Touring Beijing

We started our day meeting with 21 other families from our agency in the hotel lobby. We boarded 3 buses at 8:30 am and headed for Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City. Our guide's name is Michelle, she has been a guide for Great Wall Adoption Agency for 2 years. On the way to the Forbidden City, Michelle was telling us of her first experience as a tour guide. In describing the Forbidden City, she had confused the word concubine with cucumber so when telling the group about the emperor she explained that he had only one wife but many cucumbers which he loved very much. After continuing her story about the emperors cucumbers someone from the group told Michelle she thought she meant concubines and not cucumbers and so now everytime Michelle tells the story of the emperor she always thinks about cucumbers. After spending several hours and doing lots of walking, we again boarded the buses and headed to lunch and the Great Wall. For those who have not been to Tianamen Square and Forbidden City, it is a 5 mile walk from the square to the back gate of the city. Amazing that such a large complex was dedicated to one person.

We toured a Cloisonne Factory and had lunch in the back room of the factory. We were seated at tables and the servers kept bringing plate after plate of Chinese food, there was at first plates of cold ham and roast and tomatoes and then hot and sour soup(which did not taste like Asian Star :) ) and then there was a fish with the head and tail still attached, sweet and sour pork, a spicy chicken dish, a kind of spicy beef dish, two different plates of vegetables, something that looked like french fries and a few other dishes. We decided that Sam and Megan would indeed have a hard time finding something they would eat.

We again boarded the buses and headed for the Great Wall, the weather had been beautiful and clear, we arrived and began our assent up the wall, Chelsea was grateful she had the corizone shots in her knees and she was able to climb with the rest of us. Some of the group made it a few steps, some a little higher and some went a very long way up the wall. Our guide said most familes make it to the second tower and that is where Chelsea and I climbed. Todd decided to go one more tower up. It was the coming down that was harder then going up. Todd made it to the third tower and said his legs felt like jello on the way down. The Great Wall section that we went to is the Badaling section. Our guide said there were two ways to go, the difficult way and the more difficult way. We chose the more difficult way as the reward was greater. (better places for pictures)

By the end of the day we were very tired, lots of walking and very little sleep. We decided to turn in early as we had to be up by 3:00 am the next morning to get ready to leave for our flight to Hefei.