Destination...Princess!!: Summer Palace

This morning was a morning off for everyone expect four families that had to bring their children for medicals. This was for sponsorship families only. Thank God we are bringing Jane home as a Canadian Citizen and not a permanent resident. I would not have been looking forward to that 1 hour bus drive to and from there this morning. Thank you Ekie O’Rielly at Senator Fabian Mannings office for facilitating that for us. If Ekie for Senator Manning had not sent several emails, made numerous calls and took a personal interest , Jane would not be coming home until maybe Dec or Jan at the earliest. Thanks again Ekie!!

Here we are. Jane’s hats and headbands are a real hit. The guide calls her fashionable girl!

So...we got to take it easy. We went out for a stroll, had some McDonalds and went to barter at a local market. No great deals there though. We all went, it was 5 floors and I was a nervous as the boys were scattering to look at things so we didn’t stay long.McDonald’s doesn’t taste the same here but we are getting pretty tired of Chinese food so we went for something a little different.

At 1 pm we went to Summer Palace. This is a palace here in Beijing. It was nice but there was a lot of walking and the boys found it all a bit boring. There were peddlers every few feet who were very persistent you buy a Panda hat. Jack was again mobbed by young girls hugging him and having their picture taken with him. They were over the moon when he handed them a Canadian Flag pin. The Canadian memorabilia is a real hit. We gave out a bunch of flags and flag pins on the Great Wall yesterday too. The girls were actually jumping up and down they were so delighted.