Day 3

                                                                       Day 3
    We slept well, except the hotel room was hot and when we called down to the Front Desk they sent someone up to our room to open the window.  We ate a breakfast buffet at the hotel before meeting Annie, our tour guide.
    She introduced us to our new driver, Mr. Huan and then we went to the zoo to see the pandas.  We ended up buying Alex a musical panda toy that moves in circles and it holds a basketball.

Next, we went to the Summer Palace.  It is where the Emperor and family used to come during the summer to enjoy the lake, gardens and long corridor.  We walked by the buildings, along the corridor and rode on a dragon boat on the lake.  Michelle Obama and daughters were going there that day as well but we didn't see them. Below is a photo of Annie, our guide and me.

After the Summer Palace, we went to a Pearl Factory and was told the way you can tell if you are buying real pearls are if you rub them together, they produce a powder. We went to have lunch and then were off to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.  We were dropped off by our driver and walked for about two hours.  Could not believe how big both were.

Our guide, Annie was forbidden to talk about the student riots.  She did tell us about the different buildings of the Forbidden city and the number of concubines the Emperor was allowed to have- 72!

Vendors walked with us and tried to sell us anything from guide books, hats, Rolex watches to kites during our stay in Beijing.  They liked to be paid in dollars!
Then, we were taken to a tea house and tried four different kinds of tea.  We ended up buying two kinds- the ginseng oolong tea and the jasmine tea.  They showed a peeing statue boy where if you pour hot water over it, then it pees.  Of course, we got one of those for Alex.
After the tea house, we went to dinner to try Peking Duck.   We rolled the duck pieces up into a crepe with a type of BBQ sauce.  It was very good, but Alex's stomach was starting to hurt from all the new food, so he mostly ate white rice for dinner.  After dinner, we went to a Kung Fu theater to see a show.  Very fun and interesting!