I woke up at six again this morning, wrote for a bit, and texted my mom. I decided to skip breakfast and have a PopTart in the room instead, to give me time to Skype with my mom, and then I took a shower and got ready to go. We met our group out at the gate at 10 o'clock to get on our little brown shuttle bus, which took us to Quianmen Dajie, a market near Tiananmen square. We stopped in a tea shop, where we were able to sample some green tea and then we walked along the street, stopping in some of the shops as we went.

Just before we were supposed to meet up with our group, we stopped in Starbucks to warm up and order some food. I had got a hot chocolate and Kari and I split a blueberry danish and a chocolate muffin. We took pictures with some of the guards and then walked to Tiananmen Square, the biggest open square in the world. It is interesting to think of all the history that took place there, but many of the other people in the square have no idea about its past. We then ventured into the Forbidden City, where the emperor used to live. The buildings are magnificent. They are so different from anything you might find in the US or Europe.

As we waited for Frank to buy our tickets, groups formed and people wanted to take pictures with us. They love our blond hair, especially Michelle's because she the blondest of our group. At one point a huge group of screaming girls surrounded her for a photo. She started screaming with them and then they started screaming louder. And then an even bigger group formed around that. It was madness! Then, all of a sudden, people were running back and forth and taking photos with different people and lining up for photos with Alex. Dr. Lai said that because of the holiday, many people from other parts of China come to visit their capital city. For many of the people from the country, we are the first Americans or Westerners they have ever seen. It's a little alarming at first, but after a little bit it's kind of fun to be at the center of attention.

When the crowd finally parted, we got our tickets and began our walk through the city. I took so many pictures with my new camera and I can't wait to put them together at the end of the trip. I knew the Forbidden City was a big place, but I didn't realize just how big. We had a few hours to walk through and we still didn't see all of the areas off to the sides of the main buildings. As we neared the end of the park, we stopped in a room where there was a man finger painting with ink. The paintings were beautiful! There was one that was of the Great Wall with a blue sky and snow falling over it. It was absolutely gorgeous! The man doing the paintings learned the trade from his father. It had been passed down through generations leading back to a great grandfather who lived in the city in the time of the emperor. Apparently the emperor really liked the paintings and kept a personal painter in the palace.

We met up with our group just outside the city walls. We had to wait a little bit for Josephine and Dr. Lai because they got lost in the city, but they found us and we got on the bus to travel to a place near the theater we would be going to later. There a was a big ice rink right in the middle, so Alex, Ashley and I went ice skating. Only we didn't get skates, but chairs with short, ski-pole like sticks to propel ourselves. We took turns sitting in the chair and pushing it on the ice to make it go faster. It was so much fun! There were little congo lines of people in ice skate chairs moving around the ice, so we hopped on the back and joined the line. Everyone was laughing and having such a great time.

We got off the ice a while later and went to find the rest of the group. We stopped to warm up in Starbucks and met a student from Hong Kong who spoke English very well. He said the weather was cold even for him and encouraged us to stay inside to keep warm, but we ventured back out into the cold and kept walking along the path of restaurants and little shops beside the ice rink. When we found everyone, we made our way to our designated meeting place and then to the theater for the Kung Fu show.

The show was fantastic! There were people dressed as pandas who came out just before the beginning of the performance and people sat on the steps of the stage to take pictures with them. Then they walked up the aisles and danced to Gangnam style. It's so funny, but that song seems to be the theme of this trip. The Kung Fu was so cool to watch and there was an acrobat girl who could bend in ways I've never seen anyone move. At one point she did a headstand with her head bent underneath the rest of the body, so she was holding herself up by her neck. It was amazing!

After the show, we walked back outside and the temperature had dropped even more because the sun had set. We ran back to the bus as fast as we could in the cold. When we got back to the hotel, we changed and went downstairs to eat. Today we ordered sizzling pepper beef, which may be my favorite dish so far, sweet and sour pork, rice, potatoes and leeks, and potato pancakes with scallions. Everything was so delicious!