I should be sleeping now

I'm exhausted. The rest of my family is in the room sleeping, but I'm dutifully giving the daily update. If I have redundant words or awkward sentences, it's because I've literally had 5 hours of sleep in the past 50ish hours.

We woke up bright and early this morning, got ready and went to our free hotel breakfast. It's a buffet with quite a lot of good Western food, so no complaints there (unfortunately, it was the only decent tasting meal I've had all day... but more on that later)

Once we finished up with that, we headed out to Tien'amen Square. This is where China likes to be communistic. The Square is right next to the building where all the "politics" takes place, so we got to see that as well.

After that it was off to the Forbidden City. 1000 years ago or so, this was the place to be. Well, sorta. It was where the royal family lived, but the interesting thing was that if you were born into the city you could never leave it, and if you weren't born in the city you could never enter it. Kinda cool.

Nick's Forbidden Love in the Forbidden City: An Autobiography

From there we continued to the Imperial Garden, and then back to the bus for our lunch. I had a couple bites of rice, a warm sprite, a tiny strip of bland meat, and a slimy crunchy black item that's identity was not disclosed to us. Mmmm.....

After lunch we headed to the Pearl Factory, which was of course a chick place, but they had some okay stuff there (I guess). The Summer Palace was our next spot we checked out, and it was awesome. It's 550 acres, about five times the size of the Forbidden City. Basically, there was some dynasty that decided to leave the Forbidden City every now and then and wanted a Summer Resort, and so the emperor made this huge garden with designs from other gardens from all over China.

Our family at Summer Palace.

By this point in our day, we were so dead from lack of sleep that we were barely able to function at the Silk Factory. It was neat and all seeing how they make silk (okay, that was a lie) but we just wanted to get to the hotel. And that's exactly what we did. My sister was fast asleep, so while the rest of the group went out for pizza after the Silk Factory, we grabbed a cab and headed back to the hotel. We saw a Pizza Hut down the street, so my dad and I decided to go grab some while my mom stayed in the room with my sleeping sister.

This actually turned into quite the excursion. We ordered the pizza (3 small pepperoni's, or as it said on the menu "The American Special") and they said it would be 30 minutes. We then went to the supermarket to grab some soda, but it was absolutely packed. Imagine Super Wal-Mart the busiest you've ever seen it, and then make that mental image about ten times worse. While the store was huge, all the isles were tiny, all 20 or so checkout lines had at least 30 people in them, and the smell was downright repugnant. So we bolted and eventually made our way to a dingy drink store were we somehow got three sodas and two waters for $1.78. The unfortunate thing was that ever since we left the market, we noticed that awful smell persist. I guess it's from all the smog and pollution and dirt of the city, but it's far and away one of the top three worst things I've ever smelled in my life. "Whatever", I thought to myself. "We'll just get the pizza, go back to the room where there is no smell, eat and go to sleep." I did the first two things on that list, but the trouble came when we got to the "eat" part. As soon as I opened my Sprite, it fizzled and spilled everywhere and got all over my pizza (no wonder the dude sold us everything for so cheap, he shook it beforehand.) But it was okay because my dad took a couple bites and decided he wasn't going to eat anymore. I raise the pizza to my mouth, absolutely starved, excited to be finally putting something delicious into my body... and then I smelled it. It was very innocent; I just like the smell of fresh pizza. Unfortunately, this was not the smell of fresh pizza that I love oh so much back home. It was the exact same stench that fills the streets. And it was my food. By some divine miracle I was able to eat two pieces, but then I smelled my third piece and it was downright offensive. I took a bite and almost threw up. My dad and I promptly gathered the remaining 2.5 pizza's, went outside and threw them away. Then he went to bed, as did my mom, and I came down here to start this blog.

So there you go. That was our day.

Although there was some awesome Olympic stuff we got to see. First, there was this big countdown sign to the Olympics, which of course was at zero. Not too cool on its own, but we saw the exact same thing four years ago in China, when the countdown seemed like it would never get to zero.















So we meet again, you fiendish sign

But that sign wasn't nearly as cool as driving by and seeing the Bird's Nest and Water Cube. Unfortunately the Cube pictures didn't turn out to well (we were in a crazy bus) but the Nest shots are pretty decent.















Yay Olympics.

Even though we only drove past and I only saw them for a minute or so, that's probably the highlight of my day. Maybe it's because I saw all the other stuff last time and so this is new, or maybe it's just because the Olympics really are that awesome.

A few random musings:
It's funny trying to communicate with people who know very little english. After spilling Sprite on my bed sheets, I went down to the lobby to try and get some more. After trying to explain to the guy what I needed in the most simple ways I could think of ("the thing you cover yourself with when you sleep... you know, like a blanket?" Not only that, but I was also doing hand motions as well, so I was going the full mile) I ended up with him suggesting something about going out to a store to buy something.

Also, the driving here is absolutely insane. If people drove this way in America, there would be no cars anywhere because everyone would have their license permanently taken away. And this is with half the amount of traffic (they have some weird law now where you can only drive on certain days if you have an odd numbered license plate, and on the other dates if the number is even) But there are tons of bikers and pedestrians everywhere, walking and riding so close to moving traffic that it's amazing none of them were hit. Not only that, but the driving is just crazy. Zooming around cars, weaving recklessly, etc.

The smog compared to last time is significantly less, and that's mainly because of half the cars being taken off of the road.

The tour guide was talking about communism, and it was funny. She said "That's one good thing about communisum... if they tell you to do something, it gets done... and if you don't do it..." then she made the sign of a gun, pointed it at her head and made a "BOOM" sound and laughed.

We drove by and saw the tower where that American was stabbed and then the murderer jumped off of. I think this took place a couple months ago or something, but I remember reading about it in the news.

Here's one more cool story from today. As we were getting ready to leave the Silk Factory, one of the group members got on the bus with one of the employees (a mid-20's looking gal), and said that she had told her that she knew Jesus. After the group member found this out, she asked the employee if she'd like to come onto the bus to meet us (since this adoption group is a Christian one, and so everyone in it is a Christian). She told the group member that she'd love to "come on board and meet her brothers and sisters in Christ." It was just really cool because you can't be a Christian over here, and I can't imagine how hard it would be not having ANYBODY of the same faith as you to talk to or whatever, so I'm sure she was more excited than the average person would be to meet a big group of Christians. It's so rediculous over here that, when we go to church tomorrow morning, we have to show them our passports to get in so they know we are foreigners since Chinese citizens are not allowed to practice Christianity.

Here are a few random pictures to wrap this entry up.

Just one of the ways China keeps you safe; playing brass instruments and driving cars that have spontaneously combusted is strictly prohibited.

My sister rockin' it with a Pikachu

Me being my sister's lackey by carrying her stylish princess backpack at the Detroit airport

Okay, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow we're going to church (which should be interesting), the Great Wall, a Duck Dinner, and then the amazing Chinese Acrobatics show (which is incredible, can't wait to see it again). And then of course Monday is the big day, we should be getting her sometime after lunch.

Just in case you were wondering, it's 9:30 Saturday morning for you guys reading this, but 10:30 Saturday night for me. I'll be able to get a full nights rest though and will be able to function as a basic human being tomorrow. Yay.

Thanks to everyone who has commented so far, I've read and enjoyed them all. Maybe soon I'll stop being rude and respond to some, but for now just keep them coming.

...

I know I said I was going, but I'm now hearing bad (english) karoke coming from the restaurant in the hotel. Or maybe I'm just hallucinating. I need sleep. Bye.

EDIT: For some reason I can't get rid of this huge blank space. Sorry. And I just heard the words "Your mother hit you your mother hit you!" coming from the karoke. That's my cue to get out of here.

EDIT 2: Fixed. And an awesome picture to go with it.

Word up, China.