Great Wall day

Even tho we are now in Zhengzhou, we still can't see the blog. So I'm sending the text and photos blindly through email. Hope they look ok! Yes, its Gotcha Day, but I have to do this stuff in order. Hope I don't get the pictures in backwards (order).

Saturday we went to the Great Wall, the Jade factory, the cloisonne factory, the Olympic Village, the Tea Doctor shop and the acrobat show. Whew! They tried to sell us something at every stop, which got to be irritating. The day was HOT (did I mention it was HOT???????)

The mountains outside Beijing are beautiful! We saw the Great Wall. It was beautiful. Did we climb the Great Wall? Are you kidding??????????????????? No way! Too hot and crowded. The picture does not do justice in showing you how far and how high the climb would have been. Only one member of our group, Eric M., made it to the next tower. Yeah for him! Olivia had a meltdown and we spent our time eating popsicles and searching for shade. Not just for Olivia - for several of us. Luckily we found some and quite enjoyed ourselves.

Olivia has made fast friends with Lilly, Heather and Eric's little girl. Those are their heads together on the back seat of the bus. They never actually slept tho.  

We walked past the Olympic venues and they were quite impressive. It was really HOT. Olivia was furious because she misunderstood and thought she was going to SEE the Olympics. And there is Maggie, our guide, with Olivia. She loved Olivia's blonde hair as much as the other Chinese. She keeps getting looks where ever we go. The girls who sat behind us on the Zhengzhou flight reached btwn the seats and touched her.

Olivia and I on the bus after the Dr. Tea show. The tea was delicious, especially the jasmine. I actually broke down and bought some. Olivia was wiped out by this time, but we still had the acrobat show to see. She was able to stay awake for most of it and it was quite entertaining. But she zonked before the end. We were all ready to. The day had begun at 8:30am, on the buss and didn't end until 7:30pm with no dinner yet. TOO long. TOO hot.

The last pic is Olivia asleep on her stroller at the gate in Beijing for the flight to Zhengzhou. She's gotten scared at security because people were yelling at us and ended up in tears. She fell asleep at the gate. The flight was hot and bumpy the entire way. Just was we were landing, she woke up and puked all over herself. Luckily no one was checking  temps. I changed her clothes, grabbed our stuff and ran off the plane. With rest and liquid ibuprofen, she was well enough to make it to Gotcha Day, but we've had a relapse, so she won't be going anywhere for the next couple days. Thank heavens we don't fly out until Saturday.