Day 4 in Beijing

Sebbie Hackeysacking with his Grandmother fan club. Everyone loves Sebbie and always want to touch him. He takes it in stride and is a good sport.














Family Hackey Sack in the Temple of Heaven








Famous Oregon Juggler. Traveled all the way from Corvallis to entertain the masses in the Temple of Heaven














Cathy learning Tai Chi













Temple of Heaven -- just one of the buildings.


















Cathy dancing in the park. Just because!



















Slow dancing in the Park.














Ready for our Chinese foot massage.
















Sebbie loves his new silk bath robe and really cool fan.








Today we had another nice breakfast in the Debao Hotel restaurant. I love it. I sit down, they pour us a cup of tea, and within 5 minutes I have my own special gluten free fried rice and fresh steamed vegetable. Usually Chinese kale or bok choy. Quite yummy and fresh. Sebbie loves the buffet too, eating his fill of sausage, a bushel of watermelon and topping it off with rice krispies. One morning they had cocoa puffs. And of course, Mommy always loves a good buffet, with a mix of Chinese food and western style food.

Marsha, our most excellent and wonderful guide, picked us up at 10:00a.m. sharp and we were off to the Temple of Heaven. Another massively huge complex where the Emperor would come to pray for a bountiful harvest. The buildings were huge and colorful, the prayer circles were made of marble with impressive carvings of dragons. I don't know the exact dimensions, but maybe at least 1 mile square - very impressive that they have kept it up for the last 600 years, since Beijing is so crowded. The building/prayer areas are surrounded by groves of old growth cedars, some as old as 500 years old. You don't see any big, old trees anywhere else in Beijing except here or other parks.

After walking through the Temple, the grounds just off of it have been preserved as a gathering/recreation area for the people. 1000's of people gather here in the morning to recreate, Chinese style: playing cards, Chinese chess, karaoke, dances, playing/learning to play music, dancing/learning different dances, hackey sack. All of it is outside, exercising mind and body. Oh, and all of it is free. The instructors are all retired citizens who volunteer to teach their skills to anyone interested. A pretty impressive way for senior's to spend the day. They do this 7 days a week. Everyone here is happy and very content. Good karma in the air.

After the Temple of Heaven, we took off for the Silk Factory. We learned how the silk worm's cocoon is spun into a single long strand of silk - over 1 mile long per cocoon. Cocoons with a double larvae can't be used for silk strands and are turned into silk quilts. Oh so soft and nice.
Our best Chinese food dinner yet, including a whole, steamed fish that was fished out of their aquarium and presented to us flopping in the net for approval. Sebbie ate the eyeballs and the brain (Mommy tried not to grimace and even helped him fish out the brains). Our meal was followed by an hour long Chinese foot massage, and holy cow did that feel good. Marsha must know that we need to be relaxed and ready for our Gotcha Day, which is tomorrow at 4:00p.m.

Now, in less than 24 hours, we will finally be a family of 4! It's taken Cathy and I almost exactly 10 years to achieve this. We are ready. Tomorrow when you read our blog we will have photos of little Maggie Xu Di Law for the first time ever!