Sorry we missed a day in blogging!

 

Also I need to apologize for the double post about us arriving in Beijing.  I can not see our blog here so I was talking with my mom after I sent an update to the blog via email and after about one hour the post was still not there.  So I emailed her another post and low and behold about one hour after that my original post was there!  So sorry if you had to read duplicate postings.

 

Anyway-the reason we did not blog yesterday was we left the hotel at 8 am and returned at 8:45 pm and we were exhausted!!!  We met 2 other families with our group that arrived very late and only had 3 hours sleep and then they were up and touring with us yesterday.  They were troopers!

 

We left the hotel at 8 AM and headed to the Great Wall.  Along the way we stopped at a Jade factory to see how jade is made and carved and look at the beautiful craftsman ship. I also really admired the jewelry but am still holding off until we get to Changsha or Guaugzhou to make alot of purchases.  After the Jade factory tour we were off to the Great Wall.  Again, us and about 1 million other tourists arrived to make the climb.  It is quite the site to behold and since it poured down rain on Friday the smog was minimal and the views were fairly good.  We decided to climb the "easy" side instead of the "hard" side.  Let me tell you something, we both would have had to be carryed down on a gurney had we done the hard side.  The easy side was very steep in places-literally steps that came to my mid thigh, and then tiny baby steps, then very tall steps, etc.  The sun was out so it was a little hot and when we started to climb it got REALLY hot!!!  I am not sure you can say we made it to the first tower, but it was some type of big landing and it seemed like a good stopping point.  We sat down and had some water and then panicked because we had to go back down with legs and thighs that were burning.  Needless to say they felt like jelly but we did make it back to where we started.  We have a nice group picture with the Wall in the background.  One interesting thing we saw-there was an elderly woman that was taken in a seat with 2 long poles attached to it and 2 young men hoisted this seat up onto their shoulders and then carried her up the "hard" side.  We were all in awe!  First to do the hard side then to carry an old woman on a seat-Wow!

 

Then after the Great Wall we went to lunch back in Beijing-unfortunately this part did not seem to be too well orchestrated and we were ushered right in, fed quickly and then ushered us right back out.  But, not to the bus-we then had to head over for a demonstration on freshwater pearl cultivation and, of course, a tour of the store.  They hit up hard here to buy goods but everything I have read has said to wait and buy things in the province where our daughters live or in Guangzhou.

 

After lunch, we went to the Summer Palace.  Kind of rushed through that, very pretty, but again as is the norm in China, ALOT of people and we were getting pretty tired at that point.

Then we went to the Chinese Acrobats show.  Some of the performance is like what we see with La Nouba in Cirque de Soleil at Disney. But then they also had boys and girls perform in this show, what they can do with their bodies is amazing!!!

 

After the acrobats we went for famous Peking Duck dinner.  It was very good and we learned more about authentic Chinese foods and were able to sample some dishes.  Now I have to say I have been very conversative in what I have been eating, so I have not sampled a tremendous bit.  Jet lag is not a bad thing for the appetite.  My clock is backwards so often times I am not feeling hungry when we go for our meals.  But after hauling my fat butt up the Wall yesterday losing a few pounds or more is definitely needed!!!

 

After the Peking Duck dinner we came back to the hotel and were dead dog tired.  We both took showers and went to bed.  And thankfully I was able to sleep through the nite.  The first 2 nites we were here I was waking up at 1:30 am and not going back to sleep.  Last nite we went to bed around 9 PM and I think I woke up around 4:15 am.  Not too bad. 

 

We are leaving for the airport in about 45 minutes and will fly to Changsha, which is where Elizabeth is from.  Word is we get the babies tomorrow around 2-3 pm.  Not official word this is just what other families adopting from this province have to say.  I believe we will have some type of official group meeting today to find out these deals.

 

Well the countdown is on-probably only about 30 hours until we have Miss Elizabeth.  Stay tuned for photos and more information.  By the way, photos of our touring I will save to post until I have a little more time and we all know you really just want to see Elizabeth anyway-who cares about The Great Wall, etc-right????

 

Until next time.......