Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Touring Day 2
Today was a very busy day. We
started out with an early breakfast at the hotel breakfast
buffet. We made a quick phone call to the kids. It was great
to talk about them with my mom. Jacob refuses to talk to us
on the phone as he is claiming he does not talk on the phone
to China. Katelyn was at a cheerleading competition.
At 8am we met our tour guide in
the lobby. We were so pleased to finally meet Janelle and
Grant Wise as well as Mary and Lisa. Mary and the Grant's are
adopting babies from Hubei. We had a wonderful day touring
with them. We first went to the Ming Tombs. It was so
crowded there. So much history!!! At the end of the tour we
were intrigued by a sign on the wall next to the bathrooms
that said "4 star toilet". I just had to see what that
meant. I couldn't tell what was "4 star" about those squat
potties!!!
We then went to a Jade Factory.
We were shown how they make jade and how to tell if jade is
real or not. The showroom was expansive however, everything
was VERY EXPENSIVE so we only purchased two small items. We
then went to lunch at the restaurant within the jade factory.
We had some interesting food choices. We then made the long
trip to the Great Wall of China. It was so surreal to finally
be there. We had 1 ½ hours to walk around before we had to be
back to meet our guide. It was such nice warm weather, much
nicer than we expected. We had packed our fleece jackets and
we ended up sweating in our regular clothes. It was so
strenuous and tiring to climb just the small section of the
wall that we were on. We chose to climb the steeper side
because we were told it was more beautiful. One of the
amazing things was that there were ladybugs everywhere!!!
There were so many that they were actually covering some
people's clothing!!! 30 minutes into the climb I decided to
stop and take a rest. Brandon and the rest of the group kept
going. It was amazing to see the elderly Chinese people
climbing the wall right next to us. We were wiped out by the
time we got back to the bottom. We then visited a Tea
Factory. They introduced us to 5 different types of tea. We
took a great group picture there. From there we went to the
Chinese Acrobat Show. It was like an Asian Cirque de Soleil.
The flexibility of those people was astounding. However, by
the time we got there I was so exhausted that I had trouble
keeping my eyes open. We then headed back to the hotel and
the group went out to Pizza Hut for dinner. It was so nice to
connect with everyone. We can't wait to see them in Guangzhou
when everyone has their babies!!!
Tomorrow we meet our guide in the
lobby at 10am. We are heading off to Hong Kong. The rest of
the group should arrive on Friday. We are planning a huge
group dinner on Friday evening at 6pm so it should be
wonderful to meet more of the families from our DTC group.
We are now 3 days from Kiah and
another day closer to home.
We LOVE YOU JACOB AND KATELYN!!!
Love to all from China,
-Nicole and Brandon
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