Monday, March 28 - The Great Wall!

It's funny, this has become a really regular part of my day because I know so many people back home are checking in each day to see our new adventures!  I'll really catch it from people if I just decide to go to bed early and skip a day!  It's hard some days to not get super sleepy while doing this though.  Quiet, dark room, sleeping child, sleeping Jim, white noise playing through my phone drowning out the annoying hotel noises....zzzzzz.....

But then I think how many people we've heard from who are following along with us, enouraging us throuhg emails, and especially who are praying for us, and I shake off the tired and get typing!

Today's big sightseeing event was the Great Wall.  It was...well..a great...wall!  It was really a beautiful day for being there (especially for those of you who are traveling soon behind us and asking about weather!) - mild temperature, partly sunny, but nice and breezy to keep us cool while we huff it up those crazy stairs!  This wall is of course huge, so we only saw a small part of it.  I imagine the environment and look of the wall must greatly depend on which section you go to see.  Made me think a little of going to see the Grand Canyon in Arizona.  It's amazing no matter where you see it, but different parts of the rim have a different look and feel.  I'm guessing the Great Wall is a bit like that too.  I don't know if every section is equally steep, but this one we went to today was a major strairmaster marathon - and we didn't really even go that far up the wall!  Plus you add in 40 lb TingTing happily riding in her new carrier, and yikes!  It makes for a very worn out Mama and Baba!  Amazing to see, although it did leave me feeling like I wish I could see more sections.  I'm the type of person who doesn't necessarily just want to do a particular place just so I can say I did it or buy a tshirt for it.  I like to really do things.  So if there are different sections with different views I would love to see those, not just one little part so I can say I did it.  Oh well - maybe in a return trip someday. 

Starting up the many many stairs.  I offered to take TingTing in the carrier, but Jim insisted that he try.

Stretching ahead you can see the "small" section we climbed.  We stopped at that first tower which really is hardly any of the wall at all!

Ready to start climbing!

I had to include this to show these are not your average stairs.  All different height steps - some very tall, some very shallow, lots of scoops and low spots.

Another good shot of the inconsistencies of the steps

And crowded too!!

Jim stopping for a break.  And stopping.  And stopping...

Turning around and looking back down where we started.  As you can see, the wall goes up the other way from the bottom too.

Another view out across the valley to the wall on the other side of the mountain

I love this zoomed in picture of the wall on the other mountain.  See the people?  Now that I look at the picture, I wonder, why didn't we go that way?  There are hardly any people over there!

What Jim looks like when he's ready to have a heart attack

This is the view further up after that first tower.  We reached the tower and walked through, and of course the wall goes much further up from there.  The wall goes further up...but we did not!

A view from the top looking down at the visitors center area at the bottom

Mama got to carry her down all those steps.  Not so bad, but I really had to watch my step because every step was a different amount of drop.  Major workout for the backs of the legs!

I love this picture.  This is the section we climbed and this picture makes it look every bit as steep as it actually is!

With the sign which titles this section of the wall.  No idea what it says.  Our guide told us, but I couldn't begin to say it.

The wall is the main thing we did today.  Rested a little in our room tonight, and then walked to get some dinner in the mall near our hotel.  I still have to remember to take some pictures of our hotel itself, and also the area around it.  We feel a little like we are in a Chinese Manhattan.  We apparently are in a pretty high end area.  Expensive clothing shops and even some designer shops.  It's a nice enough area, but it is a hard area to find simple things like a belt, jeans that fit, or some simple clothes for TingTing (since most of what we brought her is too big).

The pictures I'm going to post below are of TingTing putting her coat on.  This is one of those things that took a few days before she was secure enough to do it on her own, apparently how she always did.  For the first couple of days she let us put it on for her, but then we found out she's quite capable of doing it on her own!  Here's how...

Sizing it up, trying to get it the right way...

First she tried it this way.  She holds it in front of her and the whips it up over her head so it lands behind her on her shoulders!

Wait....no...that didn't work quite right....

Aha!  Now I"m gonna get it right!  Put it in front like this...

Whip it over my head and behind my shoulders...

Success!!

Some more cute TingTing pictures...

The very serious and focused eater from not quite a week ago, now is doing this....

First exploring Play-Doh!

We brought a couple of small dress-up type toys with us and she loves them!

More bathtime pictures just because she is so cute, and we really think this is one of her favorite parts of every day!

Love this sweet smile!

(Insert boisterous giggle here)

 Ok, some final food fun...

Yum!  Doesn't this sound scrumptious!?

Ok, this one is just too funny.  We had to read it a couple of times to believe it really said this.  Still have NO idea what they really want it to say.  In case you can't read it clearly, it says, "The Wild Germ Hates Soup with Crisp Skin"  It sounds like some kind of bizarre food critic writeup!

This one - does it look gross?  Because it was gross!  It was titled in the menu - Baked Potatoes with Bacon.  Someone missed something, because these are NOT baked potatoes!

This was dinner.  The non-baked potatoes, and some spaghetti.  Well, sort of spaghetti.  It was like below Big Boy quality spaghetti.  But the whole meal only cost about $7.  When we tasted it we could see why!

But this little girl loved it.  Hopefully she likes good spaghetti when she has it at home!

 Ok, that's all for today!  More pictures, less story today I think.  I'm getting tired, but I can't skip the things we are thankful for - it's tradition now....

1.  For the patience of TingTing.  She is so so so very patient with us as we imcompetantly try to figure out what she is saying.  She teaches us her words, and we teach her our words.

2.  For our laptop.  At one point, we wondered if we could just do this trip with our ipads.  No way - that wouldn't have worked at all for many reasons.  We are so glad we brought this computer!

3.  That we packed Zyrtec.  There are a lot of allergy triggers here - mainly pollution -  and we've been glad to have a reliable allergy medication!

Night night and God Bless you all!


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