Day 3 - Jade Factory, Great Wall, Cloisonne Factory, Olympic Stadium, Acrobatic Show

Believe it or not, we had to wake Zachary up this morning - he slept all the way through from the bus ride back to the hotel last night!!  Mr. Zhou had yet another incredible day of site-seeing planned for us today!!  Once again we had a 9:00 am departure time for the bus.  We headed north of the city to a Jade Factory to learn how to determine the quality of jade and see how they carve such incredibly beautiful pieces. One particular piece that they spoke about and specialize in making called the Family Generational Ball.  The ball begins as a solid piece of Jade and is carved into several intricate free floating interior balls, one inside one another. They said that some pieces take a lifetime to create due to the level of detail.  We purchased a small ball which had a dragon and a phoenix carved on the outside layer. 

Next it was on to the most anticipated event of our site-seeing tours - The Great Wall of China!!   We went to a town called Badaling which is where many tourists go to climb the Great Wall.  Since it was in the mountains and the temperatures were pretty chilly, we all bundled up (except me - it wasn't until I got to Badaling that I realized my jacket didn't make the trip!! Ugh!), strapped on every camera we owned and headed in the direction Mr. Zhou suggested.  There were two options from this location - one which was an "hour" loop and the "all-day" loop and since we were on a strict time schedule, the group all headed out on the "hour" loop.  We spent the first 15 minutes taking photos of all of us at the starting point of our big hike.  Once we finally got started, we had to go down three sets of extremely steep steps - two sets of which were in a dark tower stairwells. The stair treads had been worn away over the years due to the weather and high foot traffic, which makes for unsteady footing.  The stair riser heights were in no way standardized, it went anywhere from 1-4 brick widths high.  This definitely made the climb both mentally and physically strenuous, as you always had to be aware of changes in the heights.  There was no rhyme or reason to the heights, except the wall simply follows the terrain.  After the first set of steep stairs UP, Mom and Chloette decided to turn back and wait for us at the end.  There was no stopping Zachary though - he was on a mission to complete the loop!!  I have to say I was incredibly proud of him for hiking and climbing the whole thing!  He was actually running and trying to beat Daddy up each set of steps or sloped sections.  Granpa N. and Grandpa W. toughed it out and conquered the Great Wall with us!  Noah and I were trying to keep up with Zachary and photograph and video every step he took :)  Once we reached the top of the last section, we waited for the g-pa's to catch up so we could get another photo (imagine that!! ;)) and then descend together.  I'm so glad we were able to experience this together!  Once we made it down to the bottom, we met up with Nana and Grandma.  We really need to work on their sign reading abilities, okay so maybe you can't read the Chinese characters but a 2-foot sign with an outline of a man means "men's room"  :)  This definitely got a chuckle out of the locals as these two peas in a pods came rushing back out giggling and into the entrance with the 2-foot sign with the woman on it.  

Next stop, the Cloisonne Factory.  For those of you who don't know what this is, let me give you the 10 cent summary... Basically they craftsmen/women make vases or other objects out of copper, then a design is etched onto the piece, from here women tediously adhere thin strips of copper perpendicular to the vase following each line of the design, inside the copper strips several layers of a colored powdered material (like powdered paint) are infilled in between each piece of copper, then it is fired, gilded, buffed and polished.  We weren't allowed to shop until after we eat because we were behind schedule!  (I can't imagine wrangling 33 people and keeping them on schedule, but Mr. Zhou does a great job!)  

Lunch was fantastic.  We tried ox tail soup, garlic sprouts, fish (served complete with head, tail and lots of bones - but it was delicious!), sauteed green beans, dumplings, sticky rice, breaded chicken strips (and a few other dishes I can't recall right now) and french fries for the kids.  Zachary is definitely getting his fill of carbs on this trip.

On to the Olympic Stadium - the Bird's Nest.  This structure is amazing!!  Being the architecture geek that I am, I took many photos of the construction details - I could help my self!  I couldn't imagine designing this structure - it looked impressive on tv last summer, but it doesn't compare to seeing it in person.  We were able to walk inside and down onto the track and infield area.  Zachary even got his picture taken with Jing Jing, the panda mascot at the 2008 Olympics (there were five different mascots in total- one for each color of the rings).  The Cube was right next door but we weren't able to tour it. 

Finally our last stop of the day was an Acrobatic Show.  It's unbelievable (and a little disturbing) how these kids can contort their bodies!  Throughout the show there was a variety of Chinese music being played - at one point Noah leaned over to me and said "think we can get the soundtrack?"  It was all I could do not to crack up!

Back to the hotel for a little snack then off to bed.  I had passed out cold as Noah was downloading the day's photos, that is until I heard Noah yell at the computer - we lost our photos from our camera. Luckily we we had photos on Joy's little camera, our video camera, Nana's camera, Grandma's camera and Grandpa's camera as back ups!  None the less, it was still frustrating to loose those shots!!!  

Travel day tomorrow!  We're headed to Nanning which is the major city in the Guangxi Region.  Only TWO more days!!!!!!