Olympic Bird Nest -- Day 7, August 1, 2014

            The adventure continues….the hot sweaty one that is!  We met our guide in the lobby at 8am and she kept us hopping until we got back to the hotel around 6pm.  Today we went to the Cloisonne Factory, jade factory, the Great Wall of China, and the Bird’s Nest (2008 Olympic park).  I hope I can remember all that we did to write it down, we did and saw so much today.  We also have 3 other families touring with us who are also Bethany families.  They haven’t received their children yet, so these tours are a bit easier on them.

            1^st the Cloisonne factory was really neat.  We were able to see about a dozen artisans making the crafts.   It is a very involved process that they start with a copper base (could be a vase or jewelry or whatever).  Then they add the design with some kind of copper wire.  They first glue it then the fire it for just a couple of minutes to harden it.  Then they added the color to the piece.  The color is a powder and it takes about 7 layers I think to get the right thickness.   I can’t remember exactly, but it seems like they fire it between color layers.   The final product is a very durable piece of art.  Jeff and I went a little crazy in the gift shop, but when will we ever be here again?  It was fun finding pieces to share with Miley one day.  They will represent her past in China and future in America because they will remind us of our amazing adventure to bring her home.

            2^nd the jade factory was beautiful too.  We got to see a few artisans carving the jade with machines, but honestly, I was holding our “little lady” so I don’t remember much of it.  Again we had fun in the gift shop.  Jeff bought me a beautiful jade bangle that is dark green with all natural white curves in it.  It is so beautiful and will aways remind me of this trip.

            3^rd the Great Wall of China was a beast!  The section of the wall that our guide took us had two paths you could take.  An easy one and a hard one….guess which one we went on?  Of course we tackled the hard one, because well we will only be in China once right!  I can’t believe we did it!  Jeff carried Miley up in the carrier the whole time and she actually napped on the way up and woke up at the top.   How far was it to the top?  It was one mile straight up…all hand laid stairs!  Some of the steps had a 3 inch rise and others had over a 16 inch or so rise.   Basically they were not the same heights and some were so tall and steep that we had to use our hands to grab the step in front of us as we climbed.  It was a feat and a half to get to the top!  On the way back down (yes one mile straight down of very steep steps) my legs muscles were shaking they were so tired and I could visibly see Jeff’s calf muscles twitching.  He was amazing!  Miley loved the ride down.  She laughed a lot with all the bouncing.  Once again we had may photos taken of Jeff carrying Miley on his back…it’s almost like he is an animal in the zoo here!  All over the Great Wall people of all kinds of nationalities were pointing at Jeff…it was mostly the Chinese who thought it was funny…most of the European or Australian tourist just thought Jeff was crazy for carrying her up the wall.  I think this is my favorite place we have visited so far.  As we were climbing the wall, I took about a billion photos.  Unfortunately there was only about a 1000 ft visibility everywhere we have gone in China.  Every guide we have had blames it on the “mist” that they have in the summer time, but I bet a big portion of it is pollution too.  It is really really hard to see in the distance.  We haven’t seen the sun since we got here minus a few minutes around sunset.  We can see a small glowing ball behind the “mist” every evening here in Beijing.  It’s strange.  It’s hot and humid, but we haven’t seen our shadows much at all because there isn’t much sun.  It’s very strange and not like anything I’ve ever experienced.   I can’t explain this heat.  It’s not muggy like Florida and definitely not dry like our West in the U.S., it’s just horrible!  I’ve never sweat so much before in my life!  It’s doable, but let’s just say we drank 5 bottles of water on the Great Wall and did not have to use the restroom at all!  Whatever we drank came out of us in sweat!  We don’t smell to good, but extremely thankful that we thought to pack only water wicking clothing.  It was totally saved us!

            4^th we went to the Bird’s Nest which is where the 2008 Summer Olympics were held.  We weren’t able to go into any of the stadiums, so we just walked around for about 1.5 hours.  We were so ready for some air conditioning and rest in that order.  It was interesting seeing those amazing structures, but again….we were tired!  Miley did great again.  She loves the backpack carrier and just smiles and waves at everyone and says, “Ah-yea” to them.  I asked our guide if she was saying something in Chinese because the other child in our group who has Down syndrome from her orphanage says the same thing, but he said it’s just baby talk.  It’s so funny because both Miley and Ben say the same things.  When they get hyper they both make a kind of goose noise back and forth to each other.  We can only imagine what their room in the orphanage sounded like when all the kids were doing it at the same time!  Their nannies hopefully had a lot of patience and humor!  I have loved watching her and Ben together.  Miley always hits Ben and then Ben looks to his mom, Tonya, with the biggest sad eyes ever and then curls his lip…yes we are working on this..hehe.

            5^th we finally made it back to the hotel around 6pm and with all 6 Bethany families we walked around Beijing following one of the dads who was following a map on his phone.  We found a restaurant that looked good, but they didn’t have room for all of us.  So we left and as we were walking down the street a waitress chased us down and told us that they had made room for us.  They gave us two large tables in an upstairs room.  It was quite fancy, but didn’t cost much money.  They food was very good and best part it was air conditioned! 

            It was another long day, but we saw and did a ton!  We feel so blessed to have been able to adopt our Miley girl and have her join us in all these adventures.  It’s been a blast!