The Longest Two Days of My Life

This entry details what we did yesterday since I didn't get a chance to update it. I'm going to be typing in present tense because I'm just not too fond of past tense.



I awoke at 4 a.m. this morning to the sound of my mom throwing up. Lovely. After a couple more off and on hours of sleep, I got ready to go. Unfortunately my mom was still super sick and she had to miss out on the whole day's activities. My dad and sister and I went down to the lobby and headed towards the bus.



Our first stop was Beijing Internation Christian Fellowship. It was actually awesome. The worship was really neat. There were tons of different ethnicities there (although no Chinese citizens, as they had guards at the door checking passports). The actual sermon was pretty boring/shallow, but half of it was in Chinese and the other half in English, so that was neat.



After church we went to the Jade Factory. Cool, another feminine chick place. We were there for over an hour and a half (remember this for later). There were some pretty neat things there though (they had a pretty big jade battle axe, but it was like a thousand dollars).



Then it was lunch, where I barely ate anything again because I'm not a fan of Chinese food. At all.



Finally, time for the great wall. The stairs there are incredibly steep, and there are tons to climb. We made it up to the third tower (out of four) in the area we were at. We were there for a grand total of... one hour and ten minutes! In case you were wondering, yes, that is twenty minutes less than the stupid Jade Factory. What the heck.



Then we went to dinner (where I had a Sprite to drink and nothing to eat). But before entering the restaurant, I went on an adventure. The place we ate at was fairly close to the Bird's Nest and Water Cube, so while my dad and sister were in eating, I walked about half a mile alone in the busy streets of Beijing, past tons of communist soldiers to the edge of the fence around the areas. Of course, I still wasn't that close because the security is intense. But it was totally worth it for the pictures I got.



We stopped back at the hotel for a few minutes before we headed to the Flying Acrobatics Show. Luckily my mom was dressed and feeling better so she came with too. The show was simply incredible. There was one where there was a huge teeter totter, and some guy climbed on a ladder, jumped to one end, launched the guy on the other end who flew threw the air and was caught but someone else, although he caught him standing on his hands (hope I explained that well enough). And they didn't use any cables for that either (some of them they did, but not that one which was amazing). For those reading this who are waiting to travel to China, definately definately go to the acrobat show. It's optional and the tickets are a little over 30 dollars a piece, but it's so worth it.



That was the end of that long day. It was weird that so much happened in just two days. With the lack of sleep I got plus the amount of things I did, it felt more like four or five days.



This morning we got up at 5 and headed to the airport for an uncomfortable 2.5 hour flight to Jiangxi province. I started feeling sick, but luckily that passed once I got some (semi) real food. The province we are in is much more rural than Beijing, and we are hopefully going to get to tour a poor Chinese farming town. It's weird seeing the poverty and extremely low living conditions all around. Especially considering that our hotel is in the middle of all the poverty, and it is far and away the nicest hotel I've seen in my entire life. It's astounding. Beautiful design, luxurious restaraunts, amazing rooms with incredible views, etc. etc.



We had about five hours down time between arriving at our hotel and picking up Isabella. That pretty much catches you up to everything before the actual adoption.



Now that we've had Isabella a bit longer, we've seen just how great she's doing. She can sit up by herself, and she can walk as long as someone is holding her hands. She's so sweet. And so is Ana. She's been helping change diapers, feeding her bottles, wiping her face when food drops out of her mouth, telling us to be quite so we don't wake her when she's asleep, it's just incredible.



Both sisters are asleep now, and I'm about to head off to bed as well. Tomorrow there is some more paperwork and then a trip to Walmart, but after that the day should be relaxed.



Now enjoy my awesome pictures.







The Acrobats. Wow.


Seriously, why aren't these people fighting crime?


Us on the way to Jiangxi.


The amazing bathroom in our hotel. The bathtub seems nice, but closing the glass door and having that much floor space to shower is amazing. I will be showering at least twice a day, just because I can and because truthfully it's fun. Also, you can turn on background music. So cool.


I'm blogging. How nice of me.




Our guides said this building was the official Bicycling center for the Olympics. I'm not sure what events used bikes other than the races that took place on the road by the great wall, but apparently the other ones happened here.


The Olympic Torch Building. This is where all official Olympic business took place. The architecture is amazing.


The Water Cube, where Phelps totally dominated everyone. Definately worth the trek to see.


The Bird's Nest.

If only I could have gone in...


Church in China

Here's all of the food I didn't eat

Great Wall

Everyone was impressed with how good Ana did

This is Lineker (pronounced Lyn Ick Er), our main guide. He's awesome

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll be able to update again tomorrow.