Thanks so much for visiting us during our journey, David, Mary and Sophie Elizabeth!
Over 2200 years ago China was a non-unified group of kingdoms fighting among one another. One king decided to close his territory off from the others by erecting a wall. Other kings saw how well this worked and followed suit. Around 600 years ago, China became unified under one Emperor. This Emperor decided to extend his wall throughout the border lands in order to keep barbarians out of the splendid and majestic land. Today, we walked that wall, or rather climbed it, and that makes it a Great Wall!
After a family-style lunch of local fare, we headed out to the Emperor’s Summer Palace because everyone has to get out of the city and into the country once in awhile. We rode a dragon boat across the lake to the palace. The palace was much the same as the Forbidden City, only the intricate paintings were not only colorful but portrayed actual historic scenes.
On the way from Beijing to the Great Wall, we stopped at a local jade factory, or I should say palace. You could spend upwards of 350,000 for a depiction of a palace or a very large sailing vessel. The clerks were disappointed to learn that we were not in the market for a 10 foot long, 6 foot high, 1000 pound piece of jade. However, we did purchase a jade pendant for Sophie, in the form of a delicately carved little doggies as that is the Chinese zodiac sign for 2006, the year of Sophie's birth. By the way, Mary was born in the sign of the dragon & I was born in the sign of the snake.
We just returned from eating our dinner at Mickey D's -- that's right, they're everywhere and the fries taste exactly the same as in America.
As we write this we are preparing for our meeting with Sophie in only 21 hours! We are scared to death but so excited. As of the next writing, we will be grown-up responsible parents!
