Friday night in Beijing

I'm back. I went upstairs to the room and Roger and Natalie are passed out cold....TV blaring, lights on & all. They were completely out so I decided to take advantage of the time & come finish posting pictures from the day.

I'll hit the highlights of our trip so far:

• Last night, we went to the Acrobatic Show. It was spectacular & we had really good seats right in the middle and near the front. I cannot imagine how those people learned to do all those amazing feats of acrobats, spinning plates, balancing numerous folks and props on their heads and all the other stuff they do. I was so tired I forgot the camera. And that's a shame because I can't really describe it all. Plus, the 3 of us were SO exhausted that our heads kept falling over! No matter how fascinating it was, nothing could stop us from momentarily falling asleep.
• Great Wall and Zoo today, which I already described.
• The we went to tour the Hutong. We toured via pedicab (aka rickshaw) the neighborhoods of 700 year old structures. These are mostly family homes centered around a family courtyard. They described how they would situate the buildings according to Feng Shui. We were invited into one family's home. Around one small courtyard were 4 buildings. One housed the kitchen and dining room, 2 others were the sleeping quarters and the last one was a workshop where the father was a papercut artist. He did amazing works of art.
• By then, we were pretty hungry, so Doris found a local restaurant for us. We had a great feast of fried rice, some kind of fantastic stir-fried flour thingies (go-da?), beef with veggies that Natalie could not get enough of, hot/sour soup, Beijing noodles (obviously home made), brocolli, 2 giant size Tsing Tao beers, a huge apple juice, bottled water, etc. for a whopping $14! Gotta love that!

Natalie has received LOTS of attention from curious Beijingers. Normally she craves the limelight, but it did not take her very long to realize she does not like it. It is funny to see the looks on locals faces. They look at her and even if she is holding Doris' hand, they seem like they can't figure out the connection. Once, when Doris had stepped away to take Daniel somewhere, a man walked right up and started asking questions of Natalie in Chinese. I said no Chinese, she's an American. He seemed dumfounded or something that she didn't answer him. Oh well. Other Chinese asked Doris if they could get their picture taken with the goofy-looking Americans! It was wierd. They promptly plopped a baby in my arms and took the picture with us holding their baby! As I was handing the little cutie back, I noticed his bare bottom had been resting on my arm! I didn't see the split pants. But no accidents on me....thank goodness! We've seen LOTS of split pants & now I have seen them in action. Saves lots of $$ in diapers. Lots of little kids wave at us and even babies smile at us on the street. Are we that funny looking? When we go to Nanning tomorrow, we are sure to get much more attention, as that city does not have as many foreigners as Beijing does. This hotel has lots of Australians and New Zealanders. I love to hear their accents. And surely they would love to hear a good southern drawl!

OK, I think that is now it for the night. This will be a big fat internet bill, but at least we are now up to date. Hoping to get a room with a computer in it tomorrow in Nanning, so posting will be easier it that is the case.

Thanks for reading our blog. Oh, and I can get access to my emails just fine, so feel free to email me as well.

On to the next step in our journey to our mei mei. I suppose in just over 24 hours.....we'll have Natalie's mei mei. Scary thought, but I'm sure it will be fine.

Here we are with Doris and Daniel after the Hutong tour. We are at a lake nearby.

Check out this real live Panda bear! He was pretty amazing but sure does need a nice warm bath to get his fur sparkly clean! All the other pandas were too busy having a siesta to be bothered with us.

No, I'm not sunburned :-) I probably looked like I was going to have a stroke! ha!
You can see Roger and Natalie in this shot. They left me in the dust as they climbed higher. I was waiting for them farther down. They are in the middle of the picture....Roger is wearing my bright green bag. Looks like a walk in the park for them! ha!
Can you see how STEEP these steps are?!? My muscles are so tired! I think I'll be needing one of those great massages! I was happy to leave the GW with my body intact and no heart attack!

This one is a better picture of the wall itself.

Here we are at the Great Wall....sorry, I didn't post the one with all the wall showing! OOPS