May 3

Still getting caught up… So, what does someone who has developed a fear of heights do while in China? They climb the Great Wall in a thunder & lightening storm, of course!
On Saturday we met Helen at 8:30am and headed to pick up Kris, Jim & Austin at their hotel. It was very cloudy and much cooler than it had been on Friday. We were headed outside the city to visit the Great Wall and traffic was pretty congested. On the way there it started to rain and we were getting worried. But, first we stopped at a jade factory for a quick tour to learn some about jade and, of course, to do some shopping.
We loved all the jade at the factory and got a few very nice things to have as reminders of this wonderful trip. Just about the time we were leaving the jade factory it started to rain really hard and there was even some thunder and lightning, but Helen checked and was told that it was not raining at the Great Wall. So, we headed on. As we were driving it was like all of a sudden the scenery changed from city to country side and then to very tall mountains. The mountains were VERY steep and it was all soo beautiful.
We started to catch glimpses of the Great Wall and we all started to get excited. Of course, it had started raining by that point and pretty hard, but we were all soo excited that we didn’t think it would matter. The temperature had dropped a lot by that point and truthfully, we were not prepared for that. If it had just been cool it wouldn’t have been so bad, but the rain on top of it made it quite uncomfortable. We put Cackie in the backpack carrier on Michael’s back and each of us had umbrellas. Helen told us that she would give us 2 hours to climb up to the highest tower and back.
So, we started off… getting to the first landing wasn’t too bad. It was a little tough on Michael with the extra 40 pounds on his back, but we stopped at the first landing and took some pictures. From there it was pretty much straight up and none of the steps were the same height. We got about 1/3 of the way up the next section and Cackie started to complain that she was getting cold. She basically had long shorts on, so I could totally understand. Both Michael & I were getting soaked and it really was getting tough for me to breathe with this cold I have. Then some lightning flashed, thunder rumbled and we looked at each other and said “forget this”. By this point Caryn had gone on ahead of us and we were able to catch her attention to let her know we were headed down. The funny thing is that fighting the mass of people was just as hard going down as it was going up. When we finally got to the bottom we found the little snack stand and were able to get under some shelter. I went into the souvenir shop and got two really cheesy “I climbed the Great Wall” sweatshirts for Cackie & I because we were soaked and cold and found some hot tea to help warm us up. A few minutes later Kris joined up with us and we all found Helen in the van. We were soo happy to be in that cramped little van just getting warm! Not too much longer Caryn, Jim & Austin showed up soaked to the bone and looking beat. They had gotten pretty far, but not all the way to the top. After getting them some warm clothes we left to get some lunch.
Our lunch was in a restaurant that is attached to a cloisonné factory. First we got a quick tour and demonstration on how cloisonné is made and then we headed to the restaurant. We had a great lunch, tried a very strong Chinese liquor (reminded Kris & I of very strong tequila) and the kids even got to enjoy some French fries! After lunch we got to do some shopping for cloisonné and then it was back on the bus.
We headed back into Beijing and got the opportunity to get a quick driving tour around the Olympic complex. We couldn’t stop to get out of the van, but our driver tried to go slowly so that we could get some good photos. Unfortunately I was only able to get some video of this because our camera had gotten soaked and the lenses were pretty fogged over from climbing the Great Wall. The stadiums were all pretty cool looking. The venue where the swimming and diving events will be is really cool, it looks like water bubbles from the outside! The birds nest stadium where the opening & closing ceremonies will be is also amazing to see in person.
At this point we were all getting pretty silly and I did some filming of the crazy drivers in China and we had a lot of good laughs. We didn’t realize it, but before we knew it we were at our next destination. We arrived at a tea shop for a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. We tried a number of different teas and learned the proper ways to make them. Cackie had had her moments all throughout the day, but she was pretty good through the tea ceremony. She tried all the teas and liked the black tea the best. The favorite part of the whole ceremony for everyone was when they showed us the “happy baby” which is a clay figurine of a baby that has a “special” way of helping you to know if your water is hot enough for making tea. I soo wish that I had that on video! The kids were hysterical and put some pressure on us to shop when they found out that you get a free “happy baby” with any purchase. Of course, that wasn’t a problem… I love tea and was happy to get some to take home.
After the tea we headed back to our hotels to relax and get ready to leave Beijing for Tianjin. Packing all our stuff up was quite an ordeal! The majority of our clothes were dirty by this point, but we had done quite a bit of shopping and had 4 silk blankets that we had added to the multitude of other stuff that we brought. After we got most of our stuff packed we headed down to a restaurant that Helen had recommended and had a wonderful dinner. The beef & black pepper was fabulous and the broccoli was soo yummy. It was also a lot cheaper than the other meals that we had had and we kicked ourselves for ordering room service those 2 nights. Poor Cackie was extremely pooped by this point and almost fell asleep in her food. She crawled into Michael’s lap and was out in seconds. Poor kiddo had changed her body clock 13 hours and gone 2 days with no nap, it was all catching up with her and she just couldn’t take it anymore. We weren’t too far behind her, which is why I’ve been so far behind in getting this updated!