Beijing Day 2

We met Vicky Simpson in the lobby of our hotel, a fellow Lifeline mom, who will be adopting 2 girls during her trip. She also had along with her her sister and niece. They were staying at our same hotel. It was nice to see someone from home.

I'm glad I got a good night's sleep because this was a busy day! On our way to the Great Wall we stopped at a jade-carving factory. All of the pieces were beautiful and expensive! We did purchase a small "Happy Family" ball made from jade found in Henan province, which is where John is from. The mountains on the way to the Great Wall reminded us of the Rocky Mountains except there was no snow. The Great Wall was something to see, truly a great feat of engineering and strength. The section of the wall that we visited was called Badaling. The climb was very steep and a great work-out for the legs! My legs felt like jello by the time we came down. We had lunch nearby, and we then headed back to Beijing. We stopped at the Olympic Complex and snapped some pictures of the Bird's Nest and the Cube.

We then went to a tea house for a tea ceremony. The teas we tried were all really good and surprisingly to me, hot tea was refreshing on a hot day! We walked around the nearby hutong called Wudaoling for a while and then our guide dropped us off at a theater for an acrobatics show which we really enjoyed. I had never seen anything like it before--it was amazing!! At the show we also met another Lifeline family, the Rosboroughs. They are adopting a little boy from the same province as John so we will be with them from Sunday to the end of the trip. Small world, huh?

Now the adventure really began. We tried to hail a taxi back to our hotel but the few taxis we saw that weren't already taken would not stop for us! We gave it a good try by walking up and down a very busy street for about 45 minutes before calling our guide for advice. Luckily she had given us her number! She told us the lines and stops to take on the subway. It was extremely crowded on a Friday evening but we somehow made it back to the hotel without getting trampled. It is definitely a lonely feeling to be in a city of 19 million people that you can't communicate with!

 Great Wall

 Olympic Cube

 Olympic Bird's Nest stadium

 Great Wall

Tea Ceremony