This is an important week for the Chinese.  October 1st was the 58th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and China celebrates with a week-long holiday.  Hannah and Suzette have been out of school all week, and most people leave town or go shopping.  We have really enjoyed the lighter traffic, that's for sure!

On Monday, we made our way (along with about one million Chinese people) to Tiananmen Square to observe the festivities -- and what a sight it was.  You can see in our slide shows below that an incredible number of people turned up at the Square for the celebration.  We have never seen so many people in one place before!  It was incredible.  At the Square, there were models of the Great Wall, the Greek Acropolis (a symbol of the upcoming Olympics), the Summer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven.  About 400,000 potted flowers and plants were used to construct these small scale versions.  It was a beautiful view -- once you could get past all the people!  And the most amazing part came after sundown when the models were all lit up with thousands of colorful lights.  It was like Christmas in October!  Enjoy the photos!