Wed. Feb. 8th was a travel day! It was our first experience together going on a flight of that magnitude, think BIG plane for 12 hours..NUTS but not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Good movie options, free wine or beer and they fed us 3 times. We also had the opportunity to meet a family that became our lifeline on the trip. They sat right in front of us and the rest is history as they say!
We arrived in Beijing Feb. 9...picked up by our guide Selina navigated the airport and immigration in Beijing, which is really just a madhouse...no lines, tons of people, tons of luggage, tons of nerves! We got settled into our hotel late evening on the 9th. We were able to get our VPN up and running so we could skype with the kiddos and that turned out to work so well for us, we were able to talk to them 2 times everyday morning and evening...it saved this mama's heart.
Feb. 10th we started what I will affectionately call our "honeymoon" stage of the trip. The next two days felt like a vacation to Matt and I. We had a quiet hotel room (even though we had jet lag so sleep was lost on us) and we got to explore a part of the world that I had no idea God intended for us to walk. Now granted there were many hours of "Oh my I'm going to puke we meet our boy in __ days/hours" but over all we enjoyed our time in Beijing.
First Day Feb. 10 - Great Wall and Jade Factory
The Great Wall was breath taking. The size of it alone is enough to take your breath away and then as you start to walk it and you see the details that were all made by hard working hands so many years ago it's hard to comprehend. There are different fortresses along the wall, there are so many stairs (some steeper than others and none the same size) and there are also little ditches all along the paths and stairs for drainage (so detail oriented) Matt was brave and obviously in better shape than me because he went up another fortress even taller than the one we all stopped at, on the steep side. I stayed at the one below and ended up being photographer for others visiting the same site. The air quality is not all that great plus it was cold so my chest was on fire. So much respect for those that made that guarded that wall and made that climb regularly.
After the Great Wall we went to a Jade factory where we had our first big meal in the restaurant upstairs and then got to take a tour and see how pieces are made from Jade. The food was good everywhere we went in Beijing and we had Selina to order for us which was sooo helpful, we never went hungry in Beijing! (different story at our next stop) The detail in the pieces made in the Jade factory were beautiful, jade comes in so many colors and types, I had no idea. We got to watch a guy making a "Happy Family Ball" it is a big chunk of Jade that they then carve into 3 separate balls (sometimes more layers) to represent the generations of a family.
We were happy for a nap and then another big dinner after our first day of site seeing.
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