Great Wall - Great Day

Great Wall - Great Day

Thank you, everyone, for your prayers. After a feverish night I enjoyed a day with no fever and no stomach problems. Thank You, God!

After a very quick breakfast, we were slow moving this morning, we met up with Tingting in the lobby. Roger had to take 2 extra trips back to our room. The first was for his hat. Then as we were getting on the bus I realized that I hadn't gotten the snuggly. So back he went again.

On the way to the Great Wall - over an hour's drive, we stopped at a jade factory. We were given a special discount - 35% off anything we bought - because we were adopting a Chinese baby. We bought two things there.

Then it was on to the Great Wall. During the trip Tingting gave us a lot of information about it's history and other tidbits about China.

I was nervous about the climb, especially since I had to carry Violet and just recovering from whatever I had had the night before. The first part that we walked was sloped, not steps. Then the steps began. It wasn't easy. Roger took some pictures of the steps, but the ones that he got were the short ones. Some steps were almost to my knees. A lot of the way had a railing (I'm sure not original :) so that helped. I had many people say things like, "You are very strong" and the like when they saw me climbing with Violet. We hadn't gone too far when I knew that I needed to take it easy. Going down was even worse than going up - for me at least. Wearing the snuggly made it so that I couldn't see my feet. Tori and Roger went ahead of me and warned me of "dangers" like puddles, steep steps, drainage troughs, etc.

Tori decided to stay with me while Roger started to climb again. I am so proud of how far he got. He went to the second tower up. Quite a feat.

We stopped at a Chinese restaurant on the way home. I didn't eat much, even though the food was very good, because I wanted to take it easy on my stomach.

Then it was home to the hotel. I was happy to get back to our room and take it easy. But I had to wait until after we went for a swim. Tori was pleased to be back at a hotel with a pool. Violet loved swimming, which we were expecting since she loves bathtime. She was not so fond of the swimming cap. But after she got in the water she forgot about it.

Tomorrow we go and get Violet's pictures for her visa and permanent residency. She gets her medical. We also go to the Canadian Embassy and apply for her visa. It will be a very important day.

We plan to go to The Temple of Heaven tomorrow afternoon. We are going to get a calligraphy scroll done for Violet. It will be done by a descendant of the Emporer's Family.