Wednesday Highlights

The internet wasn't working in our room last night, but things seem to be back on track now. :)

First things first - a shout out to the birthday boy. Happy Birthday, Josh! Welcome to the late twenties. Know that I was thinking of you as I was sweating through my shirt...

Yesterday was a long, hot, exhausting day. But also a great day. Here are some highlights:

• We started by taking the subway to Tiananmen Square. It was pretty crowded there, and they had some neat Olympic-related stuff set up there.
• After that, we headed across the street to The Forbidden City. It's one enormous place! We got the audio guide tours so we could learn a little more about what we were seeing. Unfortunately, a lot of it went in one ear and out the other. Except for one story about a concubine. She was not the emperor's favorite, but then one day he heard her reciting a poem about a maple leaf, and he apparently found that to be pretty sexy. Maybe I will try that in the US? We spent a few hours in the Forbidden City, exploring the Temple of the Greatest Most High Very Glorious Harmony, or something like that. Ok, so that's not quite the name of it, but most of the temples have names a little like that.
• Then we went across the street to Jing Shan park, and climbed up to the top where there is a Buddhist Temple with quite a view. Well, it would be a better view were it not so smoggy here - but still a good view. 
• We walked through that park to another one - Bei Hai park, and through it. We are loving the parks here. We decided to find a place for dinner, so we were walking around, and as we turned a corner, it appeared as if out of nowhere... a Starbucks! Yay! That may have been the best caramel frappuccino ever. While most things are much cheaper here (a bottle of water is about 30-40 cents), Starbucks is more expensive. I think my drink was five-something. But worth every penny!
• We found a great area along a lake with tons of restaurants. We ate at one called Silk Road South. I think what I had was the Chinese equivalent to fried chicken. The spring rolls were very yummy. The menu, which rivaled that of the Cheesecake Factory in size, had photos of some of the things, and English. There was one thing we couldn't figure out, though, even in English... lots of things were served with "Wikipedia." Hmm. Any ideas?
• We were pretty beat after dinner, so we headed back to the hostel, where our air conditioning awaited. We both woke up at 5am today, and we're not sure why.

We're planning to head to The Great Wall today.