Trip to China
Itinerary  |  July 3 |  July 4  |  July 5  |  July 6 |  July 7  |  July 8  |  July 9  |  Gotcha Day!
|  July 11  |  July 12  |  July 13  |  July 14  |  July 15  |  July 16  |  July 17  |  July 18

Tuesday, July 4, 2006 HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! We had a fantastic day. We got tons of exercise this morning climbing to the top of a section of the Great Wall. It was such an impressive sight. It was fairly breezy so we could enjoy it thoroughly. It was thrilling to see the Wall traversing the rolling green mountains that we’ve seen in so many pictures. I had fun chatting with our terrific local guide, Chandler. He learned English in part by watching the TV series “Lost.” We had an in-depth discussion about its intricacies and our theories as to what it all really means. We spent the day with our travel companions, Brian and Jean and their delightful three-year-old daughter, Marie. The drive to the Wall was lengthy so Marie entertained herself by playing with stickers. As you’ll see from the photo, she adorned us with exactly 63 stickers and definitively declared, “You are now all stickered up for China!” We stopped on the way back for a lunch of traditional dishes. We were served a total of 17 plates of varying sizes of wonderful food – for the five of us! Needless to say, we were stuffed. I had my first squatty potty experience here. I mistakenly bypassed a few of the Western toilets and chose the other kind thinking it was the only option available. Although they are not new to me, I still find them very tricky! Joe was excited to learn that our hotel houses a bowling alley. I don’t know that we’ll use it, but how fun is that? He also determined at breakfast this morning that they must keep all the big, juicy Mandarin oranges here and export the dinky ones. They were huge and so tasty! For dinner, we all walked around our neighborhood and found a great local spot. Three large, yummy dishes plus four drinks cost $8. Not bad! Tomorrow we will head to the Forbidden City, then fly to Chongqing and board our boat. I’m not sure if we’ll have time to post before the flight. I’m also fairly certain we won’t be posting from the boat and that we’ll likely be posting from Wuhan. We have been preparing ourselves for the heat of Wuhan. We have read repeatedly that Wuhan is one of China’s three furnaces. Apparently this is wrong. We found out today that Chongqing, where we’re headed tomorrow, and Wuhan, are actually considered two of China’s four furnaces. Nice to know we’re hitting half of them! We heard that Wuhan has been topping 100 degrees lately – and it’s built on a swamp – so we’re anticipating a sauna. Good thing our attention will be focused elsewhere! Hopefully we’ll post tomorrow, but if not, then next time should be the 9th – the day before we get Jia!

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