The Great Wall

Well, this was one of the tourist highlights of our trip. We boarded our bus this morning for the Great Wall. The portion of the wall we visited is about a hour from our hotel (within Beijing city limits). The Wall was about 6,000 km long but many portions have since crumbled. We visited near the Badaling portion which is quite popular with tourists (as it is less steep to climb).

On the way to the wall, we stopped in at the Jade factory where we saw a brief presentation on the manufacture, different types and qualities of Jade. I had no idea there were so many types and this stuff in the showroom was quite expensive. We bought Stephanie and Sophie a little jade pendant which is supposed to bring good luck.

Back to the Wall, it was much steeper than we had thought it would be and it was a pretty hot and muggy day (thankfully there was a bit of a breeze). Daddy had the baby carrier with Sophie and the backpack and all of us climbed to one of the first guard towers. After, Daddy climbed up to the top tower with a few others from the group, while Stephanie, Sophie and Mommy waited below. It was a difficult climb (the steps are quite uneven) and we all have rubber legs. The third picture above was taken from the top and you can see the tour buses below. The tower that you see in the middle towards the bottom of the picture is where Stephanie, Sophie and Mommy waited.

After climbing we got some souvenirs (Stephanie got a "I Climbed the Great Wall of China" t-shirt). Apparently, Chairman Mao said that "you are not a hero until you've climbed the Great Wall" so I guess we're all supposed to be heroes now. After the Wall it was off to lunch and then back to our hotel around 4:00 pm.

Daddy then went to shop to buy some more formula and snacks and got Subway sandwiches for dinner. After a brief swim in the pool, we've gone to bed. It's been a long day.
Sophie is sleeping well and is a real angel. There is only one problem, she refuses to eat! We've run out of the formula we got from the orphanage and she won't eat the new formula (or very little else). You can't get the orphanage formula here so we're trying another local formula without much success. She loves her juice but not formula or anything else (with the exception of a little applesauce). She's getting her fluids but her lack of eating is becoming a concern to us (when we try to feed her she just screams bloody murder and spits her food out). Oh well, we had similar problems with Stephanie and we got through it, so we'll just have to figure something out.

While we love seeing the sights of Beijing but we're getting tired and are looking forward to getting home. We miss our own beds and are tired of restaurant food. We can't wait to get Sophie home to meet all of you and to get into some semblance of a routine family life (and not living out of a suitcase).

Missing you all terribly,

Love, Chris, Caroline, Stephanie and Sophie.