talking.

For my journaling purposes though, today we visited:

• Tian'anmen Square

• The Forbidden City

• The Temple of Heaven

• a silk factory- very interesting seeing the whole life cycle of a silkworm and then how they process the silk.

• the pearl market- again, very interesting. learned about freshwater pearls and how you can tell the difference between real and fake pearls and Ben got to fish an oyster out of a tank and they broke it open to show us all the pearls inside. I never knew that pink pearls can only be found in China!

• the Summer Palace- where we got to take a boat ride across the lake.

Ben's favorite part of the day was the Forbidden City. It was remarkable. So historical and hard to believe we were standing in it.....

My favorite part was probably the Summer Palace. Although I also enjoyed the grounds at the Temple of Heaven also. Neat to see how active the Chinese people are. The park was filled with people, mostly older retired people as our guide said, who go there daily just to enjoy activity. People all over the park were dancing, playing jiang si (hacky sack; no idea how to spell but that's what it sounded like!?), people playing cards, etc...

The Summer Palace was just beautiful. It's the place the Emporer and Empress went in the summer because it was so much cooler, being next to a lake (Kunming lake). Really beautiful. It has a very long corridor that's all outside; open sides and along the roof inside and all the posts have different paintings that tell a story about China. Every section was different. No replications. Incredible. Also something to notice when looking at the pictures is all these amazing buildings like at Forbidden City were build without any nails.

Well, that was more than I intended to write, but it was alot of information today! I would have enjoyed history classes so much more if I could have seen it firsthand like today!

In other news, we are doing very well. Feeling a little more settled in, if that's even possible while we're in a foreign land speaking none of the language. But we are. I feel God's hand on us. Protecting us, strengthening us, sustaining us. I have probably never felt it so clearly than I have these last 2 days.

Only 2 more sleeps for us until we get Jenna. Tomorrow we travel to her province. Please continue to pray for her transition. For her caretakers who are preparing to say goodbye. For her to be drawn to me somehow and to be open to accept the love that I can't wait to pour onto her. I can't wait to meet her!