Ming Tombs, Great Wall, shopping and Jackie Chan!

Hey Everyone!It is about 8pm Saturday night and things are great. We are having a real nice time so far. Our second day started with a 6:00am wake up call this morning. We were able to go to sleep at 11:30pm last night and slept pretty good. Bill said a train came through the room last night but I must have slept through it??? Oh!!! I get it now! I guess that means I was snoring. I am so sorry Bill. I am glad he brought ear plugs. I will try to sleep on my belly tonight. He said that I did not keep him up all night. I sure hope not. We got up showered and went down stairs because we had booked a tour and the guide was picking us up at 7:30am. We had a quick breakfast at the hotel restaurant. It is called Salt & Pepper. It had a pretty wide variety of breakfast foods with a Chinese flare. We filled up because we had along day ahead of us. Jackie our guide from Destination Travel China picked us up at the hotel with his driver at 7:30am on the dot. Jackie is the American name he picked because he is a big fan of the Kung Fu movie star Jackie Chan. Chinese people that work with English speaking foreigners pick those names for easier communication. The Chinese names are usually too difficult for us to pronounce. We took a small bus from the hotel and made stops at two other hotels to pick up some other people. In our group was a young couple from Houston who live in Singapore but are on a vacation through southeast Asia, they are staying at our hotel as well. Another couple was a middle aged couple from England and a another couple from Japan all on vacation. It was a nice small group. During the drive I saw and got a picture of a Fire Station. It was the first one that I have seen in both visits here so far. I also took a picture of Hannah's dalmation. Look Hannah. He made it to China with me. I will take more pictures with him later in the week. We started the tour at the Ming Tombs. On the way Jackie our guide told us about himself. He is married with a young daughter and He lives in Zhengzhou which is pronounced Jung-Jo. It is the city we are flying to tomorrow afternoon, so that is pretty cool. He works in Beijing and he said he works seven days a week so I am not sure how often he is able to see his family. He is a real nice guy and his English was very good. It was nice to get info from him because we had been having a little bit of trouble communicating but everyone has been fabulous to us. He has been a guide for seven years and he says that he speaks more English than Chinese for his work. He said he even dreams in English. That was pretty funny. We asked him about why we could not get close to the Olympic venues. He said that the security is extremely tight and with eighteen Country leaders including President Bush coming to Beijing soon, the Chinese are very concerned about providing enough security for them. It is a bummer for the tourists but it is understandable. Jackie said his company just provided a tour to some American journalists and they were able to get close but that was the only one he knew of. The local Chinese are not allowed in either. After about a 45 minute ride we arrived at the Ming Tombs. The Ming Tombs are the only Emperor Tombs in Beijing. There are 13 of the 16 Ming dynasty Emperors buried here. The Ming Dynasty 1368-1644AD was the last of five dynasties that spanned over 800 years. I hope you all wanted to know some background on that? We walked around and saw some real old buildings and relics and some funny worded signs for about an hour and a half or so. It was a very in depth Chinese history lesson. I wish I could recall more but it is allot of information. After the Ming tombs we went to the Jade factory. It was a different one than when Kim and I visited the last time but it was basically a lesson in manufacturing jade and qualities of jade. I did learn that the once beautiful lavender jade bracelet that I bought Kimmie the last time was color injected instead of naturally lavender. It also should not have been graded B it should have been C or lower. Oh well, Live and Learn I guess. After some unsuccessful shopping because I could not find a bracelet there for Kimmie we traveled to lunch and more shopping at the friendship store. The lunch was very Chinese served on a giant "lazy Susan" with family sized portions to share some different foods. It was pretty good though. I was able to buy some silk dresses for Hannah, Kailey and Janelle and some fans for Hannah. She wanted some real Chinese fans. I bought her a couple that I think she will like. Jackie told a very nice story about one of the fans just for you Hannah. I posted the video. It was a Chinese fairy tale. After shopping we went to the Great Wall. It was the Ba Da Ling portion of the Wall. It was a different section than the last time we were here. It was much steeper and longer. We climbed up about three towers or so. It was hot and pretty hazy but we had fun. They were setting up a big stage and sound and light system while we are there. I guess Jackie Chan will be there tonight for a program called Disciple of the Dragon. I think it will be a martial arts competition of some kind. It would have been cool to see him, but it was cool regardless. I am a big Jackie Chan fan myself. They had a ton of Olympic souvenirs at the gift shop here as well. I bought a few things for the girls and the boys at work too. They had some very nice Olympic themed gifts there. After a long day of site seeing we were driven back to the hotel. We had dinner at Salt & Pepper's. It was pretty good dinner but the desserts were awesome. The Chinese like their dessertd but how do they stay so thin??? UGGH! I was able to call Kim and Hannah for the first time. I was having a real hard time with the calling card I bought so the staff came to my room to help me make the call. It was real nice to talk to them and hear their voices. It doesn't feel right being in here with out Kimmie and the little angel that brought me here in the first place. Hannah you are a such a joy in my life and I can't wait to take you here some day so you can see the country where you were born. It is the place where God made us a forever family and we need to come back as a family again. Well,here we are now at 9:30. It has been a real long day. I will close now and post some pictures and video from today. I love you all. God Bless and Zai Jyen from Beijing..

Bill and I conquered 4 towers but the Wall beat us in the end!!!
Jackie telling Hannah about the story of the girl on the fan.