Day 4, Great Wall

I promise to write more tomorrow.  We were gone touring from 9am to 6:30pm.  To say we are exhausted is an understatement.  But tomorrow is a free day and we are planning on staying here at the hotel and basically doing nothing.  Claire held up the entire day but then got sick on the last bus ride.  She told our guide"I didn't take my medicine.  I don't like the medicine but I need it."  We won't skip the Dramamine again.

 

So, here was the abbreviated version of our day.

Leave hotel and visit:

1. A jade factory. It was awesome and I wish I had tons of money because I would have bought everyone a jade bangle bracelet.  I'm not a huge bangle bracelet fan but these were really nice.  Did you know jade came in many different colors including purple?

2. Visit the Great Wall. (chung chum) 
I am a wuss and crapped out only part way up to the first watch tower.  J continued up the wall to 3rd watch tower and took videos and pictures for all of you.  He's going to be so sore tomorrow that we'll have no option but to stay here at the hotel.

3. Eat at a traditional Chinese restaurant with our group (4 families).  This was actually a lot of fun.  We were at a big round table with a lazy susan in the middle.  They just kept bringing Chinese food and nobody knew what it was.  I'm fairly certain I ate octopus tentacles today; the flavor was great but none of us knew exactly what it was.  We did not ask; some things are better left unsaid. 
4. Visit a cloisonne factory.  These are the very bright, porcelain looking vases, plates, etc.  We learned these are actually copper.  Again, beautiful pieces but somewhat expensive and we don't know how to get them back without breaking.

5. Visit the Summer Palace.

Another amazing, huge place for the emperors of China.  This is where they spent their time in the summer when they left the Forbidden City.  The empress and the emperor's mother stayed here more during the summer.

6. McDonalds.  Adventurous lunch, not so much for dinner and, we were exhausted.

 

Claire is starting to really test some limits.  It's very hard to establish discipline when she doesn't understand us.  She is particularly feisty and downright not nice to daddy.  She thinks it's funny and we played along for the first day but we see trouble ahead so we learned the phrase today for "not nice"- boo how.  No is "boo shur" so we got in some good practice today with that.  She responds well to no but I know we will have our first confrontation soon.