First stop the Jade Factory. Stopping at the factories are my least favorite thing to do. It is like high pressure sales with about 10 people breathing down your neck. But we also know that we want to get something for our girls because Jade is China's most precious stone. In fact all the Olympic medals were made with Jade. So each medal had either gold, silver or bronze with Jade on every singe metal. Our guide told us that hundreads of years ago the emperor always carried Jade with him. It was always something he had in his hand. It was actually used as a sort of currency back them. We ended up getting a pendant for each girl with the chinese symbol of double happiness on it. Then I got a jade bangle (bracelet) for myself - these are very expensive but it is tradition to hand it down from generation to generation. Due to expense we will have to purchase a second one on our next trip so both girls will get one years down the road.
Then off to the Great Wall. This is always an exciting day for us. The Great Wall is truly a must see for everyone. Madelin had made two goals at the beginning of summer. One she wanted to climb to the top of the Great Wall and the second she wanted to learn how to swim so she could swim by herself in China. And now we can say that she has accomplished both. This part of the Great Wall is not what you would expect. It is straight up and all stairs!!! The climb is very hard - all the stairs are different sizes and the slope is so steep. Most of the group made it about 1/2 way up the first main climb. Madelin and Greg made it up to the top to the first main town. I still cant believe she made it that far. The weather was pretty cloudy so our views were not always the best. The the pure beauty of this place is breathtaking. The rest of us were waiting toward the bottom and then all of a sudden it started to rain and really hard. I was so worried about Madelin and Greg because they both did not have a jacket. But they finally appeared and not sure how but they were relatively dry. It was very crowded here today also - but today is the last day of Holiday so the city should clear out tomorrow. The Wall is about a 4o minute drive from our hotel thru the country side. We drove thru small towns. They use every piece of land they can to farm.
We then drove to another site - we cant remember what it was called. Something like Heavens Palace? Again this place was masive. The only thing that we can remember is that the emperor was the only one allow there for the ceremony. There was tons more but Greg and I both cant remember a darn thing. How depressing is that. Guess we need to start drinking a tea we learned about - that helps with memory. But the funny part is that I cant remember what the name of the tea was either. Ha Ha. It is getting late I guess.
Next stop Confucian Temple - this place was built by an emperor after confucius died. Confucius was a Chinese Philosopher who taught his students the value of honesty, fair dealing and respect for the law. Once again massive in size and very beautiful.
Can you tell that history is my thing? Not!!! I usually go straight to the gift shop - but here there is not a gift shop.
More swimming of course. This night we ordered room service in our room. We have ordered just about every night fried rice with egg and then something else too. We had not had a problem up until last night. When the meals arrived the rice and egg dish was different it had onion in it - which is not a big deal because we all love onion. However we took a couple of bites and then realized that the onion had not been cooked. The biggest no no for a foreigner (westerner) to do is to eat a vegetable that is not cooked!!! So we immediately called room service back and asked for a new dish of rice and egg. But about 45 min. went by and nothing. We we called again - but still nothing. Then Greg said lets just order a new one so he called and ordered a new one but we finally gave up about 8:40pm. The language barrier can be difficult at times and this was one of those time.
The next morning we told Nelson about what had happened - the next thing we know we have two ladies at our door one with money and one with a large plate of fruit - both saying how sorry there were for the mistake. It was very nice of them to do that.
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