Beijing Day 5~ Happy 16th Caleb!

While we were in Beijing Caleb had his 16th birthday.  We couldn't be more proud of Caleb, he is quickly growing into a man. 

Caleb had wanted to be on the Great Wall for his birthday but when we realized that it was 2 hours away from our hotel we knew we needed to be on the Great Wall on the day we had our tour guide.

The Forbidden City was within  walking distance so off we went for a day of exploring and celebrating.

Our Forbidden City day was ridden with pollution smog in the city

The Forbidden City is where the Royal Family of China ruled the country, it was forbidden for any common person to enter the city.  Now the Forbidden City is a tourist attraction in Beijing, it is actually now called the Palace Museum.

The court yards are vast and the buildings are many, as with a lot of the attractions we visited you can not enter the buildings, only tour the court yards.

Security is present everywhere in Beijing both in and out of uniform.

This is the throne from which the Emperor of China would address the people.

The roof lines and tiles on all of the buildings are very beautiful.

Once we saw the amount of smog in the air we were happy that we had gone to The Great Wall earlier in the week when we had blue skies.

There was a cool bamboo forest area in The Forbidden City.

more cool buildings:

We walked around the city for about three hours.

After touring the city it was time to go back to the hotel for some cake.  We were happy to find a cake in Beijing for Caleb's birthday, it was not really sweet but it was cold and refreshing.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CALEB!!  WE LOVE YOU.

Here are some pictures from years ago, oh how you have grown!

We were suppose to fly out of Beijing the night of Caleb's birthday so we hired a driver to take us to the airport.  Before going to the airport we went out to dinner at a Brazilian Barbecue place to celebrate 16 wonderful years with Caleb.

This place was awesome the meat just kept coming to your table, hot and fresh, they sliced it off for you right onto your plate.... we loved it.

There was some time left before we had to be to the airport so the driver took us to a Wal Mart!  Whoa how exciting to be in an American store, and the best thing....... they had gum!!  One can not buy gum in Singapore, so we loaded up on some gum to take back with us.