Day 2 - The Great Wall, Amazing Race Porta Potties and traffic that makes you miss DC....

After crashing hard last night around 9:00 and sleeping (or trying to) near a buzzsaw called Mother, we got an early start today. If we weren't awake when we got on the bus, the traffic certainly woke us up:






We went to a government jade store--which is good, apparently, ensuring the quality (and authenticity) of the jade. Jade being the diamonds of China, of course. We heard many interesting concubine-related tales involving jade yesterday at the Forbidden City, as well as the health-supporting qualities of jade, so we were all looking forward to the opportunity to see artisans working with and purchase this miracle stone. It was quite interesting and they got a good bit of money from several of us, but I cleared out half of my shopping list and knew that I purchased high-quality stuff at the price I was told to purchase it...so a win-win, I suppose.





Then it was on to the main event: The Great Wall of China. Turns out that now, I'm officially both a man and a Hero of the People's Republic of China. Chairman Mao said so. All because I climbed my fool ass up and down that wall. It was definitely worth the pain to say I did it, but holy crap was that thing steep and were those steps hard to deal with! Uneven does not begin to adequately describe them. Some were four inches high, some were two feet high. It was completely random. It wasn't like you could just get a mindless rhythm going and just start cruising...you had to watch every step, going up and coming down. But man, was it worth it--and not just to receive the labels from Chairman Mao, either.




After the Great Wall, we went to lunch, where they had some complimentary "Beijing White Liquor" on the table. The three guys at our table all took a sample shot. Smelled and tasted just like tequila. One shot was plenty--especially for someone who's had a really bad tequila experience. As with yesterday, the food was great. The restaurant was right above a government "cloissone" store, which is a type of copper artwork. It was beautiful, and there were some nice Christmas ornaments--but they weren't on the approved shopping list. So I just browsed...while being hounded by the staff. But I really think Adreanna and Addie would've liked some of the ornaments I saw. Oh well...

Then it was on to the Olympic Village for a brief stop to take pictures of the Bird's Nest stadium and Water Cube natatorium. Both beautiful structures in their own right. But Adreanna and I are huge fans of The Amazing Race, and I saw something on the grounds there that made Amazing Race history: porta-potties. A year or so ago, a team was racing for the pit stop at the Bird's Nest. One of the contestants just couldn't hold it any more and had to stop at one of the porta-potties nearby...and it cost that team the race. So I just HAD to take a picture...



Early start tomorrow. We get on the plane to Zhengzhou, then Wednesday is Gotcha Day. The anticipation and tension is building for all of us. We were all talking a lot more about it today...it's getting more real, I think. It's really good that we've got someone with us (Brandy) who adopted from Zhengzhou just a year and a half ago--she's been giving us a lot of helpful information on how everything went with her.

More tomorrow with impressions of Zhengzhou.