My China Birthday!

Our third day in China also happened to be my birthday :) ... and a nice birthday gift would have been the opportunity to sleep in, but our jam packed schedule didn't allow that! Instead, I found myself up at 6 a.m. and headed to the Temple of Heaven Park. Why so early? Well, we wanted to be sure and catch people doing taichi! Turns out, we got to see people doing all sorts of excercise in the park. 

These folks were playing with a Chinese version of a hacky sack which is basically weighted feathers...

...even Matt got in on the action. I promise, that is not an actual bird!

We saw a bit of line dancing

A bit of yoga?

A bit of group stretching...

...and finally, some taichi!

Check out a little live action from the park!

This little dragonfly caught our eye!

Eventually we made it to the main attraction at the park, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.

After we left the park, we headed back to the hotel. Matt rewarded my long walk to the park at 6 a.m. with a delicious birthday breakfast that kept us full until dinner time. Yum! After we ate, we made our way over to the Summer Palace.

Matt at the entrance to the Summer Palace. He's all ready to tour!

The Summer Palace is where the imperial court fled for breaks from the heat of the Forbidden City. Now I don't know about you, but when I think of a place to flee from heat, I imagine a place that is actually cold or at least cool.  Let's just say we weren't at all cold during our tour of the Summer Palace. In fact, we were down right hot! ;) I asked Matt why they didn't choose a much further off location, but he reminded me that the Summer Palace was built during a time where taxis and/or the subway weren't around to get you from the Forbidden City to the Summer Palace in less than an hour. I guess he has a point...

I imagine the royal family did not have to fan themselves to keep cool at the palace...but I'm not quite as special I guess!

So as we made our way through the palace, Matt decided we should head up to the top of Longevity Hill. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention to the name of our destination, but I was surprised by the effort I had to put forth toward getting up there. It was steps and steep ramps galore!

Faking a smile ;) Just kidding, it really wasn't too bad. We worked in several breaks to keep my heart rate down and to give baby Benjamin a rest :) To my great surprise (and to the surprise of many people at the top of the hill that noticed my pregnant belly), we eventually made it to the top!

Thankfully the view was worth it! Only it turns out...this wasn't even the top :( We climbed many more hills after this!

The imperial court had a small village built inside the palace where they went when they wanted to get a feel for what it was like to live as a commoner. We felt very at home inside this small village :)

After we left the Summer Palace, we decided to make a very long day even longer and track down a Thai restaurant that we read about in our travel guide. Well, a long subway ride where no one would give up their seat and a significant walk in the wrong direction did not make for a very cheerful me...but with a bit of complaining from yours truly (poor Matt!) we made it to the restaurant and indulged in some delicious Thai food.

Back at the hotel, showered and ready for sleep, a pleasant surprise came at 10 p.m. when the hotel dropped by a sweet treat for my birthday!

YUM! It was realllllly good. A whole cake! We didn't even eat half of it. Major props to the hotel because I totally thought Matt arranged for the cake to be delivered. He admitted that he couldn't take credit for it because it wasn't his doing. (I think he should have...I would have never known the difference, ha!) They must have noticed my birthday on my passport at check in.

What a delicious way to end a fabulous birthday!

Now time to rest up for our trip's most exciting adventure...the Great Wall of China!