Greetings from Beijing China!!! Sorry for the delayed post, but apparently our blog is blocked in China. Go figure! But, we recruited Andy to do a little cutting and pasting for us to keep you all up to date.
We arrived in Beijing on Thursday at about 3pm. The flight wasn't as bad as either of us had expected. I think the huge selection of movies, tv shows, games, and music helped a lot! Elena managed a cat nap or 2, and Sarah was able to get a nice solid 3 hours of sleep on the flight. But, somehow, once we got to Beijing, we were wide awake! We meet our awesome guide, Lisa, and checked into the King Wing Hot Spring Hotel. The hotel is absolutely gorgeous, and does not make you feel like you are in China at all. We freshened up, and headed down the street for our first authentic Chinese meal. We sat at a large round table, with a huge lazy susan in the middle. They brought over tons of different dishes. Sarah tried everything, and ate her fair share!! Elena made a good effort and tasted many of the courses! Did she like them? Um....
On Friday we toured Tianamenn Square, the Forbidden City, and the Temple of Heaven. They were all remarkable, beautiful, amazing, awesome, etc, etc. BUT, the day was HOT, HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT, did I mention, HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! mid to upper 90s, and we were walking all day. Needless to say, we were one exhausted group. But the day did not end there!!! After the temple of heaven, we headed over to the Pearl Market. Picture Tiajuana on steroids. It was NUTS. Sales people grabbing you, shoving things into your hands, putting jewelry on you. It was unbelieveable!!! So, of course we had to test out our haggling. I think we did pretty good!! We both got quite a few presents, and trinkets, for under $30!!! The bargaining was hysterical, as the salepeople had very limited English: "You like"? "What is your finish price?" and they would shove a calculator at you. After the pearl market, we went to the acrobat show. AMAZING. The stuns that these people did were absolutely unreal. Though, after the long, hot hot hot hot hot day, Sarah had heavy eyelids and was fighting the temptation to fall asleep.
On Saturday we climbed the Great Wall. One side of the wall is significantly more difficult than the other side, so of course we picked the tough side!!!! We weren't far up at all when we hit people grid lock. Of the 20 million residents of Beijing, I think 19 million were on the difficult part of the wall. It was NUTS. So, we aborted that mission and hit up the 'easier', les crowded side. But, the easier side had it's own challenges!!! Elena made it up pretty far, leaving Sarah in her dust. Sarah made it up a good amount, but turned around when she realized ever single pore in her body was pouring out sweat. PRETTY!!! After the wall, we had dumplings for lunch in an 'authentic' (dirty) restaurant. The dumplings were delicious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (According to Sarah. Elena wasn't feeling adventurous when it came to the dumplings). We finished up lunch and headed over to Living Hope's orphanage in Fangshan. Though, the kids were on vacation and unfortunately we did not get to meet them. We did get to tour the building, and meet a few new kids. It was awesome to see this place finally, after hearing about it so much!!!! Oh, and this was the site of Sarah's first encounter with a squatty potty. Elena tackled the squatty potty the day before at dinner. Following the orphanage visit, we had our Peking duck dinner. ELENA TASTED THE DUCK. Don't worry....we have pictures!!!!
That's all for now. We will do our best to put up some pictures soon!! For now, the sheer exhaustion of the days has us both in bed by 9.
Sarah
