After a better than expected night’s sleep, it was time for breakfast and then a big day seeing the sight’s of Cora’s beautiful country. We flew into Beijing so that we could spend 2 days sightseeing and adjusting to the time change before Cora Day.
We loaded into our tour bus with several other adoptive families who would soon become friends, and made our way to The Great Wall. If you would have asked me 1 1/2 years ago if I ever thought I would see The Great Wall, I would have laughed and said, “no way”. It wasn’t even on my bucket list. With 13,170 miles of man made wall, there is obviously no way to comprehend the magnitude of this world wonder and seeing it in person only made it that much more unbelievable.
Somehow, I thought we would be walking on a flat part of the wall, but after seeing it, I’m not so sure that such parts exist. We were climbing steep, uneven, and icy stairs which seemed to never end….
Mandy went up to the first tower, and deserves some sort of trophy for doing that 20+ weeks pregnant. I think I made it about halfway between the last two towers you see there before I decided I wanted to be walking on my own two feet when I first met Cora. The ice got worse and worse the farther up I went.
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We made our way back to Beijing for lunch and toured a Jade Market which was quite magnificent. After lunch, we were in for quite a treat.
Rickshaw rides around a historical neighborhood in Beijing, Hutong Lane.
This woman treated us to a tour of her historical home filled with antiques and historical pieces.
and you thought you had a small kitchen!
We were about as tired as this pup after all of our tours. Jet lag had definitely caught up with me so we didn’t venture too far from the hotel for dinner. We played it safe with some Italian fare next door.
