Sunday, 10/19/08. Another busy day!

We all met this morning at 9 for another day of sight-seeing. We got on the bus, and the first stop was at a jade gallery. Jade has tremendous historical signifigance in China, and we took a tour and learned much more about jade than we ever knew we needed to know! Frances loved the jade horses. I bought bracelets for Frances, Abigail and me (not the expensive bangles) and then I did get an expensive bangle bracelet for Abigail, for when she is older.
After that, it was off to the Great Wall! Frances went with one of the dads and the two older boys, while I followed behind at a much slower pace. She returned with one of the other dads from our group, pooped out. It was steeper and more difficult than she had thought it would be! We had a great time exploring the buildings and tunnels that are part of the Wall, and Frances did cartwheels on The Great Wall! Three more Chinese families asked to take pictures of/with Frances. She is really in demand her for other people's photographs!
After spending about 2 hours at the Wall, we got back onto the bus and went to the cloisonne factory. I had not realized what a difficult and intricate process it is to make cloisonne! I would have liked to purchase some of the beautiful vases, but they were quite expensive. From there, we went to lunch at another "traditional Chinese restaurant," that was not quite as good as yesterday's. One of the things that the kids freaked out about (but I think they secretly enjoyed) was that a cooked fish was served, with head, tail and all! We joked about the fish for the entire meal. After lunch, we went to the Olympic Village to see the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest. We returned to the hotel in the late afternoon, and most of the families agreed to go together and get a quick bite to eat out in the neighborhood, before returning to our rooms to pack up. We leave the hotel tomorrow (Monday) at 8 a.m., so our CCAI rep arranged wake-up calls for 6:30 a.m. It will be interesting to get a wake-up call in Chinese! By 8, we need to have checked out and had breakfast, and then we will go to the airport to travel to Zhengzhou in the province of Henan. We'll get settled, and then on Tuesday, will be united with our new children! So for now, it's off to bed, and I really hope that I will not be awake from 3 to 6 a.m. like I was this morning.....