Let’s Tour China in the Rain!

What a day…….a full day of touring the sites in Beijing and it has POURED rain all day!!  Don’t know which would be worse:  the high heat and humidity or cool with downpours!  I will try to post pictures tomorrow but just imagine the enitre population of China touring the Forbidden City and they all had umbrellas!!  Yes, busy and umbrellas everywhere!!!!  We had to protect our eyes from the constant threat of guaging!!!  We did make it through and I enjoyed it very much.  I had to laugh at Zoe…here we are in the midst of centuries of Chinese history and culture and she is most impressed with the fact that America’s Next Top Model held a fashion show there and she remembered the exact location where one of the models knocked a man on stilts over!  Waaayyyy to much TV!!!!  She had her camera and was taking tons of pictures of everything…she did enjoy it and was quite the trouper.

Our next stop was to the Jade Factory.  Enjoyed watching them make some pieces and learning about the different types of jade.  Did not enjoy the prices in the shop!! We did get a little souvenir: a small jade ball that actually was 3 balls, all carved out of the same piece of jade.  They said it represented the generations; of course there were 3 generations present and so we HAD to get it!  ($17.00 we can afford!!)

Next stop….yes, it continued…..was to the Friendship Store to eat and of course, shop.  The food was good and plentiful and we did restrain ourselves in the shop.  Dad is quite tempted by a jade pinky ring; I look for him to have one before the trip is over!

Then it was on to the Great Wall; still raining mind you.  Rick and I went up to the “start” of the wall as my back and legs could not take it.  Zoe went with one of our companion families and went past the first tower.  Very impressive!!  She was proud of herself as she should be (and yes, she has the t-shirt to prove it!).  We were quite taken with the mountains today.  Very green and majestic and with the clouds hovering by, it was breathtaking!

We finished the day by driving through Olympic village.  Cool architecture!  Once back at the hotel, we dried off and went to eat at a local Chinese buffet.  I had to revisit my assumption that the buffets in America are “americanized”.  This buffet had all the same items plus freshly popped caramel popcorn!!!  We loved the pizza, french fries and fried biscuits….forget the salad bar when you can eat all that fried stuff!!!!!

We leave tomorrow morning at the ungodly hour of 5:45 am to get to the airport to catch our flight to take us to Nanchang.  We get Miss Micah tomorrow afternoon.  Zoe celebrated tonight as our “last night as a family of 3”.  She is very excited to meet Micah and be a big sister!  Well, I hear 2 people snoring so that is my cue to say goodnight!