Day 2 Beijing

Well, got about four hours sleep last night, mamma and I were both up at 5:00 making coffee. We had breakfast and met out guide Charlotte for the second day of touring. First stop..the great wall...spectacular and massive...not for the weak or weary. It is located in the mountain area outside Beijing and there were a ton of people there, it was packed like sardines all the way up...we went up to the first little tower thing and tok some pictures, very beautiful scenery, some local people wanted to take a picture with my mom and I. I was told this might happen but didn't expect it...I thought they would rather have pictures with the blond foreigners....each person took turns standing with us getting their picture taken...very odd feeling.












I was planning on putting a brass lock on the wall with








"Newton" inscribed on it but for some reason they aren't currently selling the locks. There are vendors there that can inscribe them if you have your own. Wish I knew! Our guide takes her clients there all the time so she said she would take a lock up and have our family name inscribed on it and take a picture of it's location so one day we could come back and find it.








And I definitely would love to come back here with Brian and


Mac & Luci when in 5 or 6 years.








My mom is a great travel buddy, we are really enjoying learning so much about China's history and culture. After the great wall we went to the jade factory. Like the silk factory it is a government run store with guides that show you the process. They have the artists there carving the jade. The art is passed down from generation to generation in certain families. The carvings were amazing and huge...and seriously expensive. Even the small little carved pieces, considered "promotional" or tourist pieces were $42 each...no thanks. And the jewelry, very expensive also. We loved learning about all the different kinds of jade and the history of some of the traditional carved pieces. Learned how to rub a Buddah correctly! You have to rub the belly for happiness, the long earlobes for long life, the head for intelligence and something in his hand for money...I will let you know how it works!
After the Great Wall and the Jade factory we walked through their Olympic park.







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After that we went to a tea house for a traditional tea ceremony and some great education on the benefits of tea. And for those of you that have done this...yes we got the "pee-pee boy"!






After the tea ceremony we took a break and went to KFC and had ice cream. We didnt recognize anything else on the menu...definitly not selling original recipe over in China!

Then we walked to the theatre and saw the acrobat show. I didnt take pics of the first act because i was scared my flash would startle him and i would be responsible for his death! He kept stacking chairs up and up and up...and he kept climbing ip and doing all these balancing tricks on the wobbly stack of chairs...i could barely watch, it stressed me out!

The rest of the acts were beautiful and these kids were very talented.

































Yep, that would be five guys on five motorcycles in front of that steel ball.


And below you can see they are all in there at one time! FIVE!!
It was stressfull to watch, they were doing in different directions, barely missing each other...nuts!


The closing...very beautiful!











Great show! Now time to get dumplings, go to bed! Head to Wuhan tomorrow morning!

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