Saturday, November 8, 2008

What an amazing day!

Greetings from China!

It was a very busy day, but it was so worth it! We headed out around 9am to The Great Wall..and let me tell you..it is GREAT! You think that from looking at some show on TV that it looks relatively...um..challenging to climb..I stand corrected! My word! My legs shook for hours after we left and we didn't even go to the highest peek! The stairs going up were so steep and all the stairs were different, so it was hard to judge your step without having to constantly looking at the ground. The mountains that were surrounding The Great Wall were so beautiful and rugged.
It truly was a spectacular sight. There were so many people there and they are just so friendly. We had a ball with them today. I am learning so much about China and I will never forget these past couple of days. They will remain with me for a long time to come. The Chinese are such great folks. They came up to me today touching my hair, fixing my jacket, and wanted several pictures of me with them. One of the fellows in our group kept on saying, "She is a famous rock star! It's Madonna!" Then we all laughed and got our pictures taken. Lots of hugs were going around and certainly lots of smiles. Then that guy from our group was called Tom Cruise, and various other Hollywood stars. We all got a kick out of it. They obviously knew we weren't these famous people, but they just jumped on in and we all had a time!

To top this amazing moment off.....we were standing on the highest peek of the side of the wall we were on and the coolest thing happened.......it started to snow! For those of you who know me...know that I love snow. So this was a real treat. Thank you Lord!

Afterward, we headed to a Chinese Restaurant and Cloisonne Factory. It is amazing to see these items done and to watch the process. It is incredibly highly detailed and intricate art.

Then we ate a wonderful meal with our group. We just love our group. It has been wonderful
getting to know these folks. We have had such a good time together.

After we got full, we headed out too the Summer Palace. This was very similar to the Forbidden City. The Summer Palace did have a huge man made lake that was still as glass.

We were running a bit behind on schedule, so instead of stopping to see the Olympic buildings, we drove past them very slowly and snapped a couple of pics from the bus. :)

Then we headed home, went and grabbed a bite to eat with several members of the group, and then we were back in our hotel room packing for our plane flight tomorrow morning to Nanning, China. Yes, less than 48 hours we will be meeting our daughter for the first time. Let me tell you my friends, it has FINALLY hit me.

(By the way, a few of you have asked if I have been able to sleep. Well, that would be a negative. I have had approx. 5 hours of sleep in the past two days. Please pray that I get some shut-eye tonight. I am totally going to need it.)

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you..last night we went to the "Flying Acrobatics Show". It was wild! John says it should be called the "Dare Devil Show." Just watching these ladies contort their bodies made mine hurt! It was pretty cool and the Chinese love it! They really get into it.

Well, I am going to do another post with just pics...so stick around..

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

thanks for the update! you're in our prayers -- for sleep, safety, fun, patience, and joy!
i'm having a hard time figure out what time and day it is there, but I think I hope you're sleeping right now :-)
thanks for all the great pictures! I'm so excited to see pictures of your family tomorrow (is my tomorrow your Monday??). whenever it is - i can't wait! love and prayers!!
the vests