Another wonderful day!

Today was busy but very enjoyable. We started our morning at 6:45 with breakfast in the hotel restaurant. As usual, I had to wake Jaida! She was very happy this morning and ready for another big adventure. We boarded the bus at 8:30 and our first stop was the Jade factory. I was excited to buy a beautiful Jade bracelet for myself and two smaller bracelets for the girls. Jade is very expensive (for the best quality) so I kept asking the sales ladies if they had anything "less expensive". They were laughing at me and in the end, I was in the back corner of the store trying on bracelets in my price range. lol We also bought a "Happy Family" ball, which I was willing to pay the price for. I was SO happy to find what I was looking for. It's difficult to describe, but it's several balls within one big ball, each ball bigger than the next. Each ball is hand-carved. I think it's beautiful and a great souvenir from the country that has helped make our "happy family".

From there it was off to the Great Wall of China. It's was a breathtaking sight, once again. It was very crowded, being Sunday and all, but we did walk a bit on the wall with Jaida and got her souvenir plaque stating "I climed the great wall!".

From there, we went to the Cloisonne Factory. Here they make all kinds of vases, ornaments, etc, from copper that is decorated and painted. We had lunch in the restaurant upstairs. It was wonderful to sit down and enjoy conversation with the Rundle family and the Nellers, both from Ontario.

Once again, we boarded the bus to travel to our next destination: the 2008 Olympic grounds. It was interesting as we had seen the grounds being prepared when we travelled to China in 2007. By this time, everyone was tired so we did a quick drive by and continued on the road back to the hotel. We arrived back at about 4:30. A very full day indeed!!

Tonight we ordered room service. A club sandwich and fries between the 3 of us. We don't seem to need three full meals a day, just enough to tide us over. It was tasty for sure. Jaida then had a bath and watched some T.V with Baba. She seems very interested in television, pointing and talking, even swatting Marvin in the arm once to make sure he was paying attention to the screen! lol

Jaida was amazing today. She loved being on the bus and watching the view out the window (wish the view out the window of the plane was going to be as stimulating!) She did a lot of walking and was very well behaved. She continues to be very serious and deliberate at meal time and doesn't show much of her personality around strangers. She has been saving that for back at the hotel room. I'm getting lots of video of her talking Chinese on the advice of some other adoptive moms who say it will quickly disappear. Thanks to Susan and Kath for your tips on what she's saying! They told us that she talked a lot and was very active. Quite an accurate description I think!

Tomorrow we have the day off. The group is travelling to the Summer Palace, but we've decided just to stay back and do a few things on our own. It's definitely a beautiful place, but a lot of walking and a big history lesson involved, so we've decided to go at our own pace for tomorrow. Tuesday is the Pearl Market and the acrobat show in the evening. We really enjoyed that last time and look forward to seeing it again.

That's all for now. We all continue to feel healthy, besides a bit of dizziness for both Marvin and I. I guess that's part of the travelling sometimes. We've been up and down in airplanes 8 times in a week span, so perhaps that has something to do with it. It's certainly not keeping us down though. We're enjoying every moment here in China.

Just tried posting pics again...grrr...not letting me. I promise I'll try again!!