The Great Wall

Today we went to the great wall and walked the whole right side. There where sections of the great wall but all connected at one tower, there was a right side and a left side. The left side was steeper and harder to walk, so I and my mom and dad went to the right and so did the group.

This was very hard at times the steepness of the wall and just the long walk it took us pretty much an hour to walk the whole right side of the wall. The little kids who are 4-5 walked it. Zach and Sharlet walked the whole wall by themselves, I was amazed there little legs walked that long of aways.They where really excited and not tired, they wanted to walk it and where determined that they where going to! We went to the jade factory and I got a tiger pendent, the tiger is my year. They taught us how to tell real jade from fake, I got a type A quality jade. The pendent of your year is supposed to keep dangers away from you, we got one for me and my little sister. We saw acrobats but ran out of camera battery and had alittle bit left for the Olympic stadium. Today we also had a birthday, it was Joseph's! He got to walk the great wall,and eat birthday cake. They threw him a birthday party at lunch time. He turned 7! This was a very cool day!! Cant wait to see Quinn.

Seeing China!

This morning I woke up early not being able to sleep! 2:30 AM.
We then went down for breakfast at 6:30, wanting to eat. After we did so we wondered the streets of Beijing, very beautiful place. What I found odd was that there pollution was no badder than any other city. Though I did see people with masks on, covering there nose and mouth, to protect them from breathing pollution in.

Then at 9:00 we all gathered in the lobby to go see the great wall! But ended up going to go see Tianamen square, and the Forbidden City. And other sight seeing things, but not the great wall .Which we will be doing tomorrow beause Zhou had to go to CCAA to finish some paper work .CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs). Zhou keep pushing begging people aside, it was scary for me.

Tianamen square is very beautiful, there was a very long line to go see Mao's tomb. We did not wait in line to see his tomb because we where on a very tight schedule. And when we stoped to take a picture of our group in Tianaman Square, a HUGE bunch of Chinese people gathered in front of us taking pictures of our large group, it was like we where FAMOUS, we laughed and smiled.

In the Forbidden city it was just amazing, it went on, and on, and on. The sight of it was just wonderful, and I got asked to have pictures taken with people and me, total complete strangers wanting to have a picture taken with ME (Bethany), it was like I was famous. We went on a Rickshaw ride, this was one of my favorite things I was amazed that someone could pull us with a bike and themselves. We got to see old Beijing on this ride, and then ate lunch at a mans house who prepared us a traditional Chinese meal. We had Date, Chicken, Oranges, Water lilly shoots, rice, dumplings, and alot of other food, all delicious!!! And yes we ate this all with chopsticks. Oh yeah and on the rickshaw ride there was a congested area and our rickshaw guy hit a man. I can not tell you how many times i thought we or someone else was going to get hit by a car. Everything went well and in two days we go to Nanchang!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can't wait!

Hello,

We are really happy, we made it to Beijing safe and sound. We met some people on our way who where in our travel group, all of the people seem really nice.

We are the only ones from Nanchang! After we meet all the people Zhou took us to the MALL which includes the food market. We got some snacks and then went back to the hotel.
Zhou just left to go meet the other families in our group, we have 11 families in all, so we couldn't all get the same flight.

Everything is very well and we cant wait to see you all.

First Post

Hello,
This is our first post. Today we TRY to relax and prepare ourselves for a long wonderful trip.
All of us are keyed to the max. We can't wait to embark on this new wonderful life. Our plane ride is the longest I have, or maybe, will ever be on, 18 hours there. And 24 hours and over back. CANT WAIT TO SEE YOU ALL WHEN WE GET BACK!!!
We will keep posting :-)